What... a Whirlwind!: 24 weeks 5 days

We had a full morning of appointments yesterday, including our ultrasound. It was a very exhausting, emotionally draining morning! But I think we came away from it all with more hope and promise of a healthy baby. Not only are we as parents continuing to think positive and only focus on the 'pros', but it seems our doctors and techs are thinking the same way.

We had the same technician which was very comforting, because she has been with us through so many ultrasounds. She said she was nervous because I was nervous, and it is actually nice to have someone who is able to sense what we are feeling. After we got started we all just focused on laughing as much as possible to override the scariness and uncertainty.

I pretty much held it together during the whole ultrasound, and I wasn't filled with dread. I was a happy nervous, still thinking positive thoughts. The tech searched around and was just softly mentioning random things that she saw and at one point she pointed out that the baby had it's hand in his mouth, and that is when I lost it. I started crying - Jason and the tech got immediately worried. They thought something was wrong, or that they had said something wrong. But I was crying happy tears. Just the day before I kept thinking, and I mentioned to my best friend, that if I could just see him suck on his thumb or his hand, that I would feel better. That may sound silly, but as I have said before Aidan has NEVER discovered his hands, or used his hands for anything. Looking back I do not remember seeing Aidan do anything with his hands in the ultrasounds. So seeing that and hearing that this baby was doing something with his hands was music to my ears. To me it showed neurological progression. And it meant something to the doctor, too. The doctor even asked the tech if she got it on video, but she had no idea at that point that it was something I was looking and praying for!!

Of course everything anatomy-wise still looked great. Overall he is measuring good due-date wise. He is in the 45the percentile for weight, which is average. He weighs 1 pound 8 ounces. It is looking like he already has some long legs like Aidan does.

The doctor came in and we went over the measurements. His head is still measuring small. We were hoping to see a growth spurt in this region but nope. Once again, the thing we are focusing on is the overall ratio of his head size to all his other body parts. So far he is still on the charts in comparison with his leg length, tummy size, and arm length. But it is the low end of the charts. We are praying he stays on the charts!! As I may have mentioned before, Aidan had fallen off the charts with his head size (ratio-wise and measurement-wise) around week 20.

So instead of just seeing the head size we are trying to see the overall picture of how is head size relates to all his other body parts.

Another factor the doctor brought up was the image of the brain itself so far. Obviously the ultrasound does not show a detailed image of the brain, but we can see some things. He brought in a picture of Aidan's brain around 30 weeks and showed us how it had many empty spots. Then we looked at the new baby's brain and it looked like there was more 'stuff' in there (sorry, I don't know all the medical terms he used). It looks like gyri is forming, and there is bumps and valleys where Aidan's was smooth. The doctor mentioned the option of a fetal MRI again, but didn't sound convinced that we HAD to do it. I think it is completely up to us, and we all decided we would just wait and see how the next ultrasound goes. And it would be only as a reassurance tool for us. If we did do it, it would be at 32 weeks.

Finally, we looked at the baby's face itself. Once again we compared Aidan's ultrasound profile pictures and his looks to that of this baby. The tech said she thinks the baby has a normal looking profile, and the doctor thinks there are good differences between the two. We definitely see differences in the faces and forehead slope of both boys. Unfortunately we don't have an ultrasound of Aidan at the same period of this particular ultrasound. Of course I went home after the ultrasound and began comparing both boys' ultrasounds again to see if I noticed anything different. Looking at Aidan's 30 week ultrasound you can see a big difference in the shape of his head compared to other baby ultrasounds. So I think as the weeks go on we might be able to compare the two even more. The doctor and tech both want me to mention anything else that might be helpful for us to look for in the ultrasound, such as the particular hand movement. They are used to looking for specific things, mostly anatomy based. Often they don't think about looking at particular movement as a marker or non-marker for certain things. So it was helpful to them that I had mentioned the hand-sucking.

Aidan's profile at 24 weeks 3 days.

Baby No. 2's profile at 24 weeks 5 days.

Aidan at 19 weeks.

Baby No. 2 at 20 weeks 5 days.

As the doctor said - there are more 'pros' than 'cons'. We will go back in 3 weeks for another check (July 10th).

So in closing - are we out of the woods yet? Does any ultrasound give us any specific answers? No. But - are we hopeful and more relieved now? Yes and Yes!

Please continue to pray for our new little boy! Pray that his head size stays on the charts and grows. Send positive thoughts that we continue to see differences in the boys' faces, that we see gyri forming in his brain, that we see him sucking his thumb, and that we can maintain our hopeful thinking!