Kevin and I were armed with our data ( Kevin so kindly made multiple spread sheets tracking our baby's femur's growth referencing norms and stats.) and list of questions for our appointment with the perinatologist. Thankfully he was pretty prompt so there was minimal agony waiting for answers.
We saw Dr. Graham today. He is my least favorite in the practice, but, hey, beggers shouldn't be choosey when you need an expert to confirm or deny whether there is anything wrong with your baby. I think he is just one of those so smart people that he has minimal personality and wears odd jewelry and puts way too much gel in his hair. Anyhoo..
Typically, these peris are FAST with the sonos! So fast you can't even remember why you are there and what you wanted to ask. This is why we were armed with our list of hand written questions. This was our last shot to find out if there was any merit to the baby's poorly progressing femur growth before we actually meet the baby.
Luckily, he was thorough. We specifically requested he check the humerus bone so we could see if the bone length was proportional to the femur. He also checked about every other bone in the body as well. He looked at this baby from top to bottom. The heart, the ventricles in the brain, the kidneys, every inch of the legs and arms and noted how the baby had its ankles crossed, if the knees on each leg seemed to be in the same location on either leg, if the arms and legs flowed and had a natural progression visually. I was so relieved I wasn't having to force him to be thorough and he wasn't rushing the exam. This was exactly what we needed and wanted. In my opinion, their exams should look like this every time for as much as they charge for their sonograms. Holy cow---$2,000. Luckily at this point in the game for us, we can rely on our insurance that I'm quite sure hates me.
We asked a lot of questions and he gave us a lot of answers. We let him know we were there to rule out skeletal dysplasia based on serial growth measurements over the last couple of months showing the baby's femur was approx. 5-6 weeks behind, with no growth in the last two weeks. So he looked and looked and looked and took multiple measurements of every bone in the body to get solid averages.
Drum roll, please..the baby is perfectly and wonderfully proportionate and beautiful. No abnormalities seen...anywhere. But here is the kicker, the amazing part of the story. He took many, many measurements of the femurs to make sure he got a good average. His numbers were far different than the many, many numbers we have gotten from our OB's office when they have measured the baby's femurs. And it's always the same person measuring at our OB's office, so it's not like there could be an error due to two different measuring techniques. We're talking three weeks different. And in femur terms, 3 weeks is A LOT! We asked Dr. Graham about this and he had no explanation other than to say the numbers don't lie. And he feels confident in the numbers he was getting today. Whether there was just a fluke something going on multiple times at my OB's office with their sonograms or not, I guess it doesn't matter at this point. One thing we do know is that God is The Great physician and healer.
On a different note, he had quite the opinion on when I should deliver. He is recommending to my OB that if I don't spontaneously deliver by the beginning of next week, for me to be induced sometime next week. This means a week earlier than I want. He was very adamant that I do not need to go past 41 weeks. I told him that I want Mother Nature to do her thing. His response, which I thought was a joke and actually busted out laughing, but quickly realized I was the only one laughing, " Mother nature doesn't always have the best things planned for you."..Isn't that funny?!
I then went on to say that I believe the body is designed for labor. His response, " Well, your body was also supposed to be designed to be able to conceive, yet it couldn't and you needed to go to IVF. ( Nice one, doc) So if that's broken on the front end, maybe the ticker on the back end is broken too. And once you get past 41 weeks the risk for lots of things going wrong climbs.You need to be proactive rather than reactive. You need to control the situation. And since this is an IVF baby you need to safeguard your investment and minimize all risks. So you need to induce as to not go past 41 weeks." He also went on to say that since my body is favorable at 1-2 cm and 90%, that there is minimal concern with going through with an induction, in his opinion.
Hmmmm....I do have to say he makes a good point about there being good indicators that my body may be broken ' on the back end' too. I mean, this whole journey has been an uphill battle. One does have to consider historical data. Although God is bigger and more powerful than any historical data trend line. I'll be following up with my OB to see what her thoughts are, although I'm fairly certain she is going to agree and want to put me on the induction schedule for next week.
I'll sleep on it and pray about it.
The more important thing about today's visit: we have a beautiful, perfect baby Bean who does not appear to have Down Syndrome or Dwarfism as we were warned about!! Praise, praise, praise!! I prayed boldly and the Lord came through boldly. He/she is estimated to weigh 7 pounds and 1 ounce as of today. My sweet petite thing.
Here is a a pic of all the baby's bone stats from today's visit. This is really more for my benefit and future reference.
Feelin incredibly thankful! Much love to all of you who have prayed for us and offered your kind support. It means so much to us.
PRAISE GOD! I am SO very happy for you guys, what a relief!!
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