Our meeting with Dr. B

Today, Chris and I were talking about appointments and Dr. P, Dr. N, and Dr. B, and another Dr. B that works in Dr. P's office that we saw a couple of times, and by the end of the conversation we were both so confused about which doctor does what and who is who that neither one of us was following the conversation.

Dr. B is the perinatologist that Dr. N referred us to in order to help figure out what's going on with me and baby girl.

Our appointment with her was at noon today, and I felt like overall it went really well. I was nervous about what we might find out, but I was also nervous because I had read several reviews about her online that said she had a horrible bedside manner. Although she isn't bubbly or overly friendly in any way, she was nice and took the time to explain things thoroughly to us (which is higher on our priority list for a doctor anyway).

The appointment began with a level II ultrasound, performed by a tech, that took at least 20-30 minutes. She measured everything from the baby's brain, to heart, to liver, to bones, to spine, to how much fluid she was pumping, to her kidneys, etc, etc. She took a total of 51 images of baby! Baby girl doesn't really like it when I put pressure on my tummy, and she kept kicking the ultrasound tech... it was cute.

Then, Dr. B came in and also took a peek at baby with the ultrasound machine. Baby's body is measuring about 5 days behind (right at 24 weeks), but when we saw Dr. N about 10 days ago, her body was 8 days behind, so she has caught up a few days. Her head is still measuring a full 10 days behind, but she is growing, so that's a good sign. Dr. B said there was nothing (such as a swollen heart, liver, or brain) that indicates there is any kind of problem or infection with the baby. She said that all indications lead her to believe that baby is genetically wired to have a small head, which is currently 2 standard deviations from average. She said that she won't be concerned with it until it reaches 3 standard deviations from average, and for now things are okay.

As for me, she, like Dr. N, does not believe that I am walking around feeling fine with 4 infectious diseases. She had taken a look at a previous Rubella titer that I had had done about 4 months ago, and my current numbers are barely elevated above those numbers. However, they are elevated just enough to push me into the "positive for infection" category. Dr. B said that most likely my antibodies are globally elevated, meaning that I just naturally run high in those areas. She said that something as simple as being dehydrated could have boosted my numbers just enough to send me into the "infectious zone".

Dr. B did send a sample of my blood off to a lab in California for further Toxoplasmosis testing. The reason for this is because this lab specializes in Toxoplasmosis testing and will be able to truly determine if I do have Toxoplasmosis or if it is a false positive. She said in her years of practice, she has only seen one true positive, so she does not anticipate that mine will be a true positive. If it is, we will go on to do an amnio at that time, but for now she didn't see anything that made her feel like an amnio would be justified. This made me feel so relieved. Dr. N had mentioned that she would probably discuss doing an amnio with us, and that really scared me. Toxoplasmosis is the only disease that we will be able to treat the baby for if we have it, so that is why we are looking into it a little further.

So, for now, I am to just concentrate on growing baby because Dr. B does not think there is anything too much out of the ordinary going on here. I go back to see Dr. N in about 10 days, then I'll see Dr. B again in two weeks. If, in two weeks, everything still appears to be normal and the additional blood work comes back okay, she will release me.

Overall, we both feel really good about how the appointment went today. We feel like she was thorough, informed, and encouraging, but not just sweeping the problem under the rug either.

On kind of a side note, I think I have come down with a cold. I'm not running a fever, but my nose is runny/congested, I have a very sore throat, and I'm overall just very low on energy. I was planning on working part of the day today, but decided to just rest up and hopefully kick this cold sooner rather than later. I feel so bad missing work, but I have to put first things first!

Thank you everyone for all your support and prayers! Hopefully, we'll be through this bumpy patch soon and I can get back to my quiet pregnancy!