Ultrasound Results

The ultrasound went well today!

We had another BPP and had a look at the amniotic fluid level.

The amniotic fluid is still low, but looking better. It was up to 7.1 from 5.6 last week, so that was a relief.

The baby did great with her practice breathing, she was doing it pretty much the whole time! She is also active and doing well on her heartrate monitoring.

Here's a picture of her face (in profile):

We've tried a few times to get 3D pictures of the babies' faces, but you need a certain amount of empty space for it too work and they have always been too close together, and with the low fluid it's even worse. So no 3D pics for us.

But, we did see something interesting on the ultrasound today:

It looks like our girl is going to have lots of hair! I didn't even know you could see that on an ultrasound :)

So everything is looking pretty good. I was having contractions last night, nothing major, but they were frequent and lasted for 5 or 6 hours, so I'm back on the meds to stop contractions. Other than that we're doing fine.

Not going anywhere anytime soon...

So my group of doctors met about my case earlier this week, and felt like with the relatively unknown risks of a monoamniotic pregnancy after losing one baby, in addition to the low amniotic fluid, that they are not comfortable with me going home for outpatient monitoring.

Apart from the fluid level, which they are concerned about but not sure why it's happening, the baby seems to be doing well. So they aren't too nervous, just watchful.

Our plan for now is to continue having an ultrasound with a Biophysical Profile (BPP) every Monday, a 20 minute heart monitoring session every morning, and 1 hour heart monitoring session every night. We'll also have a growth scan about every 3 weeks.

Here is a site that has a description of amniotic fluid and the biophysical profile in case anyone is interested:

http://www.gynob.com/biopamfl.htm

The fluid level at the last two ultrasounds has been around 5.6 or 5.7. Normal is between 8 and 18. She doesn't necessarily have room to make big movements anymore - especially because Bridget is still taking up some of the room, but she is still kicking and being active which is great.

I'll keep you all posted!

Status

Hi everyone.

Things are still going pretty well. The baby seems to be doing fine.

I had an ultrasound last week and her estimated weight was 2.33 pounds! So she is growing well. The only point of concern on the ultrasound is that the level of amniotic fluid is on the very low end of normal. It does not seem to be affecting her yet, so we are just observing.

I had another ultrasound this morning and the amniotic fluid looked about the same. Today was the first time we saw her making practice breathing movements, so that was exciting and a sign that she is continuing to mature and develop properly.

This weekend my doctors changed my monitoring to one NST (non-stress test) a day. Which basically means that the baby is only being monitored for 20-30 minutes a day. I also have the option to put the monitor on at any time if I am concerned about anything.

I have asked them to consider letting me go home and be monitored as an outpatient if they think it would be safe. I don't want to sacrifice any necessary care, but if there is a way I can be monitored by going to the hospital at home once a day and coming up to Louisville once or twice a week, that would be much much better for me. Apparently my group of doctors are meeting in the morning, and this will be up for discussion.

I'll keep you updated, thanks for checking in!

MRI Results

We finally received the results this morning, and they look good!

We are very relieved & thankful. The report said that there were no obvious abnormalities and no signs of blood flow changes. Not exactly the most glowing terms, but very reassuring.

According to my doctor this week our main concern at this point is the continued potential for blood flow problems to the baby. For now my monitoring will continue as before, three times a day for two hours.

We will have an ultrasound one day this week and they will check the baby's growth, as well as look for signs of maturity such as practice breathing motions. If they get everything they need I might even ask them to try to look in 3D for a minute and see if we can get a good picture.

We are at 27.5 weeks now, so the baby's chances are quite good if she has to be delivered - but hopefully we can keep her in there for a while still.

Thank you everyone for your continued support, thoughts & prayers.

No news yet

I had the MRI on Friday. It was an interesting experience, but not especially stressful or anything. The most frustrating part was the delay in getting it. They mentioned at the last minute that they wanted me to take a valium to keep the baby still for the MRI, so that took awhile.

We hoped to get the results Friday afternoon, but apparently the MRI was sent to the wrong radiologist. Fetal MRIs are still a relatively new thing, and they don't do very many of them here. There is only one radiologist who can actually read them, and he won't be back until Monday. We expect to get the results tomorrow morning.

The doctor this morning said that the baby's heart tracings look great, and she even appears to be a little bit ahead of what they expect for her gestational age. He said that since she looks so good, he expects the MRI to look good. That made me feel very hopeful since this doctor is not exactly the bubbly and optimistic type - I don't think he would want to give us false hope.

Anyway, hopefully we will have some good news tomorrow! I'm also looking forward to discussing what our long term plan is since they have not wanted to discuss that at all until we get the results of the MRI.

Update

Things seem to be going pretty well for me and our surviving baby.

I have been gradually reduced in the amount of monitoring I'm receiving as the baby is doing really well, and the doctors believe that the risk of entanglement is becoming much less of a concern. Her heart rate has been looking really good, with no real areas of concern.

Right now I'm being monitored three times a day for two hours. On Friday I've been scheduled for an MRI to look at the baby and see if she suffered any damage when we lost Bridget. Once that is done they are planning on moving me upstairs (where I started, I'm on my 3rd room now) for intermittent monitoring. They seem to be waiting for the MRI to make any further decisions.

So at this point I'm just trying to stay calm and healthy, and hoping that the MRI will show that our surviving baby is perfectly healthy.

Thank you again to everyone for your support, thoughts and prayers.