More from the annals of modern medicine

Yesterday was my follow-up ultrasound. It was also my monthly check up with the midwives.

In the past three weeks I've worked hard to stay in a positive emotional place with the whole possibility of Trisomy 18. Intellectually I just knew the risk was so low that it was practically non-existent. BUT, I was also aware that emotionally I wasn't quite in the same place. When my mind started to wander to that place where it loves to churn and churn and churn, I tried to take a deep breath and shift my focus to imagining the cyst getting smaller until all that was left was just a healthy little baby brain.

Up first was a check in with the midwives. Part of what I love about them as opposed to an OB is that they really strive to just let you be pregnant (not that some OBs don't do that too, but the midwives are open about being less medical model than an OB). Don't get me wrong, were I someone who was high risk for things I would for sure make the choice to go with the medical care that would be best which would probably be an OB in a hospital setting. But, I'm not. I know things can go wrong fast in a delivery which is why I love this particular practice. They have multiple offices around Cambridge, but you deliver at Mt. Auburn where specialists are a page away if need be.  But if you don't need them you can just labor on and pop your kiddo out on your own terms. This particular midwife is one of my favorite. Probably in her late 50's early 60's, three grown girls, no-nonsense, but also very warm. She was on duty right after I delivered Ella and is one of the highlights of that birthing experience for me.

As we chatted, I mentioned that I was going to the hospital after seeing her for this second ultrasound to check the growth of the baby. She sort of gave me a look and said, "there is no reason for you to have to go through another ultrasound". I explained my experience of the first one and how over the last three weeks I've come to realize that a lot of my issue was with the way in which the OB delivered the news and talked about it. Her response was that this was someone new(ish) and they are beginning to hear similar things from other patients - that he is a bit more 'medical model' than he professes. He laid out this whole plan to me that we'd check the baby's growth, then we could move on to an amnio and then decide to terminate if need be.

What Megan the midwife had to give me was a handout saying that this cyst in the brain was almost never an indicator for T18 (a handout created by an OB at Mass General). There was no need for him to lay out that plan as it just heightened my anxiety in a most unfounded way.

Once at the hospital, I saw the same ultrasound tech who was super nice (though she got the goop all over the waistband of my skirt....). It was a quicker survey than the first time and throughout the boy was kick, kick, kicking away. His kicks are strong enough now that you can really feel them on the outside and he kept kicking her the more she'd push on him to get a picture. (I was secretly cheering him on).



She left and we waited for the OB to come in and tell us what was up. It was a different OB this time. It was the guy I saw at the 13 week ultrasound whom I really, really liked. He walked through the door and said "I love everything I see on this ultrasound. The cyst has totally disappeared and the baby weighs about 15.5 ounces, right on track." He said "I'll be in touch with Megan to see if she wants to order another ultrasound to check growth". It wasn't lost on me that he thought a midwife had ordered this test, not his fellow OB.

I think Ben and I were both a bit incredulous. The OB last time had told us the cyst might go away but it wouldn't be gone by the time we came in for the ultrasound yesterday.

Alls well that ends well. I'm happy to just move on to the last half of this journey and let my little guy grow away (not incidentally, I was prepared to be fully pissed if I'd gained four pounds in the last month and the fetus hadn't grown at all). I'm sure he'll give me plenty to worry about once he's on the outside, but for now he can just keep on cookin' in there.