I went for another ultrasound appointment yesterday, as you probably know if you’ve been following. You’ll recall that this was a recheck based on the appointment two weeks ago because the shared placenta question hadn’t been fully resolved. If it was determined to indeed be a true shared placenta, I’d be going back every two weeks for the rest of my pregnancy to keep an eye on everybody’s growth and watch for problems, because shared placentas are Bad News. And until the question got resolved, they wanted to treat it as if it were shared to be on the safe side.
The ultrasound appointments are getting to be practically routine. Don’t get me wrong, they are still fun; all the ‘extra’ peeks inside are a definite perk of multiple pregnancy. Poor singleton moms, only getting 2 or 3 ultrasounds in their whole pregnancies. I’m up to seven total prenatal appointments with 3 different providers, and we’ve turned the cameras on the babies at every single one of them. The ones at the clinic are the best, though. They have the fancy equipment, and special technicians who do nothing else but ultrasounds all day long, who really take their time and know their stuff. Plus they keep their belly goo warmed up, and that’s a very nice touch.
I had the same sonographer as two weeks ago. She started out with Baby A, doing measurements and checking heart rate. She asked whether, if she could tell, we wanted to know the sex. We said “Yes, very much so.” A moment later: “This baby is a boy.” Picture is labeled so you can tell what you’re seeing.
Then she moved on to Baby B. Again the measurements. She gave a very,very uncertain verdict of girl, but could not get a good view.
So she continued to Baby C. C was being just as flagrantly obvious as A, “goalposting” as Hubs so eloquently put it.
Then back to Baby B to see if we couldn’t get a better look. The main problem was that the umbilical cord was hanging down between the legs and blocking a real clear view. What we could clearly see was her getting kicked from both sides by her brothers!! Still the sonographer could sort of, maybe see labia and really didn’t see anything that looked penis-ish at all. I tried to label this picture, too, but honestly I’m not quite sure what’s what here so some of the labels are guesses. Anybody have any further insight?
The doctor of the day (again, same doctor from 2 weeks ago) came in when the sonographer was all through, took a quicker look at everybody and confirmed everything we had just heard. She didn’t see anything to make her think B might be a boy, either, but she could only give an 80% certainty level for girl. That’s still pretty good odds, I think. Now, the best news? B, the middle baby, being the only girl means NO identicals, which means NO shared placenta, which means safer healthier fetuses. We already have our full Level II ultrasound anatomy scan set up for 2 weeks from now, also at the clinic, so if that confirms yesterday’s gender findings then I don’t have to keep going to the clinic every two weeks, just every month (unless any new causes for concern may arise).
Everyone was measuring well. They did a couple of different measurements for each baby, including femur length, abdominal circumference, and “bi-parietal” (head) diameter. (You can see a description of these methods and what they are good for here, if you aren’t familiar.) Their gestational age based on these measurements were different by a few days, with B being the smallest though essentially on schedule at 17w1d, and A the biggest at 18w0d. Based on LMP I was at 17w3d yesterday. I guess because of differences in proportions, though, all three were estimated at 7 oz. Nearly a pound and a half of total baby! That’s a little big compared to an average singleton; Babycenter says at 18 weeks a fetus weighs not quite 7 oz. They also measured each baby’s amniotic fluid and my cervix, and everything looks just fine.
MFM appointment next Tuesday, and anatomy scan on the 18th.
Crossing the Double Pink Lines 