It's a...

...GIRL!!

If you follow me on twitter, you probably already know that, but I hadn't officially blogged it yet!

We had our standard anatomy ultrasound on a Friday. The ultrasound tech didn't say much, so we assumed everything was looking good. Baby had her legs crossed for almost the entire 30 minutes though. The ultrasound tech told us that she got 2 quick peaks and she couldn't be positive, but that she thought it was a girl.

On Monday, I got a call from my doctor. Apparently, the baby had a choroid plexus cyst and an intracardiac echogenic focus. Big, scary words, I know. (I'm not really going to go into explaining them.) Basically, she wanted me to see a specialist for another ultrasound and had taken the liberty of scheduling an appointment for me for Wednesday. She said that they see these 2 things often, but not often together. They can be found on completely normal, healthy babies, or they can be soft markers for Down's Syndrome and Trisomy 18.

I hang up the phone with the doctor and cue the googling of choroid plexus cyst, intracardiac echogenic focus and trisomy 18. Bad, bad idea. Cue tears. Lots and lots of tears. I was pretty much freaking out for a day and a half.

Wednesday I went for my ultrasound with the specialist. It lasted almost an hour and the ultrasound tech and specialist told me everything they were looking at and looking for. They told me the same thing my doctor had, that these things can just disappear on their own, or they can be soft markers. They call them soft markers because they always look for something else with them. All of the baby's measurements were right on or even a few days ahead of my due date. They didn't see any other markers and everything seemed to look perfectly healthy. In addition, the integrated screening I had a few weeks prior gave results that were completely normal. According to the measurements and my bloodwork, the chances of this baby having Down's Syndrome or Trisomy 18 were less than 1 in 5000. That is a very low risk.

Of course, knowing all this is reassuring. But the only way to know for sure whether the baby had either of these genetic disorders before birth would be to have an amnio done. My husband and I discussed the amnio for a few days, but ultimately decided against it. The risk of miscarriage with an amnio is 1 in 200. Given all the measurements and bloodwork, and taking into consideration our past losses, that wasn't a risk we were willing to take. The reason to do it would be to relieve the anxiety of not knowing and to prepare if necessary, we would never consider terminating the pregnancy. It seemed selfish to take the risk of miscarrying our child just to ease our minds.

Do we both want to know for sure? Yes, absolutely. But I have just prayed that we are able to go on with this pregnancy and not worry about it either way. When our baby girl is born, the doctors will be prepared for whatever may happen. I have to let go of control and trust that He has a plan. Honestly, the specialist eased my worries quite a bit. She saw absolutely nothing else that even came close to suggesting this baby had a genetic disorder. And she said that these 2 disorders are detected by ultrasound on 90% of babies that have the disorders.

So we don't know for sure, and that is a little nerve-wracking. The plus to all this? I see a few. I was reminded with a swift kick in the rear to have faith, to trust fully. We got to see our baby girl in 3D - absolutely amazing! And she is definitely A GIRL! We are so very excited and can't wait to experience the world again through her eyes. Genetic disorder or not, she is the biggest blessing in our lives. I couldn't be more grateful.