Hey Jakey,

It's a girl! And judging from these photos of her, she's decidedly prettier in profile than she is when she turns towards us and waves. In fact, she's kinda scary when she waves.

Anyway... these were taken at my perinatologist visit on Monday. Didn't really want to post anything until I heard back from her office today.

Here's the skinny:

Last month (I even blogged about it), I took a triple screen test that came back with numbers indicating that my chance of having a baby with a genetic abnormality was one in 2500. Pretty good odds, no? For some reason (explained to me ad nauseum by both doctor offices, but still pretty incomprehensible to me...), I was given the test a second time a couple of weeks ago. This time, the numbers came back as one in 14. Not so good.

This was last Thursday afternoon. I was beside myself, and the nurse on the phone bore the brunt of my ire/misery. She called me back no less than five times trying to reassure me.

So I managed to re-schedule my routine July 5 appt with my perinatologist, and got in to see her Monday. She did a thorough Level 2 U/S, and concluded that, besides a femur measurement that was a little on the short side of normal, she was pretty convinced that the one-in-14 test results were a fluke, BUT... nothing's as 100 percent sure as an amniocentesis.

She then concluded the U/S with the words, "We've got a pretty good spot right here, if you want to do an amnio right now," pointing at a blank spot in my uterus.

Okay, here's the story with me and amnios: we don't get along. When I was pregnant with you, dear heart, I had an amnio. It took a male doctor and one nurse to hold me down, another doctor to push you and then hold you to one side of my uterus, and then a perinatologist to actually jab the damn thing in me. All the while I'm crying hysterically. It was your daddy's first day at his job at the Reno bank, so he was understandably not in attendance (he did manage to get away at lunch, but got lost trying to find the doctor's office, and finally found me in the parking lot when it was all over).

I tried very very hard this time around to avoid the amnio, which is probably what led to me taking all these weird alternate tests and getting even weirder results. If I had just taken the amnio in the first place, all would've been well. Anyway... I covered my eyes and told her to go ahead and do it, but -- I'm closing my eyes now, and am not going to open them until you are done. This time it only took one nurse and one doctor to do the awful deed, and I only whimpered pathetically, rather than making an all-out ass of myself.

Got the preliminary results back today, and everything is A-OK normal. As in no genetic abnormalities. In another 10 days, we will be getting back *all* the results from the amnio, but I'm giddily unworried about those.

Quick edit: I LOVE my perinatologist. She's very reassuring, kind and gentle. And best of all, she kinda looks and sounds a lot like Paula Poundstone on a not-very-sarcastic day. Can ALL my doctors please be cool uber-women? Oh, wait... they already are. The only *man* doctor I've had since I moved here was a TWERP with a capital T, and I kicked him to the curb right quick.

Oh, yeah... did I mention? You're going to have a little baby sister.

Love you!