Saturday, February 12, 2011

what are the odds?

Lucy McG
A couple weeks ago, we noticed som crazy gross discharge from Lucy's eyes. Totally an eye infection of some sort. We've had her on eye ointment for almost two weeks now and it's definitely gotten a lot better. Also...and on an awesome note, Lucy has been off of doxycycline for about 3 weeks now because her titer results were so low. YAY!! And she just went in for some additional bloodwork yesterday. So sometime this week we should find out if we can keep her off the doxycycline, or if taking her off of it cause the tick fever to grow again. Keeping fingers crossed for the latter!


Material Things
The Civic decided to start smoking on my way home from work on Thursday night. Awesome...NOT! Joe came and met me where I parked alongside the 51 Northbound and took a look and saw that the upper radiator hose had completely burst. Yikes! Called AAA and had it towed to our regular auto mechanics. They are REALLY GOOD...but they are also really expensive. Because the hoses hadn't been replaced in goodness knows how long (definitely before I got the car in 07), they recommended replacing all hoses and the thermostat. So, coupled with Lucy's tests from Friday and the car repairs...pretty much half of the paychecks that just went into our accounts this week is already gone.

This got me thinking.

The Civic is definitely very reliable (despite the hose bursting) and gets GREAT mileage. But once I start becoming even more grossly heavy than I am now, there is no way I will want to get in and out of a car whose seats only sit about 6 inches off the ground. So I think we might be getting a new car some time this year. Maybe not BRAND new because I am not quite sure we could afford something like that, especially since we're also hoping to look for a home in the next couple years. But new for us. I'm not going to hold my breath for these specific cars, but I'm thinking a Volvo V70 (or V50 or XC70) or a Subaru Forester. I've really liked all those styles for some time now.

Anyway...what do you think? :-)


Baby McG
I had another appointment last week and actually met the doctor who will be delivering Baby McG. She's really nice!! She's very small, about 300 pounds lighter than me (ok, that's actually not possible...but you get the point). But she seems really good, made sure all my questions were answered and that I felt comfortable, and she has some really awesome experience (I googled her!). So I think mom and baby are in good hands. :-)

My official results from the ultrasound and bloodwork came back. The initial ratio they gave us has changed. They originally said that, based on my age and initial glance at the ultrasounds, we have a 1 out of about 630 chance of a chromosomal abnormality. Not bad odds, right? Well, after looking at my age, the ultrasound images and the bloodwork, that ratio has changed to about 1 and 10,000. Amazing!!! After explaining all of that, she put this really small handheld thingie across my abdomen and played the baby's heartbeat for me. So precious! It rang about about 160...so all is good in the hood. There were no new ultrasounds this week, so no new pictures or news about the baby's sex (you'll all just have to be patient). But I will say that I do have a feeling about what I think the baby might be. However, there's really no logical reason for thinking it and, really, there's approximately a 50% chance that I'm right or wrong, right? So for now, I'll just say that it's a boy...


...or a girl.

Stay tuned! :-)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

all things nuchal

At my first OB appointment a few weeks ago, they advised me to contact The Fetal & Women's Center of Arizona to set up an appointment for once I was between weeks 11 and 12. They said that this organization has the best ultrasound technology available. So I ended up scheduling the appointment for yesterday because right now I am somewhere at the end of week 11, beginning of week 12.

Originally, I thought the appointment was just to check growth and get some cute little ultrasound pictures. But we discovered yesterday that the scanning was actually to test the baby's nuchal translucency. Nuchal translucency screening tests for all types of chromosomal abnormalities (mainly Down Syndrome) and congenital heart defects. Nuchal translucency refers to the fluid-filled space at the back of the baby's neck. The reason they look at this space in particular is because they have found that fetuses that have a high amount of fluid in this space at the back of the neck have more likelihood of having a chromosomal abnormality, such as Down Syndrome. The primary things that are taken into consideration when testing for these birth defects are (1) the mother's age, (2) the amount of nuchal translucency in the fetus, and (3) bloodwork.

The ultrasound scan lasted for almost 50 minutes...yeah, 50 minutes...because little Baby McG was being a little turd and would pretty much show nothing but his/her backside. The tech was getting a little frustrated, too, especially after about 30 minutes of not even being able to take a measurement. So she had me try to cough to get the little butthead to move a little. Yeah...no luck. Either the baby was being stubborn or was being extremely lazy and just didn't want to move. Yeah...this kid is TOTALLY related to Joe, huh? :-)

Anyway, she went from a scan on the belly, to an internal scan, to another scan on the belly. Finally, she was able to get some measurements before leaving to show the results to the doctor. The doctor came back to tell us about what they were looking for and what they found in the initial look at the scan. All I have to say is that next time, Baby McG better be a little more cooperative. Otherwise, I have a feeling we'll have to lay down the law pretty good with this kid.

As far as the results go, based on my age alone the chance of any chromosomal abnormality is about 1:630 (or 0.15%). After the complete results of the scan and bloodwork are in (sometime next week), they will update that number showing either a higher risk or a lower risk of birth defects. Based on their initial measurements during the scan, however, they said that everything looked completely normal.

Phew! :-)

Here are some updated photos of the little one. A lot of them confuse me as to what I'm actually looking at, so I tried to pick some of the most distinguishable photos. Enjoy!

Baby McG's backside:

Baby McG's left side:

Baby McG's right side profile:

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