It’s been such a difficult 5 days, with every emotion possible being felt. The waiting game has been harder than any of the time between discovering we were pregnant and that golden 12 week scan. It has only been 5 days. As I walked through the doors into the antenatal reception I felt a jolt of dread flood inside me. Friday has definitely left me vulnerable and it felt horrible to walk back into a place I had left so unsure and scared.
I knew we were walking in with more knowledge behind us. Yesterday the great news that the bloods taken for CMV, toxoplasmosis, herpes simplex and rubella had all come back normal. I – and in turn – Mini Lloyd do not have a infection. Yippee!
We were called into a different scan room, and a consultant lady came in. She was very nice, very calming and explained she wanted to rescan, check all measurements again and we would go from there.
The same check list with all the same positive “yup, that’s great” were ticked off like last week. We saw even more detail, we could see Mini Lloyd’s legs, ankles, feet and toes, we saw Mini Lloyd’s arm, elbows, hands and fingers. When she moved over to the brain and head we got a beautiful profile and then front of face view. We could see the nose, and even the nostrils! mouth and chin. Mini Lloyd looks beautiful.
So the bowel. Yes she agreed, as the others have, that it is “brighter” than it is normally, but she focused in deeper and felt that it was the lower section of the bowel towards the rectum. That itself is an improvement on last Friday – (Yay way to go Mini Lloyd)
Her most likely explanation is that there has been an “intra amniotic cavity bleed” that Mini Lloyd has swallowed and which I would never have been aware of. So in other words I would like to interpret this as during one of those extremely bad, motion sickness moments, when I was vomiting into a loo, Mini Lloyd may have experienced some turbulence and kicked or scratched the side of placenta wall and then swallowed a bit of blood. Not nice to think about at all, but very thankfully harmless.
She told us that this brightening on the bowel has been seen as a soft marker for Cystic Fibrosis, however as it is in isolation it is unlikely to be CF. The best course of action is to screen me and find out whether I have the carrier marker in my DNA, if I don’t have this then Mini Lloyd cannot have Cystic Fibrosis. (Both Daddy Lloyd and I have to be carriers before CF can be inherited) They start with testing just the Mother, so Daddy Lloyd sighed relief at not having to face a blood test today.
Phew – So? Where are we? In a positive position I think – on Friday I was left with the complete fear that we might lose this baby, that for me was the most devastating part of Friday. Knowing there is no infection is such a relief and at the end of the day Mini Lloyd is currently very safe tucked up inside me (in my pelvis to be exact as three different scans have had to encourage the cheeky little one out so all views and measurements could be taken).
Whatever the outcome, whether this has all been a false alarm, will be Cystic Fibrosis or Down Syndrome it really doesn’t matter to us, our baby, our Mini Lloyd, is growing well and will be making his/her way into the world in November. Whatever curveball life decides to throw at us at that point, then so be it.
I know the strength of Team Lloyd will see us through, the love Daddy Lloyd and I have to give this little one, what a fantastic caring Big Sister B Lloyd will make and what great strength of support and love we would receive from our family and friends.
So for now, I’m going to continue to bloom grow Mini Lloyd and make them as comfy as possible, there is another 19 weeks of cooking left to go!