29 Weeks

11/30/24

We knew we had an ultrasound the Tuesday after I was discharged, and we knew it could be an important ultrasound. Our last two ultrasounds had shown that baby was growth restricted, but we were waiting to see if this was a pattern or a fluke, and Tuesdays ultrasound would show us that. During the first part of the ultrasound it became apparent that baby was measuring in the 2nd percentile now. Previously they were at 13% so that was a pretty good decrease. Because baby fell below the 10th percentile, the doctors would now measure dopplers.

Measuring dopplers is still done with the ultrasound, but rather than measuring the baby or fluid, it measures blood flow from myself to the baby. It shows the effectiveness of your placenta and if baby is getting and accepting the nutrients needed to grow. Well, after another hour of tediously measuring all of baby’s blood flow, it became apparent that my placenta did not seem to be doing much of anything. There are three different (not great) waves that can be seen on dopplers. Restricted which is just where baby may not be getting as much flow as they need. Absent, which is when there is a gap in flow.It can be small or large, but somewhere the flow stops all together. The worst of the three is reversed flow. This is where the flow is not even getting to baby because it is getting pushed back in the opposite direction.

Our high risk doctor came in to review the ultrasound with us and recapture some of the dopplers to confirm what they were seeing. He said that in the best case, I had absent flow in two areas, and the worse one was reversed, This meant that baby was not getting what they needed from my placenta and was beginning to shunt blood to other areas of their body to compensate for what areas were lacking. He then told us that in any other situation, they would recommend I go to the hospital and be monitored in-patient until baby is born….

I had been in the hospital for over seven weeks, and had been home for 48 hours. It was also Thanksgiving week and all of the doctors offices were closing. We decided (us and our doctors) that it would be alright if we monitored from home for just this week as long as I went into the hospital every day for NST tests. As long as everything stayed stable, then we could reasses on the following Monday.

So for the next five days, Anthony and I went into the emergency room for an NST test every morning. We had one extra ultrasound that still showed the reversed flow on dopplers, but otherwise everything stayed stable. So we layed low other than driving to the hospital daily, and hoped that the Monday ultrasound would be more promising than the last couple had been.