20 + 2
9/30/24
It was finally here, anatomy scan day!! Pregnancy is so wild, if you didn’t know this already. I went from seeing a couple lines on a pee stick, to waiting FIVE weeks before I even saw a doctor for the first time, to feeling baby moving around and seeing it on the ultrasound at the same time. It is such a whirlwind and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. When we were told about the 20 week anatomy scan we were so excited to be able to see all the baby parts (except the important ones because we were, of course, keeping gender a secret!) and we were anxious to see how baby was growing and developing. We had done all of the genetics testing and blood work in earlier weeks and nothing had shown up, so we didn’t really expect them to find anything scary. We were just excited to see baby wiggling around again after not seeing them since our 12 week ultrasound, and of course we wanted new ultrasound pictures.
We spent about an hour going over all of babies limbs, organs, fluid, and everything in between. In preparation for this scan my OB had warned me that these appointments can take a while, and there is a lot to look at. She also said that this office is the best office for observing any abnormalities so not to panic if they leave the room to see a doctor, that is very standard to rule out any concerns while there. So I didn’t think much of it when the tech said she needed to run some images by the doctor and I should take a break to pee and see if we can move baby around a little bit for a few more images. She came back about 20 minutes later and grabbed a few more pictures before leaving to consult with the doctor once more. Again, we didn’t think much of it since the tech just grabs the photos, the doctors needed to review them regardless.
I tend to be a bit of a disaster planner, so as five minutes ticked into 25 I began to get in my own head a little. “The OB said this is normal, it’s totally fine, they might be busy it’s the end of the day.” Thoughts of any possible issues the doctor has found, battled with my reasonable thoughts of “this is normal.” I finally took a deep breath when a doctor came in the room holding a strip from our ultrasound. Then that deep breath got stuck in my throat as she pulled up a chair and began explaining some abnormal findings on our ultrasound.
I was a history teacher, medicine and Latin words have never been my forte. Despite this, I was fully able to understand as our doctor explained that our baby is showing a cleft lip and there is possibly a cleft palate as well. We soak in all of her words trying to fully understand what this means for baby and ourselves. She explains they cannot be sure if the palate is effected yet, but as baby continues to grow they will try to get more images for a more clear idea of the level of palate effected. It was a lot of info to gather as she threw out a bunch of possibilities including hearing, vision, and learning disabilities that can be caused along with the cleft. She mentioned a list of different doctors and counselors we would be put in touch with over the coming weeks, but otherwise said there is not too much that we will change in regards to monitoring the pregnancy. At this time we will touch base with our teams who will handle the clefts when baby is born, and just keep doing what we are doing.
We thought this was the worst of the news, and although this was not ideal, it would be manageable and we would figure it out as we go. That wasn’t all though. After explaining the implications of the cleft the doctor went on to say that I have a amnion-chorion separation with the presence of amniotic bands. At this time this was actually not overly concerning. The separation seems to have been caused by the two pieces just not fusing, and it could cause baby to come a bit sooner than we planned (closer to 37 weeks than 40), but was not very concerning otherwise.
The four minute drive home felt more like an hour as our heads were spinning with all of this new info. Anthony and I like information and like to know what to expect, so we instantly began doing research. We stuck to the medical sites the doctors gave us and just began to educate ourselves. We looked at photos of clefs and learned about the deficiencies that can become present, and the more we read the better we felt. This wasn’t ideal, but it would be fine <3
