9 wks 5 days

That's right, I am 9 wks 5 days along as of today and am officially counting down the days until my next big appointment on June 2nd. On this day I will not only be having my monthly visit with my OB, but I will also be seeing a perinatologist at a different practice later that same morning. I have to admit, I am a bit nervous that I am having to wait so long before seeing my doctor again and before I can see or hear our precious little one's heartbeat again, but I am *trying* not to worry or stress out about it too much as I know that is not good for me nor the baby. I am SO anxious to see him/her again and am completely ecstatic that David will be accompanying me to both of my appointments on this day as this will be the first time that he will get to see our baby and see / hear the heartbeat. Without a doubt, it is going to be a very emotional and exciting day and thus, why I am counting down the days.

I will probably be having a fairly basic appointment with my OB and won't likely involve a sonogram since she now has a sonogram tech and they didn't schedule me an actual sonogram appointment, so I am thinking it will just be a checkup and she will of course use the doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Now, the other appointment I have scheduled for this day is an entirely different story altogether. Due to many factors, my OB has referred me to see a perinatologist for early screening (sequential screening). This isn't required, but only if we choose too, which we have. This mainly is because of the fact that it is highly likely that we lost our last baby due to a fatal chromosomal defect and this screening helps detect any possibility of chromosomal defects such as Trisomy 18 and Down Syndrome or neural tube defects such as Spina Bifida much earlier in the pregnancy. (this is a website that gives a bit more detail about the process) From what I understand, it will involve two different procedures for this appointment which includes an early 2nd level ultrasound and NT Scan and then also a blood test. The ultrasound will involve many, many measurements of all of the baby's organs, bones, tissue, etc. to determine if any potential problems are visible. I am really nervous about the entire testing, but also really interested and excited to be able to see our little baby in such awesome detail. It is even *possible* for them to often times detect the gender of the baby during this ultrasound and I will be far enough along that it might be feasible, however I am not going to get my hopes up about learning the gender on this day, but rather just want to hear that the baby is healthy and developing as he/she should be. The blood test results won't be given until a few days or more later from what I understand. If anything were to show up during the ultrasound or the blood work that suggests a potential concern then the perinatolgist would then recommend that I do an additonal testing procedure such as an Amnio or CVS. I'm not going to go into any further detail on either of those procedures as hopefully, our prayers will be answered and our little one will be absolutely and completely healthy and we won't need to even consider either one of them. This is what we hope anyways. I just can't wait to see our sweet little baby again and examine each and every single detail in complete awe and wonder. I hope that we get a lot of pictures to take with us as well so that I can share them with everyone and officially introduce our little one in his/her first full-on photo shoot of sorts.