No more freakin' tests—Level II Ultrasound

greeba sez:

I was expecting a technician who would be more talkative as in, "There's the heart! It looks good!" "Oh, look, that looks like boy parts, but I can't be sure!" Instead she was silent almost the entire time, and the only thing she told us unprompted was that the baby weighs 12 ounces. I had to ask if that was normal, and she said it was.

It took about 20 minutes. The baby was moving a lot but the tech barely paused between pictures so we could see it moving a little bit. After the 20 minutes was over, with literally NO speaking on her part, she said, "OK, you're done, I have to see if the doctor wants to look at this since you said the quad screen said you have a higher risk of Downs (blood test that said I have a 1 in 40 chance instead of the 1 in 120 that is usual for my age).

Then she came back and was like "You need to come back in 3 weeks." Then she started moving the chair from lying to sitting with all of the gel still all over my stomach and I had to ask for something to wipe it off with, while my pants were down around my ass. She said I could use the paper towels but didn't make any effort to get them for me. They were about 5 feet away. I said, "So, should I get them myself?" My mom got up and got them. It was quite uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Then that was it. I was like "Uh, should I be worried?" She said no and that everything looked normal but that I needed to come back because it was too early to check certain things in the brain (I'm assuming having to do with Downs). I asked her if she could tell if it was a boy or girl, and even though I had SAID when she was doing the test "Where's the genetalia?", and she laughed, she said "Oh did you want to know?" YES, you stupid bitch!!!!

So she said "I think it's a boy." "Uh, what do you mean, you THINK?" "Well, I can't guarantee anything." Could she have shown us what she thought were "boy parts" during the ultrasound?

So we're going to wait until we talk to the doctor and then decide if it's even worth it to get another ultrasound. If I do, I will request to NOT have that woman do it for me.

It was like she was working in a factory and had no clue whatsoever how monumental a moment this was for us. If my doctor thinks there might be a treatable problem that they can detect, we'll get the test, if not, we're going to plow ahead.

I wish I could just say "Everything is great and it's a boy!"

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jimma sez:

What a totally bizarre experience. The tech barely even looked at us during the whole procedure -- in fact, most of the time, she was turned away from us.

After discussing this later, Greta and I decided that there's no point in any further tests, in less they're for something that's treatable in utero. If the results of the tests are purely informational, it's just not worth going through the anxiety to get the information -- especially since the information is usually inconclusive, as was the case with the quad screening: "Before this test, we estimated you had a 1 in 125 chance of having a Down's baby; these results indicate that you actually have a 1 in 40 chance." Uh, okay -- so we can either panic at the thought that our chances have increased by 300%, or consider that the odds are still 97.75% in favor having a non-Down's baby. And since we've already decided that we're going to keep the baby either way, what's the point of having that information?

So unless there's something that we can actually do with the results, no more tests. It's almost certain that we're going to have a normal, healthy baby, and we don't need to be having a bunch of tests for horrific diseases and syndromes that we won't be able to deal with until it's born anyway.

PS: Check out this crappy ultrasound picture that the Robotech handed us nonchalantly just before we parted ways (forever, I hope). The wall of the examination room was plastered with dozens of cool 3D ultrasound images -- and this is what we get? It looks like Admiral Ackbar, for god's sake!