The First Alarm

It seems almost forever ago that we had our second ultrasound and started on this weird new path.  Although the second ultrasound is typically slated at 20 weeks, for insurance purposes we waited until week 27.  Due to the MaterniT 21 test we knew our baby was healthy, and that we were going to have a bouncing baby girl.  She is a bouncy one.  I've been feeling her shift around since week 16.

After what appeared to be a routine ultrasound, the sonographer mentioned that sometimes the radiologist doctor likes to come in and make sure all the images were done correctly.  Even though that didn't happen the first time, my husband and I didn't bat an eye at the thought of someone coming in and telling us more about how perfect our little baby is.  So it was indeed a crazy surprise when we were informed that our baby has a bump on her nose, and that we would need to go to a specialist for a second opinion ultrasound.  He said that best case scenario it was just a cluster of blood cells that would go away after awhile, and have a nice day.  With that we were quickly ushered into the hallway and the cold world of reality.

Having not ever heard of babies with bumps on noses, I wasn't sure what to expect. A cluster of blood cells at first sounds horrible.  For some reason my thoughts turned to that scene in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when poor Rudy's parents panic and cover their offspring's nose.  Prior to this day I thought they were kind of mean parents.  But that day I understood.  They were only trying to protect their child from mean reindeer who wouldn't let Rudolph play any in any reindeer games.  I had visions of my sweet daughter running to me crying because someone wouldn't let her play because of a thing on her nose.  Of course that made me cry.

My husband did not take the news much better.  Mostly because we were told that blood clusters were the best case scenario.  If that's the best (and in my opinion the best option would be the news that the sonographer was wrong), what is the worst, and why aren't they telling us?  It was a long, long week between appointments, and during that time we poured over the images from the ultrasound, and had no idea what we were even looking at.  So I felt pretty sure that there was nothing wrong with my baby girl. And I held on to that hope until the second ultrasound.