Breydon
Baby Boy's Specialist Appointment for his SUA
5:30 PM
January 19, 2015
When we had the gender ultrasound our ultrasound tech noticed that baby boy had an SUA. This means a single umbilical artery. Normally the umbilical cord has one vein and two arteries so obviously ours is missing one. Our doctor explained to us that it generally isn't a huge deal but is sometimes an indicator or heart problems, kidney problems and genetic disorders. It also often results in low birth weight since the nutrients are not able to get to baby as easily.
So Brian and I got to head up to a specialist in Dallas for a nice 3 hour long appointment. Adleigh got to go party with some friends from church and got to miss out on the fun.
Honestly the waiting room was the worst part. Brian and I decided Dallas people are crazy!
I'll give you a little back story... So the specialist is responsible for calling you and setting up the appointment since they only do doctor referral visits. We agreed on a day and time and then she told me that children under 10 are not allowed to come to the appointment. This was due to the high amounts of flu cases in the area and the not wanting to spread it to the prego moms. Honestly, who would want to drag their child to a 3 hour long appointment anyway? I got an email shortly after confirming my appointment. Then the day before the appointment I got a text and email reminding me of my appointment and that no children could come.
Okay, back story over. We get there and literally we are the only patients who did not try to bring their children! These women are all getting super angry at the poor receptionist, "no one told me", "no I didn't get a reminder", "we figured you would have a kids area" "my kids need to be a part of this" and "who else is supposed to watch my kids". It was a full on war zone in that waiting room. Then the icing on the cake was the woman who showed up (with a whole entourage of family members and children) a week before her actual appointment. She also claimed that she was never sent an email about her appointment, never told about the children's policy, and that the office was wrong about what day she was scheduled. She told them they had to fit her in because she had taken the day off and if they didn't fit her in then they had to pay for her missed work.
Luckily we got called back for our first appointment and missed out on the rest of the fun! So we first met with a genetic therapist who went over all of our family health history. She didn't discover any trends other than the abnormal amount of miscarriages my side of the family has. She encouraged me/one of my sisters to get the next miscarriage investigated. Then we talked about the risks of Baby Boy Weirich having a genetic disorder and arranged for me to have a super in depth blood test done to test for the most common chromosomal defects. I also could have done an amniocentesis but we decided not to.
Next we went and met with the doctor and had a super long ultrasound. Basically he measured every single thing possible to make sure baby is growing well and doesn't have any noticeable organ problems. Baby looked great, was growing right on schedule and has a super huge head. Which was not a shock since Adleigh had a huge head at birth and still has one. The doctor was super hilarious and helped calm our nerves. He told us we were the most normal couple he had seen in a while... which also didn't shock me given the waiting room fun. The funniest part was he had finished the ultrasound and was cleaning my belly off when he realized that the only picture he had printed for us was a picture of Baby Boy's boy parts. He then told us that while he was sure Brian only cared about the picture he printed off but knew that I needed a face shot to be happy. Lol. So he kindly gooped me up again and got me a profile. Oh and he also recommended that Baby Boy be born at 38 weeks since SUA's can also lead to still birth if full term since the cord isn't as strong.
Baby Boy Weirich's important beauty shot.
And the important boy shot... yes the doctor wrote that comment. He was really enjoying himself apparently!
Our last meeting was with the fetal cardiologist to do a more in-depth ultrasound of the heart. It was pretty crazy how well you could see the inner workings of his heart. She said that our baby had a text book heart! She also said she enjoyed our appointment because she rarely got to give good news to parents.
So we left the appointment feeling much better about the health of Baby Boy Weirich! It seems as though the only thing wrong with him is the cord which goes away after birth anyway!
Also since Adleigh was enjoying her time away from us: we went to Cabela's to replace some of our stuff that had been stolen and met my sister and her family for dinner.
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