Introducing: Pistachio the Magnificent!

Today we drove to Walnut Creek for our NT Scan. This test measures the amount of fluid under the skin at the back of the neck of the baby and combined with the results of a blood test create the "First Trimester Screening". It is used to estimate the risk of Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome) and Trisomy 18 (another, more severe, chromosomal abnormality). While the results wouldn't change our minds about this baby, we thought it would be good to know ahead of time to be able to plan and learn as much as we can about it, if in fact, our child would have one of these. Plus, who were we to turn down a 30 minute appointment dedicated solely to looking at our little one!

Our appointment was at 2:15 so I took off from work at about 11. We stopped by the Kaiser hospital in Walnut Creek to visit Thomas who was admitted last night. The office we were having the appointment at was literally only 3 blocks away, but we allowed 30 minutes to get there from Kaiser. Somehow we managed to get lost. I entered the address wrong into the GPS and ended up at the other hospital instead of the medical offices and we almost missed our appointment. After looking at the paperwork and putting the right address in the GPS (which I should have done in the first place, but hindsight is 20/20) , we finally made it to our appointment with 5 minutes to spare!

Once we arrived and checked in, we were called in almost immediately. We had the most amazing tech. She was so enthusiastic and friendly. As soon as she started the ultrasound she said the baby was asleep so it was easy for her to take the measurements she needed. It scared me at first that s/he wasn't moving, but once I saw the heartbeat I was perfectly content just sitting there looking at our little one.

Once she was done the Perinatologist came in. Evidently it is standard procedure in this office for the doctor to come in at the end of every appointment. By the time the he came in the baby had woken up and was moving around and jumping and even waving at us. He did some more scans and we got even more pictures (6 total!).

I can't believe how awesome this office was! I would gladly drive the hour to their office if they'd take me as a patient. But apparently we are not considered "high risk". Apparently the doctor is a fan of the winery I work for so he said he would trade wine for a 4D u/s! The tech tried and it was not very good obviously -- Justin said it looked like claymation. She said that since we are using their genetic counselors we can opt for one more appointment and if we want to come back for our gender determination at their office she'd schedule us for an hour ultrasound and do another 4D one then. We scheduled our next appointment with them for March 22 to find out the gender!

After all was said and done, the results were good. Saw a nice strong heartbeat (167) and it was great to see the baby moving around looking happy. Justin has dubbed this baby Pistachio, and after all the acrobatics we saw today, is now calling him/her Pistachio the Magnificent. So without further ado...

Count 'em -- 1, 2, 3, 4 fingers and a thumb!