I'm glad so many of you liked my Happy Crappy Pregnancy Cake.  Yes, of course I ate some, but of course, I didn't eat it all.  It was quite delicious!
So... the doctor's appointment on Thursday- It would never be quite complete without a little drama, right?  First, I got there and I had no appointment on the book... interesting, because in the folder where I've organized all my "pregnancy stuff" I had an appointment card with 6/30 2:15 pm written on it.  During my last appointment, the office was having a super busy/disorganized day due to a few emergencies, and someone wrote my card, but forgot to write down my appointment in the book.  Big sigh!  They knew they had to "fit me in" though, and really those are NEVER the words you want to hear, because you just know you'll be waiting.  I'll spare you the details of the wait, but let's just say that at one point my husband was pretending to juggle with imaginary objects due to his boredom.  Finally I started my 2:15 pm appointment at 4:00 pm.  What happened next stunned me though... I was given a coffee gift card for my trouble.  What?  At a doctor's office?  I was shocked! 

I am happy to report that my blood pressure was down to 125/78, from 128/85.  YAY!  My ultrasound showed the baby measuring overall 25 weeks and 5 days - I was 26 weeks and 1 day at the time... not bad at all!  The head/tummy are still overall measuring normal and the limbs measuring 1-2 weeks behind.  The femur (thigh) measurement was actually only 1 week behind this time, so that one caught up a little.  Overall the baby is around 1-3/4 pounds!

The small rim of fluid remains around the heart.  My doctor categorizes it as on the threshold of being non-significant.  I guess everyone has just a little fluid around the heart, and this is just a tiny bit more than normal.  There is no excess fluid anywhere else, kidneys are working, amniotic fluid is normal. 

My doctor likes to often do her own ultrasound after the initial one.  This time she came in, found the baby's heart on the ultrasound, and started just staring at it.  I could have sworn 5 minutes past, and she didn't say a thing during that whole time.  She was just taking pictures and staring at the heart.  Then she started doing the same thing with the baby's head.  You know THAT SILENCE... the one that is so big and so long that it almost hurts you?  Yeah... it was like that.  I wanted to yell out, "What's wrong?"  but I managed to keep my cool.

She told us that overall the baby really remains unchanged and stable.  The hygroma is not growing, but is not shrinking.  Today she could not convince herself that the VSD heart defect was still there.  She didn't see it, but couldn't rule it out either.  It is not uncommon for the small VSDs to heal in utero.  I really hope it is gone!  We will find out more on Tuesday at our second echo cardiogram. 

She also told us that she is seeing something new though... why, why can't we just be free of these new discoveries for just one appointment?  The baby's head is tapering slightly on one end.  She said it could definitely be normal and just familial - given my son's strange journey with his prolonged open fontanel this is not shocking to us.  It could also be another marker of some sort of genetic or chromosomal condition (which is still highly suspected in our baby girl), or it is even possible that the skull bones have started fusing too quickly in the baby (not something you want to happen).  Right now she is not immediately concerned, because it just showed up at 26 weeks - some of the more serious conditions would have shown prior to this.  It is just another thing to put on the "watch list."  She did find "L"'s fontanel condition significant to this finding, so we are going with familial right now.  Did we trade a heart condition for a head condition?  I guess that is TBD at this point.

I know she is still shocked to see me pregnant at 26 weeks... and even while I feel satisfaction in that, I am still so incredibly fearful of the uncertain future. 

Tuesday starts the rounds of tests - MRI and another echo - that will start to give the surgeons the information they would need to treat our baby once she is born.  We will be meeting with them in the coming weeks to discuss how this may play out.  I hope and pray they have the wisdom to know what to do, and for me the patience and peace to endure it all!

Next ultrasound in 2 weeks... Next stop 28 weeks!