warning: long post ahead! hubby had to work yesterday (yay for lots of kids at surf camp!) so my mom came with me to the anatomy scan. it was a seriously long appointment (over an hour and half!) but super informative. the tech came in and did a detailed ultrasound. she was lovely and she walked me through everything she was scanning (except for little babe's private areas... because we still don't want to know the sex). she left the room and the doctor took a look at the images and then came in to do another scan. (crazy lucky but it WASN'T dr. peanut butter this time - same practice, just a different guy! woohoo!) anyway, everything looked normal (phew!) in fact, here's a pic of little babe's profile: we think he or she is just perfect :o) but, the doctor wanted us to be aware of all of our options. since the NT scan showed some high abnormalities (even though the blood test came back and said otherwise), the doc said that we could, if we wanted to, have an amniocentesis. an amnio is a huge needle that goes through mom's belly and into the amniotic sac to withdraw fluid for genetic and chromosomal testing. it would either confirm or dispel, to a 100% certainty, whether or not little babe has down syndrome. it would be important to get this done asap as the limit for a voluntary termination of pregnancy in the state of new jersey is 24 weeks. (this is a no judgment zone, please and thank you. to each her own!) the other thing to consider with an amnio is that doing so carries a (slight) risk of miscarriage. taking all of this into consideration, we decided NOT to go through with additional diagnostic testing. even though one (fairly subjective) screen indicates a (possible) problem, the other did not (with 99% certainty). we've decided it's not worth the risk to uncover that remaining 1%. this decision did not come easy, and we were forced to have many a difficult discussion about it in a fairly short amount of time. so to anyone out there who faces a similar situation, i just want you to know that whatever decision you make is best for YOU, and that's ok!
after my appointment, i decided it was probably a good time to initiate a disability claim for maternity leave. oh boy did i step into a world of shit. while i was undergoing fertility treatments (shots of folistem and daily blood tests), i found out that my school (i'm new to this district) did not have a disability policy. i decided to research a private policy on my own and found one who works in conjunction with the nea (national education association). right after my iui procedure, but before a pregnancy had been confirmed, i took out a disability policy. all good right? wrong. so it turns out that my policy actually didn't kick in until 4/1. my pregnancy was confirmed via blood test on 3/27. that's right - 4 days too soon. ak! total bummer. i called a claims adjuster (and an attorney - hey, ya never know?!) to see if there as anything that could be done but (a) this was a case of MY BAD. i should've read the goddamn policy more closely and waited 5 days before going to the doctor! and (b) turns out there's an exclusion in the policy about fertility treatments, anyway. i would've had to have had the policy in place PRIOR to seeking treatment. again, MY BAD. so ladies, please learn from my (expensive) mistake! if you are even considering going to a reproductive endocrinologist, take out a disability policy before stepping foot in the door! this means that my maternity leave will be unpaid (ah! [insert audible weeping]) but, hubby and i are both teachers. we are totally used to budgeting ourselves (we do it every summer sans pay), so things will be tight, but we will just figure it out. under normal circumstances, i would have a complete panic attack about this and stress out about it for weeks on end, but if i may, i'm going to quote a very good friend of mine here, who says that the BEST way to manage a stressful pregnancy is to remain "zen as fuck." so here i am, channeling my inner fucking zen ;-) namaste, bitches!
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hey you guuuuuuuys! my husband felt the baby kick last night! those baby movements i had mentioned last post kept getting stronger, and last night, as i lay in bed, i grabbed chris's hand and put it on my belly. i could tell he was anxious but i nudged him to have patience. and then it happened! TWICE! yay!
about two weeks ago i started feeling some vibrating going on in my belly. honestly, i couldn't be sure whether this was little babe swimming around in there or (tmi alert) just pockets of gas bubbles LOL but my ob assured me that what i was feeling was known as "quickening", or baby's first movements.
in the past few days, however, that vibrating has intensified and the only way i can really describe it is like this: have you ever experienced an eye twitch? you know, when the calcium is trying to pass through layers of cells and your get that weird twingy feeling under your eye... well, that's what this feels like in my belly, only a little stronger. anyway, it's super reassuring and although my hubby can't feel it from the outside, he gets pretty excited when i tell him that i can! lots has happened since my last post! first, we went to my regular ob the last week in june so he could take my vitals (all looked good) and use the doppler to hear little babe's heartbeat (which was measuring about 140 beats per minute)! he was pleased with our progression, which made me one happy mama! the following week, we went to see a pediatric cardiologist who performed a fetal echocardiogram (which is just a high powered ultrasound machine that zooms in on the heart). the reason for the visit was due to the high nuchal reading we got at 12 weeks, which could be an early indicator of cardiac problems. we were there for about an hour as we watched the doctor watch the heart. little babe was flipping all over the place, but the doctor was super happy with how everything looked and sounded. she said it wasn't necessary for me to come back unless after birth little babe develops a murmur or some other heart issue. next week, i have an appointment for my anatomy scan. this is usually performed around 20 weeks and examines baby's measurements (and my measurements, too... like the size of the uterus and cervix). unfortunately, because of my high risk status, i have to get this done by the mfm (maternal female medicine) doctor (aka the perinatologist whom i can't stand due to his terrible bedside manner at my nt scan), but i'll have my husband and my hot-headed little italian mama with me. fingers crossed for a smooth appointment because, what should be an exciting time, is causing me some premature anxiety. in non-doctor related news, even though most of my family and friends knew about this pregnancy (through me or via this blog), we didn't want to skip the opportunity to have a cute pregnancy announcement. with the help of photoshop, my very talented friend, christine (shameless plug alert: catch her at impressions photo and video), made us these perfect little cards, which we mailed out to non-social media savvy family members. on the fourth of july, we posted it to facebook and instagram and the outpouring of support has just been incredible. i am so thankful to be at week 19 because i honestly didn't think i'd ever make it this far! in other super exciting baby news, our nursery furniture came in! we haven't set it up just yet, as we are still undergoing some construction in the house, but it all feels so real now.
finally, i went ahead and set up (most) of my registries online. i chose to do babies r us and amazon and we even booked a date and venue for the shower! almost halfway through and counting my blessings... :) |
Authorjust a girl growing into womanhood growing into motherhood. Archives
January 2018
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