Baby Girl Update

We had our 22 week ultrasound scan today. It's been 4 weeks since our last ultrasound, and the goal for today was to make sure the baby is growing proportionally due to the abnormalities the doctors found in our last scan. Although she seems to be developing well, the doctor did find another abnormality today that they are a bit concerned about. According to most of her measurements (brain, head, arms, overall size, etc.) she is measuring between 21-22 weeks. I am 22 1/2 weeks so those measurements, although a little small, are still within normal range. However, her femur bone length (thigh/leg bones) is only measuring 19 weeks. In many cases this is considered a marker for Downs Syndrome. Right now she measures in the 6th percentile for femur length, and usually Downs babies fall within the 5th percentile or below.

So now we have 3 markers for Downs: the abnormal blood test, the 2-vessel cord, and the small femur bone length. The doctor encouraged us to get an amniocentesis so that we could know for sure, but I had already made up my mind that I'm not willing to take that risk. On the bright side, there weren't any other indications or abnormalities. The doctor said that a short humorous bone (arm/shoulder) is a much stronger indication of Downs than the short femur, and a combination of a short humorous AND femur is almost a definitive sign. In our case, the baby's humerous measures well within normal range, but of course this could change as she continues to grow.

As expected we are absorbing and digesting the newest findings. Since we've declined the amnio test, there is no way to know for sure whether our baby girl will have Downs until she arrives. Until then, we are thinking positively and praying for her health and development. In any case, we will love her unconditionally and can't wait to meet her. And as always, we appreciate your thoughts and prayers on this baby's behalf.

Below are the latest sonogram pictures to share with you. I'll give a description of each, although some of them are hard to see!

Here is her profile, nose pointed to top of picture.

Here is a cute picture of her legs. Her knees are off to left, bent with her feet dangling off the right of the picture.

Here is a shot of a hand - she has those 4 fingers spread wide apart.

Like last time, we have another picture as proof that she is a girl. This picture shows her little bottom towards the middle of the screen - nothing dangling in between those leg bones!

For those of you that are good at this stuff, here is a side-by-side shot of baby girl's profile (left) next to Connor's 20 week profile (right). We think their facial profiles are very similar!