# Chateau de la Tobler

## Friday, March 03, 2006

### Perinatologist Visit

Well, I drove all the way to Salt Lake this morning to see a perinatologist and figure out what's going on with our baby. After finally finding the place (it's a good thing I left an hour and a half early!), I sat in the waiting room for about 45 minutes before finally being called backto get the ultrasound done. I was at the University of Utah Hospital, so every step of what I did today was watched by med students and job shadowers, which was an interesting experience. The ultrasound technician asked me a lot of questions, I think to find out how much I was told about why I was there. She went through and measured everything on the baby, got many, many, many pictures of everything and said that she would be back with the Perinatologist/Genetic Counselor. Before she left, the med student who was observing asked if it would be okay with me if he took some ultrasound pictures before I got all cleaned up, to practice. I didn't really care and so he stayed while the other technician left to print up all the pictures and get the Perinatologist. After he finished, he left and I cleaned all the goop stuff off. They came back a few minutes later with the Genetics Counselor and I left with her and a girl who was shadowing her to go to her office. There I found out what everything really means:
The umbilical cord usually has three vessels, two arteries and one vein. The artieries bring nutrients to the baby, the vein takes wastes out of the baby. I have only one artery, instead of the two. (They know for sure that I have one of each, because if I didn't, the baby wouldn't have made it this far without aborting.) This isn't usually a problem, but they like to do an in depth ultrasound to make sure that no other abnormalities are found; about 25% of the time, there are other problems, such as Down Syndrome and Trisomy 18. However, they didn't find anything wrong with Alyssa. She's perfectly healthy and as long as she keeps growing at a normal rate, the fact that there's only one artery bringing her nutrients shouldn't be a problem at all. Of course, there's still about a 1% chance that she could be Down Syndrome and they suggested that I do a test to find out if she is. However, this test has a risk of miscarriage that goes with it (albeit not a very high risk). I decided not to get the test done, because there are usually physical signs by now of Down Syndrome and Alyssa doesn't have any of those. And really, even if she did, we wouldn't be aborting, so I didn't feel it was necessary. The end result is that she seems perfectly healthy and I don't have to go back there again unless I'm sent again by my doctor. They will be monitoring her growth more closely, which means more ultrasounds, but other than that, everything is fine. So, all is going well for both Alyssa and me!
(Sorry for the long message, but I wanted to make sure that everyone knew what was happening. I love you all!)

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