Baby has grown to 5.37 cm! That’s double the size the last time we visited. Hmm, my tummy does seemed a little bigger. As she pressed down on my tummy and zoomed in, we were delighted to see the little one moving a little of his leg. We could see the features more clearly now and there’s tiny fingers! The heartbeat blinked strongly on the screen. phew! The specialist cheerfully pointed out the baby’s arm resting on the eye.

What she needed to do was to measure the neck thickness(NT) to determine the risk of Down Syndrome. She tried pressing and jiggling a little to get the baby to turn so she can measure more accurately. Baby seemed to be asleep… hmm..not active at all.

Then after a while, baby suddenly bounced up and thus she could take the measurement. We laughed seeing the little one bouncing. However, baby quickly went back to sleep and no matter how she probed, bb refuse to move further.

She then told me to cough a bit to get the baby moving.. but alas, no amount of coughing could wake the baby up. She said, ‘we can see there’s two arms and two legs, everything is proportionate.. good’. ha.. I’ve never thought about that part of abnormalities at all.. yar. What if the baby is missing one limb or has joined limb? I’m glad he/she is healthy.

I remembered my mum saying, ‘When I gave birth, the first thing I look for in the baby is whether the legs and arms are in place and check the number of fingers and toes.’ In her time, ultrasound was not available and there’s no way of knowing how the baby will be and one can only pray. I’m glad that modern technology has made it possible for us to see baby once a month. At 20 wks, there’s going to be a detailed scan on the baby to check for abnormalities like hole in the heart, kidneys problems etc. It’s actually compulsory to do that nowadays.

The results when explained by the doctor later was very good. The risk of baby having Down Syndrome is only 1 in 4159 which is very very low.

The doctor took both our blood to do tests. Mine would be for HIV, STD, Thalassaemia and other pregnancy risks diseases. Hubby’s blood is going for the Thalassaemia test only. Testing for Thalasaemia is important because it is genetically inherited and causes formation of abnormal haemoglobin, an important component of blood and a patient would have to depend on blood transfusion for life.

We asked her about the drying skin under my lips afterwards and she said it’s due to slight eczema. I have been having this reddish path of skin for several weeks now. I was given a cream to apply, calcium and multi-vitamin pills to take.

The next visit will be for the 16th week… in woodlands night clinic. I wonder if I will be able to see the baby’s gender by then?

Stats
Mummy: Weight= 46.9 kg ( it dropped!! due to my vomiting and poor appetite…)
BB: Length= 5.37cm
ETD: 19th July 2008

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