Week 28 Ultrasound Exam
Hello to you all and thank you for your prayers!
Today we had an ultrasound exam. The results were very favorable.
Our sonographer, Kathleen, had 11 years experience, proficient with the machine and she was informative. We also had a student, Penny, sit in on the exam.
Today's exam looked at mom's cervex, the placenta, and Xavier's brain, kidneys, stomach, bladder, amniotic fluid, heart, umbilical (with dopplers), femur length and humorous length. Xavier once again frustrated both sonographer and doctor from seeing his lips, now the one piece of data University Hospital still wants to get on film.
The cervex was strong and had a good thickness for this point in the pregnancy.
This is the first sonogram I remember that looked at the placenta (if it was looked at previously, I didn't know what we were looking at). By the time the doctor came in to explain the results to us, I forgot these measurements were done, so did not ask about them. The doctor did not comment.
Xavier's brain looks good. No abnormal amounts of fluid and blood flow clean and strong.
His kidneys looked fine, his bladder was nearly empty today (unlike mom's. Rebecca wanted to address that problem, but Kathleen said a full bladder would give her better images of several items). This is the first time we've seen an empty bladder. At this point, I will report his amnio fluid measurement was at 3.1 cm, a slight increase over last week, the bulk of the fluid still around his head and chest.
His heart was strong (150+ bpm) and well-formed, his femur and humorous well-formed. His stomach appeared healthy.
His dopplers were good, and back on the normal range (last week they were in the high end of normal). I asked to have a printout of one of the dopplers so I could post it, but we learned that the technicians are not allowed to print out anything that needs to be interpreted by a doctor.
We spent several minutes watching Xavier practice his suckling, his mouth and chin moving so wonderfully. At one point he was sucking on his umbilical. Because his umbilical was so near his mouth today no clean lip images could be obtained.
The waist measurement put Xavier at 1 lb and 7 oz, an increase of more than 4 ounces (140 grams) and puts Xavier in the second percentile. Xavier's growth development is at about 24 weeks, which means in two weeks since his last growth measurement he has grown two weeks worth. (last growth measurement had Xavier at 22 weeks). The doctor, though still terse, seemed more amiable today. She did underscore Xavier is still small (he is about a pound behind where he should be)
I was a little disappointed at the 2% value, but excited by everything else, especially since Xavier nearly met his goal of 200 grams!
Rebecca is doing well. She has learned when to recognize (without the use of a clock) when her blood pressure meds are needed. This has been helpful the last couple of days when we've missed the afternoon time a bit because we were otherwise occupied.
Once again, thank you for your prayers! We worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for His goodness, thanking Him for His hand on both Rebecca and Xavier.
A profile of Xavier. You can see one of his hands below his chin and a good shot of his nose.
This is another profile, a still shot of him suckling. There is a bit of his umbilical in the shot (it's not his hand this time)
This is a nice shot of Xavier's face from an angle looking from the top of the head.