Friday, February 29, 2008
Caitlin Julianne Vargas!
Today we had our genetic sonogram and needless to say, Peanut's grown quite a bit since the last time we saw her in December. Yes, SHE's growing quite nicely. We found out "without question" from 2 different doctors that Peanut is a girl. We can now start calling her by her name - Caitlin Julianne Vargas. (Although we may continue to use 'Peanut' as a nick-name) Right now she's about 6 inches long and weighs about half a pound. The doctor said that there are no signs of any problems and that everything looks great. It was truly amazing to see. I'll update more later, but for now enjoy the pics!!! :)
Monday, February 25, 2008
Starting to show
We don't really have any news to report as we still haven't heard back about the sonogram. In the meantime, we thought you might enjoy this picture. We just hit the 4.5 month mark.
Friday, February 15, 2008
98.67%
Week 17 marked another appointment for us. We had mixed feelings about it. The Doctor told us that judging by Toni's blood test from last week, the risk of us having a baby with Down Syndrome is a little higher than normal. A normal risk level for a 36 year old woman is about 1 out of 200. Meaning that 1 out of every 200 births will be a baby with Down Syndrome. Our risk is 1 out of 75. Initially hearing this news was a little disturbing. Then we did the math. Rather than focusing on the negative sounding numbers we were given, we looked at the positive. So in normal cases, the baby is absolutely healthy 99.5% of the time. In our case, we have a 98.67% chance of having a healthy baby. Still pretty good odds..
We won't be seeing the doctor again until March 19th but in the meantime, they are scheduling an appointment with a "Genetic Sonogram" Doctor. This Doctor is supposedly more adept at spotting visual problems associated with Down Syndrome. Hopefully they won't find any problems. They will also give us the option for having amniocentesis at that appointment. Toni and I are still feeling the same about it - we're not going to do it. With a 98.67% chance of the baby being healthy, the only thing that might change our mind is if something major shows up with the sonogram. At this point though, we wouldn't terminate the pregnancy anyway so there's really not much point.
Which brings us back to the sonogram.. We are both very excited about that appointment. We both hope nothing is wrong with Peanut and we can't wait to find out if it's a "he" or "she". Hopefully we'll be able to find out soon. I'll keep everyone posted as we learn more and as soon as we find out when the appointment is.
This week we also heard Peanut's heartbeat again. Everything sounded good and in was chugging along at around 140 BPM's!
Check out what's happening in week 17!
http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week17.asp
We won't be seeing the doctor again until March 19th but in the meantime, they are scheduling an appointment with a "Genetic Sonogram" Doctor. This Doctor is supposedly more adept at spotting visual problems associated with Down Syndrome. Hopefully they won't find any problems. They will also give us the option for having amniocentesis at that appointment. Toni and I are still feeling the same about it - we're not going to do it. With a 98.67% chance of the baby being healthy, the only thing that might change our mind is if something major shows up with the sonogram. At this point though, we wouldn't terminate the pregnancy anyway so there's really not much point.
Which brings us back to the sonogram.. We are both very excited about that appointment. We both hope nothing is wrong with Peanut and we can't wait to find out if it's a "he" or "she". Hopefully we'll be able to find out soon. I'll keep everyone posted as we learn more and as soon as we find out when the appointment is.
This week we also heard Peanut's heartbeat again. Everything sounded good and in was chugging along at around 140 BPM's!
Check out what's happening in week 17!
http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week17.asp
Friday, February 1, 2008
NO MORE INSULIN!!
You read right, Toni has been taken completely off the insulin for the next 2 weeks to see how things go! :) Her levels have always been coming back very good and sometimes even low so the Doctor agreed to take her off the insulin to see how things go. Obviously, we are both very excited about that! :)
Other than that, we heard Peanut's heartbeat again and this time I recorded a 15 second sound clip on my phone. I'm not sure if I can transfer it to a computer or not but at least we can share that with our friends and family when we see you. Our next appointment is on Friday 2/15 and at that appointment, the Doctor will schedule a more in depth exam and we should find out if Peanut is a boy or a girl. We also talked to the Doctor about amniocentesis but we're about 99% certain that we're not going to do it. As the Doctor pointed out, there's nothing they can do if they find a problem so it's really only information at this point. The real question is, if something is wrong, would we terminate the pregnancy. Toni and I have decided that we'll take our chances and that the risks of amnio (which causes no problem 95.5% of the time), and the invasiveness of it aren't something we're willing to do just for information that won't change anything anyway.
We're off to Brownsville tomorrow morning for Toni's dads 85th birthday. We'll be coming home Sunday morning so I can watch the Super Bowl. For those of you who would like to know even more information about how the baby is developing, check out this great link. This is for week 15, which we started on Thursday, January 31st. http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week15.asp
Other than that, we heard Peanut's heartbeat again and this time I recorded a 15 second sound clip on my phone. I'm not sure if I can transfer it to a computer or not but at least we can share that with our friends and family when we see you. Our next appointment is on Friday 2/15 and at that appointment, the Doctor will schedule a more in depth exam and we should find out if Peanut is a boy or a girl. We also talked to the Doctor about amniocentesis but we're about 99% certain that we're not going to do it. As the Doctor pointed out, there's nothing they can do if they find a problem so it's really only information at this point. The real question is, if something is wrong, would we terminate the pregnancy. Toni and I have decided that we'll take our chances and that the risks of amnio (which causes no problem 95.5% of the time), and the invasiveness of it aren't something we're willing to do just for information that won't change anything anyway.
We're off to Brownsville tomorrow morning for Toni's dads 85th birthday. We'll be coming home Sunday morning so I can watch the Super Bowl. For those of you who would like to know even more information about how the baby is developing, check out this great link. This is for week 15, which we started on Thursday, January 31st. http://www.babiesonline.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week15.asp
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