The Waiting Game

Well, the good news is that I didn't learn any bad news today.

The bad news is that I didn't learn any b/c they were unable to tell me anything.

But it wasn't a total loss.

Here's how it usually happens: A lady at 10-13 weeks goes for the nuchal fold. Measurements are taken, the nasal bone is examined, and blood is taken. The results of the blood test, combined with the measurements and the nasal bone findings (many babies w/DS have a small nasal bone or none at all at this stage), give results that are 95% accurate (with only a 2% rate of false positives) for predicting Down syndrome.

But the blood test takes about a week for the results to come back. Until then, they can't really tell you anything.

That's how it normally happens.

But I am anything but normal. ;)

Because I am at the early end of the 10-13 weeks (10wks, 3days), my baby was not long enough yet for them to take measurements. The baby has to be 45 mm, and mine was only 37 mm. So they went ahead and took blood and sent it off to the lab. I go back in exactly two weeks (when Matthew will be in town!!) for them to do the measurements. Then, I won't have to wait. They'll plug the results in the computer and it will spit out an IRA...Instant Results Analysis.

I told the geneticist (the same lady we talked with when we went there almost two years ago when I was pregnant with Benjamin) that despite the results of this test, we are most likely going to have an amnio anyway. She said that was just fine. She actually has had one case that she has personally dealt with where this test said everything was fine and the baby had DS. See, 95% is not the 99.4-100% accuracy that an amnio would offer.

I could have declined this test (even though they told me this halfway through), but since we have already met our insurance deductible and out-of-pocket max this year, there's real no reason not to still do it.

The ultrasound was super neat. I get one at all my OB prenatal appointments (I love Dr. Brody!), but this one was high tech, and the baby is bigger than it was last week. He/she was just moving around and the heartbeat was a nice, strong 186 bpm! Hmmm...could be a girl!! ;)

So basically I go back in two weeks and I will know on that day the results from this particular test. Then in another month or so, I will return for an amniocentesis. Those results take about 10 to 14 days. That will be a long wait, I think.

Good thing I'm so busy around here I barely have time to even remember I'm pregnant.

Here are a couple of pictures of my new autumn wreath on my front door.

Let me preface this by saying this is so not me. I am not creative nor am I a huge decorator. But we did Christmas wreaths last year...





...and I left the little sticky, hangy things up because that's how I roll.

So I wanted to do an autumn wreath for my front door. I headed off to Hobby Lobby last week, thinking I would probably end up spending more money on a pre-made wreath b/c I don't have the talent nor the patience to assemble one myself, no matter how easy you creative folk say it is.

The pre-made wreaths that were the size I wanted were about $50. And they had a lot of junk on there that looked dumb to me. Like a really large cornucopia or pheasant feathers. I mean, really? Birds are attracted to my porch enough (remember this??) without my advertising their death in a wreath.

So with the help of my amazing cousins, Casandra and Marianne (HOLLA!), I ventured into the unknown...doing my own wreath. I thought I would use the help of Marianne because she is the artistic, creative one. Well, I'm not quite sure where she was in the store, but Casandra and I managed to figure out that the plain, brown wreath of (fake) twigs was only $2.50 and the preassembled autumn garland that fits perfectly around the wreath and contains no cornucopias nor pheasant leaves was only $15. I then used my 40% off coupon on a $2.47 package of green wire thingies (real technical) to connect the garland to the wreath. (I couldn't use the coupon on the other two things, because they were already 50% off, and you can only use coupons on full-price items.) So my grand total was $20.71 or something like that. It only took about five (of a package of 75) wire thingies, cut in two, to attach the garland to the wreath. And here is what it looks like on my front door!



My next step is to wait for Hobby Lobby's cute little fall scarecrows or their pots of fake fall plants to go on sale so I can flank my front porch with some other fall decorations.

The only other thing I want to do to decorate for fall is to plant some flowers down by my mailbox. Now that I spent over six hours weeding my flower bed (you happy now, neighbors??), I am kind of taking a little more pride in my yard. Because I don't spend six hours squatting down and digging in the dirt for nothing. (The flower bed I weeded was NOT the one by my mailbox, it's the large one to the right of the garage; you can see it in the Christmas pictures above. We had really let it go, and it needed some major help.)

But, alas, I will need some major help with the flowers by the mailbox. I am already mentally planning a separate post, calling all those of you with green thumbs to help me. I'm going to take pics of my bare flower bed that surrounds my mailbox.

Oh, here is a scary picture. My mom came over tonight for a few minutes supposedly to help me with the boys b/c Matthew is out of town. When she arrived, I was carrying Benjamin upstairs for bed (post-bath), and putting Andrew in the bathtub. So there really wasn't much for her to do.

Which was fine with her. I really think she just came over to check her Facebook b/c her laptop crashed. LOL

ANYWAY, I went out to take a picture of my wreath. I took one (the one I posted above), and then I zoomed in to get a closer shot. When I glanced down at my viewfinder after taking the picture, I jumped and screamed a little.

I didn't realize my mom was standing there spooking me out.

Thanks, Mom. It's not a Halloween wreath, you know. The smudges on the glass are scary enough.



Have a great night! I ate at 5:15 and am hungry again. There's really no rest for the weary nor any hunger satisfaction for the pregnant.

:)