24 week ultrasound and appointment!!!

Let me start by saying, GOD IS GOOD!  This is a 3D picture that they gave us from our ultrasound this morning!  Little Elise at 24 weeks.  In case you have a hard time seeing, it's her profile and her two arms/fists up by her face.

This morning we had our 24 week appointment and ultrasound, and I think that it went as well as it possibly could. 

Elise looked wonderful on her ultrasound!  No new issues were found.  Her heart continues to have a VSD, and her brain has the choroid plexus cysts.  Her stomach, kidneys, bladder, placenta, and umbilical cord all look great!  She has dropped on the weight chart.   She is now in the 14th-16th percentile (depending on which report you look at), which has dropped from the 30-something percentile at her 19 week ultrasound.  But they told us that is still within the normal range (they want to see anything above the 10th percentile).  So for now, she is not even showing growth restriction, although she is headed in that direction.  The doctor told us that she looks amazing for a trisomy 18 baby, and how wonderful it was that she wasn't presenting with the typical signs.

I was so terrified that now that we have the T18 diagnosis, they'd look closer during this ultrasound and actually find a lot of big things wrong.  But they didn't!  Her doctor agrees that currently, her most life-limiting features are her heart defect and issues relating to brain function/development in trisomy 18 children (such as apnea--forgetting to breathe).  Her heart defect is very mild, and many people live their whole lives without needed a VSD repaired.  So for right now, her outlook is good (at least from my perspective).  I understand that placenta or other issues could still cause her to be stillborn, or that other issues might develop or be found after birth.  But for today, I am going to have a huge smile plastered on my face because in my heart I believe that she has a chance to make it...to make it to birth, to make it a few hours, and maybe even longer. 

As for me, the doctor was kind enough to prescribe me the medication I took with my first pregnancy to control my irritable uterus contractions.  This is HUGE! 

We will have another appointment in 2 weeks with maternal fetal medicine as well as with the neonatology group.  Our next ultrasound will be in about a month.

I feel so blessed today.

Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers.  They are working!!!

"A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones." -Proverbs 15.30