I am now 14 weeks pregnant and on Monday we had a very important scan. We are happy to report that we got all good news. I had gone three whole weeks without an ultrasound leading up to Monday’s appointment so I was nervous baby might not be doing well. My mind kept replaying my ultrasound with Lucy when we found out she was severely anemic and my fear grew more and more intense as the ultrasound got closer. Thankfully the baby looked great and had a good strong heartbeat. (S)he was very active and all of the organs looked good from what they could see. There were no signs of distress, anemia or hydrops.

Dr. Trevett and I had originally decided to do the first MCA scan when I was 15 weeks but I started to wish we had scheduled it for 14 weeks since anemia can start this early in severe cases. The MCA scan is the only way to detect fetal anemia before it gets severe so even if baby looked normal on ultrasound, it wouldn’t mean that (s)he isn’t anemic. I went back and forth in my mind about whether I should bother Dr. Trevett and ask him to do the MCA scan a week earlier than scheduled. I decided to ask, but was preparing myself to have to push him to do it. When I told him I was anxious and I was hoping he would try an MCA scan during the ultrasound (even though it’s hard to do on babies this small) he said, “Of course! I was planning to do one today anyway.” Such a relief! I love having such an amazing, proactive doctor I can trust. He did the scan and the cutoff number for needing a blood transfusion was between 22 and 23 and baby’s numbers ranged from 15-20 so the baby is not anemic yet. What an incredible blessing. Here is a picture of our sweet baby who we love so much already:

On Monday Josh and I also had our blood drawn and sent off to The Netherlands for the non-invasive maternal blood test that will tell us whether baby is kell negative or kell positive. We should get the results back by the end of this week! Please pray that the baby is kell negative. If the baby is kell positive, (s)he will have to go through a lot of intervention to survive and will have to fight for his/her life. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. I will let you know the test results when we get them (and baby’s gender!)