Thank you all for praying for my 14 week appointment on Monday. It went as well as it could have. I was nervous about confronting the doctors again and asking them to do something they’ve already said they wouldn’t do. They wanted to start MCA scans at 16 weeks and I wanted them to start at 15 weeks so I was asking them one last time to move the scan up a week. If they had said no, I was going to drive to Houston, Texas to have the scan done. I printed off a study done in Thailand with the information they needed to do the scan and they said they would do it! So, our big ultrasound is next Monday, February 9th. This is, by far, the most important ultrasound we have had yet. It will measure the baby’s blood flow to check for anemia. Please pray that the baby’s ultrasound results are normal with NO anemia. February 9th is also a very hard day for us because it is the day, two years ago, that I gave birth to Lucy’s lifeless body, the hardest and most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced. We will celebrate her “Heaven Birthday” on February 8th, since that is the day we watched her heart stop and she entered paradise. The days leading up to this sad anniversary are very hard, especially with the stress of the first MCA scan coming up. Please pray that we are overwhelmed by God’s peace and we walk into that ultrasound room full of trust and confidence in Him.

The baby looked perfect again on the ultrasound, no signs of extra fluid building up. The heart looked good and baby was so cute moving around. The ultrasound tech made another gender guess but we are going to keep it a secret until we know for sure. We also kind of want to wait and announce the gender after we find out if the baby is ok, depending on the MCA scan. The news concerning our baby’s chance at life seems much more important to us and we want to focus on that rather than the gender right now. Here are a few ultrasound pictures of the baby.

This one is a little creepy because it shows the baby’s skull/face bones, but I love that the baby probably has my cleft chin. Can you see it?

We also got the results back from the genetic testing we had last week and the baby was negative, which means it’s very unlikely that (s)he has trisomy 18, down’s syndrome or spina bifida. What a relief. The doctors were a bit concerned about one thing, but it’s not major. Now that I’m in the second trimester, I have started losing weight, which is not good. I never gained anything in the first trimester but was able to stay around the same weight. Now I am losing weight so the doctors want me to work extra hard to not lose any more and start gaining some pounds. I am sick all the time, so basically every bite of food I’ve had since the beginning of December has been forced. I have to try really hard to keep the food down and I’ve been vomiting more in the second trimester than I was in the first. I think this is partly from side effects of the IVIG infusions. They make me feel exhausted, more nauseated and they give me migraines on a regular basis. My main concern is the baby, though, so I’m trying my hardest to eat more and stay healthy. Will you pray that I will start to feel better soon and the baby will have enough nutrients? Thank you, again, for praying for our appointment on Monday and for praying for the baby. Hopefully next week we will have another good report!