New Baby!

It's a boy!  He moves a lot and is happily bumping around in there. Here he is at 20-some weeks with his hand in his mouth.

As my OB/GYN said at one appointment, this pregnancy has been just a little TOO exciting.

FIRST, we found that I had antibodies against "little c" antigen.  That is the same phenomenon that happens with the more common D antigen, otherwise known as "Rhesus factor".  So, little c is another antigen present on blood cells that moms can develop antibodies to if they are negative, and their first baby is positive.  Then, if there is any contact between those antibodies and second baby's blood, those fetal red blood cells are attacked and the second baby can become anemic. Unfortunately, little c antigen is rare enough that there is no treatment for it (like they have Rhogam against D antigen), except for fetal transfusion - which is scary and has some risks. So, constant monitoring of antibody titers and baby's blood flow throughout the pregnancy. So far, they have stayed low despite Mina thumping my belly and saying "hey baby".

NEXT, we did a genetic screen and learned that I am a cystic fibrosis carrier!  Yikes!  This was unexpected, seeing as we don't have any cystic fibrosis in the family (and it is actually less common in Asians than Caucasians).  This news put us on the edge of our seats while we waited for Dan to get tested.  The test results took ages to come back which caused a significant amount of stress, but luckily Dan is negative.  Phew.  That means no risk to the baby although he might be a carrier.

FINALLY, you'd think that would be the end of surprises, but during our 20-week ultrasound, baby's brain ventricles were measuring a little on the large size.  So, we followed up with more sonograms, which showed further increases in one ventricle after 2 weeks. This measurement showed borderline ventriculomegaly (~9.5 mm), and borderline asymmetry too (~2.5 mm larger than the other ventricle). A followup with an MRI gave similar results, which means something else to track throughout development.