20 week ultrasound

Yesterday's ultrasound went fantastic! Baby boy's heart is perfect. His anatomy is still perfect. Everything is going just smoothly. Based on such a good review, our risks for a baby with Ds decreased further by 50-70%. I'm not so good with numbers, but my quad screen risk assessment was 1 in 77 which is about 1.2% risk. If that decreases by another 50-70%, that means what, my risk is down to 0.03-0.05% risk? Those odds sound pretty darn good to me. =)

Yesterday I also learned that the length of my cervix is perfect, or as the doctor described it "beautiful" so no risk of preterm labor there. Interestingly, I also have anterior placenta, which just means that your placenta is growing towards the front of my uterus (rather than positioned closer to my back side), meaning that there's an extra cushion (the placenta) between baby and my belly muscles. The position of the placenta doesn't really affect your baby at all, but it could muffle my baby's movements and cause me to feel baby's movements later than others. Doc said this isn't always the case with someone with anterior placenta, and I'm not sure if its a factor in my baby movement feelings. Right now, I do feel baby boy, and have been since about 15 weeks, but perhaps those feelings could be a lot stronger than what they are. If that's the case, I'm kinda grateful, b/c that means maybe he'll be waking me up a lot less at night and have less kicks that are somewhat painful because I've got some extra padding to soften his blows. Eh, who knows. Not a big deal to me.

I also found out baby boy already weighs 1 lb! That's cool, because according to most websites and the WTE book, babies generally measure about 10 oz, so that means he's a smidge bigger than the average. Doc said that baby boy's measurements are right on schedule for how far along I am and so far my due date is still the same.

Baby boy is currently positioned head down (towards my cervix) and facing sunny side up (towards my tummy).

Let's see, what else did I learn. Oh yeah, this will be my last ultrasound with the perinatologist (unless there are other complications), so that's a good thing and bad thing. Good b/c who wants complications, not me! But bad b/c that may be the last I see of the firecracker till birth.

Ok, now for the cool stuff. the pictures! Baby boy was moving around a lot, as usual, so the profile pictures aren't the greatest, but nevertheless, I'm still a proud mommy.

Here's a couple profile pics. (with his legs cut off, hope that means he's long/tall).
In the first photo, you can see his umbilical cord just above his body:




Here's a profile picture with him waving and saying "Hi Mommy & Daddy!"


Here's a couple photos of his "man parts" and yup, he's quite clearly a boy!!!


The Doc zoomed in for this one, and I made the following comment (which caused him to chuckle and put it on the picture:)


And last but not least, here's a couple profile pictures with baby boy moving his body a bit. Notice in the second one, the doc pointed out that we can see his little peepee (look for the arrow):






That's all for today. Overall, it was an excellent 20 week and 1 day photo session for the firecracker! DH and I are overjoyed to have a healthy little boy. Thank you God for our miracle. =)