12 Week Ultrasound

We made it past the 8 week ultrasound and then the next milestone was 12 weeks for the Nuchal Translucency (NT) ultrasound. This ultrasound uses a higher tech machine so they could review the back of the neck of the baby. Depending on the thickness at the back of the neck, you can have an idea of chances of down syndrome (trisomy 21), Patau (trisomy 13) and Edwards (trisomy 18).

We had scheduled this appointment for a Friday that I had off from work where I also decided to schedule a lash fill appointment. I was cutting it a little close…but decided to see how it went. Long story short, I peed as soon as I got home from my lash appointment in Southie, picked up Dave and we rushed off to the ultrasound in Burlington…being about 10 minutes late. We JUST made it where we didn’t have to reschedule. Anything longer than 10 minutes, they would have to reschedule.

I wasn’t sure if peeing before we left and drinking more water on the way was a good or bad call. It was a bad call. The ultrasound tech was grumpy we were late and she commented that I didn’t drink enough water. I get that she was frustrated but it made the experience a little stressful. To make things worse, she was frustrated because the baby was doing a “headstand” and then was laying face up. The ideal position for the NT scan is on the side so you get a profile view to see behind the neck. Despite the tech being frustrated, Dave and I laughed a little because it looked like the Baby Vines waved at us. It was a little crazy for us to see arms and legs. It was only about a month ago that it was just a little blob.

Since Baby Vines was face up, the tech started to push up and down on my belly with the ultrasound end (I don’t know what the end of it that they scan you belly with is called…). She mentioned that will sometimes get the baby to move. I was a little surprised because she didn’t give me warning so I giggled and Dave and I looked at each other. She tried this multiple times and no luck. She had me go pee and see if that helped. It did not. She said I should do some jumping jacks and move around to see if that helps. She left and I jumped around a bit. Still no go on Baby Vines listening to what we needed. In a way, I thought, “Maybe the baby can tell the tech was being grumpy and decided to be difficult on purpose!”

After the ultrasound was done, I went down for some blood work. I was very excited about this blood work because we could find out the gender of the baby and more genetic testing was being done. If all was good with the bloodwork, it isn’t so bad that the NT scan was not as thorough as it could have been.