13 weeks and counting...

On my way up to Washington, two weeks ago, I got a phone call from Kaiser explaining that we needed to go in for our second part of our first trimester screening for Down Syndrome. I immediately started asking questions. They explained to me that they have to schedule an ultrasound for anyone who's results come back greater that 1 in 2,000. My blood results were almost a thousand greater at 1 in 1,146. Hearing this, my heart started to beat and my mind began to race. I soon called Jeff to let him know the details and that we were going to need to go in to the doctor again. As the days went on I got more and more anxious, but soon realized, this whole situation and the outcome wasn't in my control. As I prayed for patience, strength and peace of mind, I immediately was at ease and knew that everything was going to be all right. Well, yesterday soon arrived and as we drove down to St. Vincents, I once again started getting butterflies. I began again, placing it all in God's hands. We waited in an exam room for over an hour before they finally came to get us to perform the ultrasound. When they started doing the ultrasound and I saw our little baby moving around inside my stomach with it's little heart pounding, all of the uncertainty and fear left. We got to see the profile and he (I'll call our baby a "he" for now since we don't know the sex) kept on arching his little back and moving his hands up by his face. I forgot how much their features are formed at such a young age! We were bummed we couldn't find out the sex yet, but were surprised when they handed us a bunch of ultrasound photos including 2 4-D photos, which we had to pay for with Sophia. After about 15 minutes in the ultrasound room they took us back to the exam room, where we waited again for about 20 minutes. Then the doctor came in and said he had good news! After doing the ultrasound and measuring our baby's spine and body the chances had rapidly decreased and we were in the clear! I almost cried I was so happy! Because my pregnancy with Sophia was so easy and we didn't have to go through any of this, I kind of took having a healthy child for granted and now I know how truly blessed we are! Here are a few of the photos they gave us.

4-D Close up of our baby's face

4-D of our baby's body

2-D of our baby's profile

2-D close up of our baby's face