growing baby

This Tuesday we went to the first of two screens for Down Symdrome and Trisomy 18.  These are potential chromosomal abnormalities — meaning that they’re not inherited genetic problems, but are just errors during meiosis.  There are a couple of ways to get tested for this, including a non-invasive ultrasound test, and amniocentesis (i.e. taking a sample of the amniotic fluid).

Since there’s no reason to do the invasive amniocentesis (which carries some risks with it), we just did the first phase of the non-invasive test.  The idea behind the test is that at a certain period during fetal development the amount of fluid behind the fetus’s neck is a strong indicator of the disorder (i.e. 91% detection rate, with a 5% false positive).  So doctors perform an ultrasound, zoom in, and just measure the amount of this fluid, then follow up with some blood tests.  The results are coming in a few weeks.

It’s also a nice happy occasion to get another snapshot.  Alas, it’s a bit fuzzy and zoomed in, but it continues to show our (now 6-centimeter) little fetus. Yay!

If you can even make out the fetus in the picture, you’ll see some lighter areas.  These, according to the ultrasound technician, are some of the parts of the skeletal structure: the spine, the skull, and limbs.  Also, in addition to the heart (which basically shows up as a shimmering spot on the screen) there was this other area that was slowly pulsating. Turned out that was the umbilical cord, pulsing with the flow of blood supplying the fetus.

Also, I’ve been kind of bad in taking so long between posting.  I’ll be better at it from now on 🙂