Last Thursday, the 14th, I had a message on my phone from my OB Doctor. Having a message on your phone from the actual Doctor usually means bad news. I called back right away, got the nurse, who told me that we needed to come in for a Level 2 ultrasound at the perinatal office in town. Ok...what is going on?? She said that they found some cysts on the baby's ultrasound that they needed to take a closer look at. I was walking to lunch with Danielle, so stopped and asked the nurse a few more questions while frantically having my sister write down the name of the cysts. Choroid Plexus Cysts. Ok, so minor major freak out here. It wasn't until I called Andy that the tears started. I had no idea what this meant, besides the nurse telling me the Dr. said not to worry, that the findings were incidental, and it should be no big deal. I gave Andy a brief summary and hung up. At lunch my brain was just swarming. I Googled it of course, and found that these cysts are pretty normal, but they are also a marker for babies that have genetic disorders. This is when Andy calls me back to say, don't worry, it sounds like this is no big deal, it is normal, and they usually go away by the 3rd trimester. Well how do you not think 'what if they don't'??? So more Googling when I got back to my office led me to learn WAY more about CPC's then I ever wanted to know. Only 1-2% of babies have them, they show up in the 2nd trimester and disappear by the 3rd. But of those 1-2% of babies that have these cysts, 1% of these babies have a genetic disorder called Trisomy 18. But babies that have Trisomy 18 also have many other markers, like clenched fists, smaller bones, organ problems, etc. So I start thinking back to our ultrasound and of course I don't remember baby boy opening and closing his fists, and they had to remeasure his femur because it was measuring small by a week (she said it was because he was moving around so much, but still!), etc. So freak out continues for 10 days until the next available Level 2 ultrasound appointment, which we had yesterday. Over these 10 days I cried, hard, I had broke out in stress induced cold sores (I was just bragging to my family that I hadn't had one in years!), I lost sleep, and I prayed, a lot. One of the worst things in the world is to hear that something could be wrong with your child.
Monday morning was the longest morning ever until our 12:30 appointment. The ultrasound began and the technician started walking us through everything. She started with the brain, and I asked her if the cysts were still there. She said she couldn't say, since she was not the Dr. Ok - great. She then got to the hands, I was pretty certain that I saw his little fingers outstretched several times, but asked just in case and she confirmed, he was actually playing with his feet. I asked what the femur was measuring, she said right on track, and I saw the measurement at 23 weeks, which is actually ahead. At the very end she told me we had a beautiful baby boy, and that she was going to write down on her report that no CPC's were seen today, but 'she didn't say that'. What??!! I was so confused?? So does that mean they were there originally I asked. Yes, they were, she saw them on the original ultrasound, but they had already disappeared! I held it together pretty well until we got to the car. I then let it all out, just feeling so overwhelmed with emotion. Andy cracked some jokes, which is what he does and always makes me laugh, and we went back to work. What a day! This morning I got the call from the nurse that everything indeed came back completely normal and that the cysts had already resolved, and there is nothing to be concerned about. Feeling very blessed today - and totally ready for this baby boy to get here now!
I typically don't post ultrasound pictures since they are pretty freaky looking - but check out that perfect profile pic of our beautiful baby boy.
Here is his little nose and lips - I want to smooch them right now!!!
