Overdue at 20 weeks

We're overdue! What? Not overdue with regards to the baby, obviously, but we are well overdue creating this post. A lot has been happening the past seven weeks, and I have quite a bit to report. Where to begin? (This is a long entry folks.)

Well for starters, I updated the last entry "We're at 13 Weeks!" to include photos from our trip to Grundy Center to see friends Ruth and Arlyn, so I hope everyone checks those out. We've been doing some updates ourselves around the house. I put the 4 yards of dirt that Heather mentioned before to good use tidying up some of the areas of the lawn. Then I played "farmer" and cultivated the lawn with a spike aerator. I'm not sure my lawn tractor was too happy about the whole thing, or my shoulders for that matter. The lawn looked pretty torn up and dimpled following the exercise, but has come back around as it should. Additionally, we started painting. Or I should say I started painting. Let me explain.

I balked at painting the walls right away when we moved in because shortly thereafter, we discovered all those wonderful imperfections and growing pains associated with a new house, namely settling cracks, nail pops, and the like. I knew Heather wanted to add some bold expressions of color to the walls, and did not look forward to the mismatch patches that would be left following repairs that would have to be made at our one year warranty deadline. So, I held fast and insisted we should wait to paint. And Heather was, for the most part, very good about allowing me to be a stubborn jackass. Well, I'm paying my penance. See, we had our walls fixed, and started to get excited about painting when, lo and behold, Heather's pregnant!!! So guess who's painting the walls all by his lonesome!!! I know, I brought it upon myself.

Fortunately, while Mom & Dad were out reunioning with friends and family in Oklahoma a couple weeks ago, Heather was able to camp out at their place while I hit the bathroom and dining rooms with multiple coats of paint. All looks pretty good, but there is still a lot to go. And while I love the ambiance of 10 foot ceilings, I hate painting them. The extra 2 feet really kills the ability to move quickly because there is so much ladder time involved. Guess I'll need some scaffolding for the rest of the project. Anyway, the bathroom and dining room are pretty much complete. I just have some trim work and clean-up to finish, but we now have a Haze bathroom and Posh Red dining room. Next is the Weathered Oak colored great room and kitchen. Anyone know the number of a good professional painter???

As to the holdup in posting a new entry to the blog, we had some excitement following our 16 week checkup in October. Heather & I consented to have a triple screen test performed, which is a standard test offered during the second trimester. It is called a screen because it only indicates the possibility of problems with fetal development, but does not actually diagnose the issue like an amniocentesis. Anyway, the test was simple enough (at least for me, sorry Heather)...just a little blood draw and then wait to hear from the lab. The waiting is the screwy part, though, because in this case, no news is good news. If you do not hear anything, yet you do want to know the results, then you have to call in yourself. If you do hear something, well, then you have to deal with that. And, well, we got a call.

The screen measures three factors in the mother's blood. Two are produced by the placenta and one, called AFP (alfa-fetoprotein), is produced by the fetus. The level of AFP in Heather's blood was low, which indicated an increased risk for Down's Syndrome. To say the least, we were a bit shaken with the news. Our doctor had informed us before the test that the screens can be inaccurate, and we read plenty that said that there are often false positive results, but that was little comfort at the time. All we knew or could focus on was that something could be wrong. I think it's just human nature to do so.

When Heather called me at work to let me know the results, I immediately went into "engineer mode." Did they run the test right, what could lead to a mistake in the test, how did they determine the risk based on the bloodwork....the list of questions in my head went on and on. Fortunately, I snapped out of it pretty quick because Heather was not the person to answer those questions, and that really wasn't what either of us needed right then. Thankfully, she did let me rant a little bit. So we coped a little, and then approached the situation more rationally. There was really nothing we could do, and allowing ourselves to worry too much about the situation was not productive. So, we got all Hardy Boy & Nancy Drew on the subject!

We knew that the bloodwork results went back into a calculation (thank you Google!) and that there were a number of factors involved including mother's age, baby's age, blood work, etc. Well, baby's age stood out at us like a neon sign. At our first visit and ultrasound, the baby measured a little older than the due date that was predicted based on Heather's LMP (Last Monthly Period). ---Yes, we are going to get technical here.--- Based on that date, the baby is due 3/18/06. Our doctor saw no reason to change the due date at that time, although he said we were measuring about 5 days earlier, 3/13/05. This came up again at our appointment when the blood was drawn as the due date in the file was 3/13 based on ultrasound. When we went through the whole discussion again, we thought they were going to use 3/18 based on LMP.

The whole serve and volley nature of the due date seemed a bit trivial, but it had a huge impact on the test results. Let me explain why we think the LMP date is correct and 3/18 is the due date. I affectionately referred to this conception as a "science experiment." I am an engineer after all, right? Well, in this case, you could call me the lab rat. The resident mad scientist was my lovely wife. She measured this and tested that and CHARTED it all online. Seriously, we have a bar chart of temperatures and whatnot. No fuzzy alcohol dampened memories for us to reminisce about 20 years down the road as to when the blessed conception occurred. We have scientific data! The only thing we're missing is the hour and second the miracle happened. Now that I'm done picking on senior scientist Heather, the beauty of the whole experience was that we could be pretty confident in the date of the LMP. Therefore, we called the doctor's office the next morning after receiving our triple screen results, asked which due date they used (they had used the 3/13 date), and asked them to rerun the calculation with 3/18 as the due date. Later that day, the results were in and we scored 1/580 which is pretty damn normal. So what to believe?

The conservative path was the one to take, and that was exactly what our doctor suggested. We needed to meet with Maternal Fetal Medicine to undergo counseling and examination. So Heather & I went through a meeting with a genetic counselor and then a level 2 ultrasound. The genetic counseling was pretty interesting as we learned more about all the possible diagnostic testing available, more about the complications involved with genetic (chromosomal) disorders, and we developed a family history of illnesses, diseases, and disorders in the family. Fun! Actually, our counselor was great and very helpful.

Later in the day, we had the level 2 ultrasound. I have included some of the photos (okay, all the photos) that were taken that day. The purpose of the ultrasound was to look at physical markers in the baby's development that might indicate Down's Syndrome. There were 9 or so different features investigated. We are happy to say that there was no sign at this time of any developmental issues. The baby looked very healthy and, believe it or not, measured a little big. Okay, so all the news wasn't entirely good, right Heather!!!

I do not know if any of you have undergone this process in the past, but the imagery and detail that was unveiled with this ultrasound was astonishing. We looked at brain development, blood flow through the umbilical cord using color layering technology, and the heart, well, that was truly amazing. We saw all four chambers working in unison, the valving between chambers, blood vessels...Unbelievable! I find myself moved even thinking about it again because it really felt like our first interaction with our baby. Heather has been feeling movement for some time now, but nothing detectable to the touch, so for me, this was an unique and incredible experience. All within the womb, we saw our baby move it's arms and legs and we even saw it yawn. More importantly, we saw what looked like a healthy baby.

So that was our month of October. Despite the anxiety, we both really appreciated the experience and the opportunity to have this intimate look at our baby's development. I think it has made us more educated as parents to be, has seasoned our emotions a little for the remainder of the pregnancy, and will make things easier to deal with the next time around. We are not completely out of the woods yet, as we have an appointment November 22 for a fetal heart study to really put things under the microscope, but we are both much more at ease with the process. Of course, there is always the option of an amniocentesis to get a chromosomal map and put the question to bed, but the risk with that is 1/200 that it might cause termination or other complications, higher than our triple screen risk, and not part of our plan. As far as we are concerned, the gift is wrapped, and when we open it in March, we're going to love it any which way it is.

Chat with you all soon.
-Chris