The scan results are in!

Last night I had the most peaceful night sleep I’ve had before a scan. I replaced every negative thought I had with a positive one and drifted off into a long and uninterrupted sleep. Being exhausted might have helped, but I like to think going to sleep in a positive frame of mind was the key!

I woke up this morning feeling good. I always felt of today as D-Day when we would know what’s really going on in there. I thought of all the women who go through this day – those who get to see their baby for the first time, and those that find out their baby has gone. It’s a strange thought when you wake up in the morning of a day that can change your life forever.

My husband and I treated ourselves to breakfast at a café near the scan office. I went for pancakes with berries and ice-cream and he went for the egg and sausage extravaganza. He felt sick after his and I had a tummy of pancakey goodness after mine. We then went for a walk around the park and I tried to calm the nerves.

We went in to the scan room and Sticky came up. As always, I immediately looked for the heartbeat. It’s hard to see when they do the stomach scan but I picked it up quickly. That was the first relief! I was amazed at the detail we could see – the brain hemispheres, kidneys, lungs, diaphragm and blood flow through the heart. The heart is smaller than my pinky finger nail so the detail was amazing. Overall though, Sticky looked like an alien!

She wasn’t being very cooperative though, sitting up drinking. I figured my pancakes had probably reached her so she was enjoying them too. We switched to the vaginal probe to try and get a better shot but Sticky wasn’t interested. The sonogrpaher tried to shake her, push on my belly, get me to cough and roll me over to encourage Sticky to move. But, after gulping up her share of the pancakes, Sticky wanted to go back to sleep. It took us 35 minutes but eventually we got everything we needed.

Once I saw the nasal bone I relaxed a bit. That was the first sign checked off. When we were told the nuchal measurement was perfect I relaxed more – second sign checked off. Sticky was perfect – a brain, two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, 10 fingers and toes. As I suspected, she was in there, big as life, living the dream.

We were then called in to see the genetic counsellor. She ran through all our results which she said was “perfect.” Based purely on my age, my risk for down syndrome was 1:131. With the blood test and scan results, that risk is now 1:2623. I was gunning for anything over 1000 so I was over the moon. Basically, I went in at high risk and left at low risk. She gave us a photo album of all the scans that were taken and a DVD copy of the scan. It's our first baby photo album!

The counsellor said there were no signs that indicated we would need further testing so we don't need to go back until 19 weeks. She did tell us that the 19 week scan could pick up things this test couldn’t so we’ll just wait and see what that brings. For now, we were over the moon and my husband couldn’t wait to get to work to tell everyone. I’m leaving my news until next week when we’re officially in second trimester.

Go Sticky go!