Sunday, July 7, 2013

sexes? - 13 weeks - 5/30/2013

A
B
C


At this ultrasound, my friend Caitrin came with me for support as Rob was in Sacramento for training and couldn't make it down. It was awesome to have her there for comfort! If you listen close to the video, you can hear the nurse in the background explaining that she thought baby A was a BOY! She then gave us the exciting news that she thought babies B and C, who would be the identicals, were GIRLS! One boy and two girls! We were very excited!

In the previous ultrasound we found out that baby C was on the small side of things so the doctor insisted that we see him every two weeks to keep an eye on the growth. When he looked this time we were very pleased to see that C was the same size as A and it was now B who was measuring a little bit bigger than the other two. The doctor wasn't so sure about the sexes, saying it was probably too early to tell. The pregnancy was now at 13 weeks and everything seemed to be back on track...except for the face of the doctor.

He explained that while he was doing his in-depth study on baby C, it was very obvious that its bladder was enlarged. This was a concern because it could mean that the baby was swallowing the amniotic fluid but not urinating it back out into its amniotic sac. If the bladder got too large, this might put some strain on the kidneys and the potential outcome could be kidney failure. We were told that this could have several different causes. The first, and easiest to remedy, would be that there was a blockage in the baby's urethra and the only thing they would need to do right now would be to poke a small hole in the membrane between B and C to allow the fluid to flow evenly between the two amnio sacs. Then after the baby was born, there would be a minor surgery performed that would unblock anything that was obstructing the flow of urine. The second cause was that it might also be possible that the baby's urethra never formed, which would result in a much more complex surgery after birth. He would also recommend that we have a shunt put in to the baby's bladder which would stick out of my belly. Third, if C was a girl, then it could be that he was seeing a cyst on one of her ovaries, which would just dissipate over time and was nothing to be overly concerned about. The doctor also said that a fourth option would be to completely eliminate C all together so as not to put any stress on the other two babies, which, as Rob previously posted, would never be an option for us.  At this time, with so many unknowns, we just needed to wait and see what we saw on the next ultrasound.

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