Baby updates

Yesterday I had the follow-up ultrasound. The tech indicated to me that she could not see the cyst, and that she thought the placenta had moved out of the way, but could not tell for sure because the baby's head was in the way. She said the little guy weighs about 1 lb 15 oz. I asked her if she thought that was too small because my pregnancy book says the baby should be about 2.5 lbs by the end of this week. She said that was in the range and not a problem. Three hours later I got a call from my doctor's office saying that the baby is measuring too small, and they want me to come in the next day (today) for another ultrasound.

So today I went in for more testing. They did a non-stress test where they measure the baby's heart rate for 20 minutes. That came back normal. Then they did an ultrasound to look at the blood flow through the umbilical cord, measure the level of amniotic fluid around the baby, and get the heart rate (again). All of these things look normal. Then I met with a doctor to go over everything. He said that the concern with our baby is that he is a couple of ounces shy of the 10th percentile for this far into the pregnancy, and that his abdomen is the body part that is measuring the smallest. If he was getting lots of nutrients, his body would store them in his liver, which would then make his abdomen bigger. So the concern with a small abdomen is that he may not be getting enough nutrients. There are 3 possible causes of this:

1. The due date is wrong. This is our theory. The date based upon my cycles would be July 22nd, and he is measuring normal for that due date.

2. He is just a genetically small baby. This seems unlikely given how tall Jason and I are!

3. He has asymmetric fetal growth restriction. The most likely cause for us would be that there is something wrong with the placenta (worst case the baby would be stillborn if the placenta does not last the whole pregnancy). This is the assumption that the doctors are operating under, just to be on the safe side.

So, I will be going to the ultrasound office weekly for the rest of the pregnancy to make sure everything still looks normal. This is really kind of frustrating since we really just think this is an issue with the due date. But of course it's not something you would want to take a chance on if it does happen to be #3.

I have an appointment with my OB on Friday, which is when I will have the glucose test and they will test blood levels. I will obviously be asking more questions about all of this at that point. The good news is that I don't think the cyst or the placenta location are issues anymore! And, I get to see the baby lots of times. Praying that all of this is just hoops we have to jump through and that it just amounts to weekly assurances that everything is fine.

We'll keep you posted on the baby. In the meantime, here's an ultrasound photo of him from today! The picture was a lot clearer on the screen, and it looked like a twin of Josiah was looking right at me!