The Amniocentesis
Episode 1 : Return of the Ultrasound
I never thought I would say this but having your stomach pierced with a needle was not as bad as it sounds. I was expecting a serious belly wound. I figured Tracy would be experiencing the kind of agony Tony Soprano went through when Uncle Junior put a bullet in his paunch. But the whole procedure was relatively innocuous.
The session consisted of two parts. First, they bring you in the back to chat with a counselor. Our counselor took some information from us, drew us a rudimentary picture of our family tree and then proceeded to go over the risks involved. After assuring us how safe it all is, we are asked to sign a waiver guaranteeing we will not sue them for malpractice. Um, ok.
We sign the papers and are then escorted back to the waiting room to wait (obviously) until we are called for the sonogram and amnio. The nurse comes to retrieve us and we follow her back to the examination room, which is kept at about 11 degrees Fahrenheit. I supposed they are not concerned that the doctor will succumb to a sudden shiver while brandishing a very sharp object. As we enter the room, the nurse asks Tracy for her blood type and without hesitation Tracy replies, “A positive”. I stand in the background quietly impressed that my wife readily knows such information. Beyond the color red, I’d be hard pressed to provide any additional details about my blood.
We were excited for the sonogram because we haven’t seen any pictures of the baby since it was the size of a dried wasabi pea. And, my oh my how little Charlotte has grown. We saw the four chambers of the heart; a spine; the head; and arms and legs with 10 fingers and I counted at least 7 toes. Good enough.
From the traditional black and white sonogram picture, she changed to some different high tech scanner, which was in color. As she navigated around the womb, we were treated to glimpses of an eye socket, the bump of an ear and a half of the face. (The other half was buried behind the placenta like a person hiding its head under a pillow trying to keep the morning light out.) She then panned downward and I was given a brief start:
“Whoa! It looks like we have a little Dirk Diggler growing in there!” I gloated.
“Don’t get excited. That is just the umbilical cord.”
A common mistake, I would surmise. The nurse told us that everything looks great, the baby is growing wonderfully and she printed out a few pictures for us to keep. And then Dr. Needlebelly entered the room…
To be continued.
I never thought I would say this but having your stomach pierced with a needle was not as bad as it sounds. I was expecting a serious belly wound. I figured Tracy would be experiencing the kind of agony Tony Soprano went through when Uncle Junior put a bullet in his paunch. But the whole procedure was relatively innocuous.
The session consisted of two parts. First, they bring you in the back to chat with a counselor. Our counselor took some information from us, drew us a rudimentary picture of our family tree and then proceeded to go over the risks involved. After assuring us how safe it all is, we are asked to sign a waiver guaranteeing we will not sue them for malpractice. Um, ok.
We sign the papers and are then escorted back to the waiting room to wait (obviously) until we are called for the sonogram and amnio. The nurse comes to retrieve us and we follow her back to the examination room, which is kept at about 11 degrees Fahrenheit. I supposed they are not concerned that the doctor will succumb to a sudden shiver while brandishing a very sharp object. As we enter the room, the nurse asks Tracy for her blood type and without hesitation Tracy replies, “A positive”. I stand in the background quietly impressed that my wife readily knows such information. Beyond the color red, I’d be hard pressed to provide any additional details about my blood.
We were excited for the sonogram because we haven’t seen any pictures of the baby since it was the size of a dried wasabi pea. And, my oh my how little Charlotte has grown. We saw the four chambers of the heart; a spine; the head; and arms and legs with 10 fingers and I counted at least 7 toes. Good enough.
From the traditional black and white sonogram picture, she changed to some different high tech scanner, which was in color. As she navigated around the womb, we were treated to glimpses of an eye socket, the bump of an ear and a half of the face. (The other half was buried behind the placenta like a person hiding its head under a pillow trying to keep the morning light out.) She then panned downward and I was given a brief start:
“Whoa! It looks like we have a little Dirk Diggler growing in there!” I gloated.
“Don’t get excited. That is just the umbilical cord.”
A common mistake, I would surmise. The nurse told us that everything looks great, the baby is growing wonderfully and she printed out a few pictures for us to keep. And then Dr. Needlebelly entered the room…
To be continued.
posted by Derek, Tracy & Calvin | 10:06 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like a great appt!
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