Ultrasound #3

Beautiful Baby Boy!

Ultrasound #3: complete! At 20 weeks our baby boy is STILL a boy (in case you were worried) ;) He's looking good for the most part; currently growing well and still measuring about 5 days ahead. According to the tech he's weighing in at about 14oz!

I'm still a boy!!

We got to see baby bumping around in there and even practicing his sucking skills (it reminded me so much of newborn Evie!). It was really amazing to see him doing something so incredibly baby-like. I feel like up until now he hasn't seemed "real" any of the times I've seen him in there: yeah, he had the whole basic human shape to him, but still didn't seem like an actual baby. Seeing his little mouth moving in there, doing something I've seen babies on the outside do so many times, was really something.

I'm gonna say that the baby boy I'll be holding in my arms in about  20 weeks definitely became a lot more real to me at that moment. Pretty amazing stuff ;)

Little hand up by his face :)

We ALMOST escaped with this being our final ultrasound this pregnancy, but at the very last minute the doctor saw something she didn't like... So we get to go back at least one more time.

She came in telling me how awesome everything looked and was congratulating me on not needing to come back in, but just as she was wrapping up, she noticed that baby has an echogenic bowel. Basically, his cute little intestines were showing up white in the ultrasound (like bone does) when they should show up dark. 

This could be an indicator of a bunch of things, including infection, trisomy or cystic fibrosis, or something that might restrict his growth later on in the pregnancy... Or it could be absolutely nothing. 

Since we've done a bunch of tests looking for things like trisomy and they've come back with really good results, the doctor wasn't so worried about that, her main concern I think was that it's either an infection (toxoplasmosis or cytomegalovirus) or something that would cause intrauterine growth restriction as the pregnancy continues.

We did a blood test to check out the infection theory (waiting on results) and we'll be going in at 28 weeks to see if it has gone away on its own and to check up on his growth. If it's still there and he seems to be falling behind in his growth at all, we'll have to come in weekly to check his growth and fluids.

The doctor wasn't severely concerned, she mostly wanted to check up on things to be on the safe side, so I'm not super worried, but it's still a little stressful to know that there is the potential for something to be wrong with our little one!

Our next ultrasound will be right around Christmas (I'll be 28 weeks on the 23rd!), so we're hoping and praying for good news!

Final picture: five little toes :D