31 Weeks: fun pictures of the little one!

Another week has come and gone.  This last week brought with it two different doctor's appointments. One with my OB and one with a specialist who is monitoring our baby's growth.  As promised last week I'm going to post a full update on how she is doing and I have some fun pictures to share.  But first, here is the obligatory picture of me at 31 weeks.   

Now on to the fun stuff complete with pictures!  Actually parts of this story were not so fun, but I'll give you a spoiler alert and say that everything is turning out to be okay.  I guess we'll just start from the beginning and apologize in advance if I ramble some and I know it'll be a long story so prepare yourself.

Profile shot she is looking up

The monday before leaving on my trip I had a doctor's appointment and a follow-up anatomy ultrasound.  We had the standard anatomy ultrasound done at 21 weeks but the tech was not able to get measurements of the head very well because of the way the baby was positioned.  I was 27 weeks at this appointment and while talking to the doctor after the ultrasound we learned that the measurements of the baby's femurs (top bone in the leg) were a few weeks behind schedule.  Since everything had been measuring on track up until this point she decided to refer me to a specialist to see if they could determine why the bones' growth had slowed.  During the appointment our doctor did not seem worried at all and explained it was just a precaution because short femur length can been a sign of a variety of things.  Brett and I actually left feeling rather okay about the news and not worried at all.  It wasn't long, however, for the worries and doubts to start creeping into my mind.  I suddenly had lots of questions and was especially concerned that I would not have any answers until after our 2 and 1/2 week trip.  Our Dr mentioned it might take a few weeks to get an appointment and not to worry about it.

3D image of her face with cute pursed lips

That night I wanted answers  so I took things into my own hands and turned to the internet.  I google searched endlessly  and read anything and everything I could find that I thought might somehow relate to my situation.  Needless to say, this was a bad idea and just filled my mind with unnecessary worries.  Brett was gone while I did all this and so that evening I was in tears explaining to him all that I had read.  Luckily he is so good at calming me down and reassuring me.  Brett reminded me of the peace we felt at the doctors office and we said some prayers that things would be okay and that we would be able to find answers soon.

3D profile

Our prayers were answered that next morning (Tuesday) when I received a call from the specialist's office.  Unknown to me, our doctor had sent a request that they try to get us in on Tuesday since I was headed out of town on Wednesday.  The local office didn't have any openings for that day but called around and got us an appointment with one of the other locations.  We were more than willing to drive the 30 minutes and were so relieved that we were going to be seen prior to our trip.

All cute and cuddly with her hand in the bottom right

The appointment on Tuesday consisted of a 2.5 hour long ultrasound.  The tech started and took lots of detailed measurements.  Then the specialist came in and reviewed the tech's information and then spent another hour looking around on her own. They were both great and explained everything they were doing.  Long story short they measured everything imaginable on the baby.  They were looking for any abnormalities or other signs that something may be wrong.  Things like the curvature of the spine, shape of the head, position of the ears, numbers of fingers/toes, etc etc.  They also measured the blood flow in the umbilical cord to see if the baby was getting enough nutrients.  When all was said and done the specialist explained that she did not find any other concerns or red flags.  During that appointment we learned that short femurs can be an indicator of a variety of things both fatal and non-fatal and ranging from a chromosomal disorder to skeletal issue to poor growth of the baby.  She informed us that although she couldn't rule anything out at this point she was not overly concerned about any one thing in particular.  She did tell us that she wanted a follow up in 3 weeks to see if things had improved/continued/worsened.

Her ear, right where it is supposed to be

Hands, Arms and Legs.  The curly thing in the middle is the umbilical cord

Once again we left the doctors office feeling a lot of peace.  We were also very grateful because they sent us home with a CD full of pictures.  Some of the images they took were even in 3D!  Although it was a nerve-wrecking appointment, Brett and I both sat there in awe as we saw our baby on the screen and got to analyze her little features.  Of course we think she looks beautiful, although I also realize the 3D pictures are kind of crazy.

Her spine.  Looks like a fossil and has everything where it is supposed to be.  

Fast forward the 2 and 1/2 weeks we were out of town and that brings us to this week.  Our appointment with the OB was not really eventful.  I'm healthy and my weight/blood pressure is measuring great (high BP would be another red flag in conjunction with the slowed growth).  She did measure my fundal height, which is basically measuring the size of my uterus.  It measured a few weeks behind but that was to be expected.

Another picture of her face.  All the extra stuff on the side is just the plecenta/fluids/other interference

Our appointment with the Specialist was Friday.  This time we were able to get in with the local office and so not only was it a follow up but we also got another doctors assessment of the situation.  I went into this appointment feeling like it was going to answer a lot of our questions.  I was 31 weeks by this point and things would have either gotten better or worse or stayed the same.  The results were encouraging and although some of our little girl's bone are still measuring short, the rest of her is growing and healthy.  They measured all the bones in the arms/legs and only the femurs and the humerus were short.  The doctor said that in order to qualify as a skeletal dysplasia (aka: dwarfism) all the bones would need to be short.  He also said that it could be a sign of down syndrome but with the lack of other indicators it was unlikely.  We decided against doing blood work to test for this because it wouldn't change anything with regards to prenatal care.  The last explanation would be growth restriction due to the baby not getting enough nutrients from me or failure of the umbilical cord to provide.  Based on the measurements he reported he isn't concerned about this either.  In fact he said that the blood flow and the amniotic fluid measurements were on the high side of the charts.  So that was reassuring.

A face shot from the most recent ultrasound and her little hand up by the face

The official measurements are that her femurs/humerus are measuring in the 5th percentile.  Anything below 10% is a concern but not unless they get below 1% did he say they would be super concerned. They are about 2 weeks behind schedule but grew consistently with the rest of her body between the last two visits.  She is also measuring small in weight (partially due to the lack of bone) and weighed in at 3 lb 5 oz which is 12.5 percentile.  Luckily for me her head is measuring nice and large in the 60 percentile.... oh wait, maybe that is not so lucky.  As I mentioned, the fluids were all higher than average and blood flow to the baby from me was good. Blood flow in the baby's brain was also doing well.

Another face shot where she doesn't look quite so happy

So long story short, our baby has short femurs and there is no current medical explanation for why.  While in Oregon my mom joked with me that our baby is just proving to already be a Johnson.  You see, the Johnson side of my family tends to have exceptionally long torsos so although we are tall we may or may not have short femurs.  It amazes me what the doctors can detect and although it was stressful, I'm grateful we had the chance to check everything out.  The plan of action is to have follow-ups with the specialist to monitor growth every 3 weeks from now until our daughter comes.  This does mean more doctors appointments and visits but I'm excited for all the opportunities to see our little one.

Profile view, looking left

We didn't get any 3D pictures from the most recent ultrasound but it was still fun to watch her and we were both surprised by how much she is growing and looking more and more like a baby.  At the very beginning she was looking straight at us and we watched in awe as she opened and closed her eyes multiple times.  Later in the appointment she got the hiccups so we watched her chest as it contracted with each hiccup.  We also got to hear the hiccups on the doppler machine as they measured the blood flow in the umbilical cord. The tech also pointed out that our little girl already has hair.   These were all just fun reminders that the little girl inside of me is real!

The tech zoomed in and got a picture of the foot nice and big

We are now officially two months or 60 days exactly to the due date.  Although a due date is far from an exact thing, its the best we have to count down to.  At one point the doctor did mention that if the baby was too small due to growth restriction, they might induce me early so they could provide care and help her grow.  It doesn't look like that is going to happen and I'm glad she gets to cook inside of me and hope she stays in until she is ready, but not a day longer!