Quick update

Just quickly checking while I have laptop access. We had the follow-up fetal MRI last week, and everything looked good - it was all clear - WHEW!!!!! Such a huge relief. I'm not sure if they could tell why it looked weird, I see my obstetrician on Tuesday so will ask him then. All I wanted to know was that everything was fine :)

The moving is going well. We've at the new place since Sunday and it's feeling and looking more like a home now. We still need to get our internet sorted out so we can have MythTV, wireless internet etc., but that should all be set up by Monday hopefully.

We still need to empty our storage area, the last bits and pieces from the kitchen and closet, and a few other random things lying around from the old place, but otherwise we're almost there!

The new house is definitely bigger, the old place seems so small when I go back now! But the extra space and many windows we now have means it's significantly colder! The back yard area is really nice - there's lots of squirrels and birds out there, so I need to get some feeders out so the kitties can watch them :) The cats are settling in ok. Smudge is loving it, she's now back to following me everywhere, exploring everything, and generally seems pretty happy. She also loves the back yard. It's got a high fence, so I'm happy for her to explore out there without worrying she'll escape. Lily is generally staying under the bed during the day, but she's happy enough otherwise - she comes out regularly for pats, cuddles with me at night, and explores mostly at night time. She comes out to eat, drink and use the litter tray, so that's fine. I now have their small cat tree in our bedroom by the glass sliding door to the balcony, so she can sit there and watch the critters which she seems to like.

So generally, all is good :)

20 week ultrasound

We had our 20 week ultrasound and it delivered mixed news. For a start it's a girl, and pretty much everything looks great - yay! There's just one thing that wasn't as it should be. Apparently they normally see something called the "cavum septum pellucidum" by this time in the baby's brain, and they couldn't see it in our little girl :( So it's either there, and for whatever reason it wasn't obvious or not quite developed enough, which is the likely problem and everything is fine, or it isn't there and means there's most likely other problems with the brain. There's no clear data on what this actually means or may mean, and we don't know how many babies at the 20 week ultrasound don't have an obvious cavum septum pellucidum.

I did find this website which gives you a bit of idea though "Individuals with ASP (absent septum pellucidum) may experience vision impairment or blindness. They may also have coordination problems and hormone deficiencies that result in short stature. Intelligence is usually affected and learning disabilities are common."

So I need to get a fetal MRI on January 19 which should confirm whether it is there or not, and if not it should give a clearer picture of what's happening in the brain. We'll also meet with a pediatric neurologist to talk about what it all means.

I had the option of getting an amniocentesis yesterday where they use a long needle to draw out amniotic fluid through my belly and then grow the cells they find and test them for chromosomal abnormalities. There's an ~1 in 400 chance of miscarriage from the procedure itself and when were in the waiting room for the procedure I started doubting whether it was worth it. Results would take 2 weeks anyway, and the MRI will show us if we need to worry in the first place. It didn't seem worth taking the risk of the amnio just to find out IF there was a chromosomal problem. If there was something they could detect, we wouldn't terminate anyway - it's too far along for me to be comfortable with given how strong her movements are now, and it seems to be a problem where the baby would have quality of life even if there was a problem, and that's the main thing to me. So we decided against the amnio, at least for now.

It's been pretty stressful, but that seems to be the way our life goes!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My oh my, it's been a busy couple of weeks. We now have the keys to our new house - yay! There's a few things we want to get done before we move in, and unfortunately that list of things keeps growing, and it's all stuff that should really get done before we move, to the cost is blowing out more as well!

Andrew's been very busy with work, so I've been running around getting quotes from various contractors, organising the new kitchen, and doing other odd jobs that seem to keep coming up.

We spent 5 days in Atlanta with friends for Christmas, which was lovely. The Peikerts used to live a few doors down from us, and moved to Atlanta mid-'09, and they're the closest thing to family over here so it was great to spend a few days just relaxing with them.

Junior seems to be growing well, my belly has really popped out the last couple of weeks, and one of my pairs of jeans that fit fine before I went to Atlanta are suddenly too tight to be done up, so I'm finally having to wear my "Belly Band". I've just started feeling the little one wriggling out a bit more the last couple of days which has been exciting. We had a fetal echo to check junior's heart and everything looks great. We get the big anatomy ultrasound this Thursday coming and we'll find out then whether junior is a Henry or a Henrietta :)

New Years was quiet, Andrew was working until about 8:45pm, and I was exhausted and had a headache that was coming and going the entire day, so we were asleep by midnight! Exciting lives we lead :)

I hope everyone had a happy 2010, and we'll certainly be hoping ours is drama-free!