Early Anatomy Scan - Week 15

I walked into the doctor's office like I was going to my own hanging.

The mothers of dead babies know what I mean: there is no dread like scan dread, when your heart and your head know that this was the day the last time when you got the bad news. This was the week last time when they found the hygroma. This was the very ultrasound room when the tech said she couldn't find kidneys.

This was the week for me - 14. By 10 weeks we knew "something" might be wrong with Drew. His NT was high - 5 mm. But his growth looked good and though there was some hygroma, that could resolve itself, right?

But all was lost at that 14 week early anatomy scan. There it was - more hygroma than brain, a neural tube defect, an anterior heart, a diaphragmatic hernia, ASD, VSD, a two vessel cord. Any hope that we had, and we had so very little hope at that point, was just gone.

So now it was little Clark's turn on the screen. We were riding a high of a normal NT scan, clear genetics test and safe CVS, but I couldn't shake it...that feeling. That Goddamn feeling of terror and love that makes you want to run out of the room screaming for help. I had learned the hard way, twice, that NOTHING good can come of scans.

Except nothing bad came of this one. No joke. I know far, far, far too much about ultrasounds. I know what the measurements should be and how much white you should see in the brain and what a four-chamber heart doesn't look like. But Laura the Tech showed me Clark's brain and it has two hemispheres. No white line where the "water on the brain" usually is. His stomach was in his belly, his bladder filling with pee pee. His heart has four chambers, his cord has three vessels. He wiggles his toes and sucks on his hand. "Hi mom."

So the headline today is: Had Ultrasound, World Did Not End.

IN FACT, our OB even said, "I think we are at a place where I can say with confidence that this pregnancy is no more high risk than any other 'normal' pregnancy."

What, say what?!

So I post my good news with excitement, barely contained.


This could really happen. Now, we do have the normal anatomy scan (the scan that all the Live Baby Mamas call "the gender scan," as if that is all the doctor is really looking for) in five weeks, with a cervical and Doppler check in three weeks.

Such good news yesterday and I'm still dreading each and every appointment. Ugh.