a little sigh of relief...

It has been a weird few days. The whole AFP test and the shock that resulted thereafter has put me on a rollercoaster of emotions from terrified to dismal to hopeful to calm. If you can tell from my progression of descriptors there, I am in a much better state than I was on Friday, thank goodness. It's an odd story, but a good one.

So, on Friday I had the amniocentesis. Though the procedure itself was way less traumatic than I thought, though the stress of the whole process was killer. To go from feeling pretty good about your pregnancy to being thrown into the world of maybe-your-kid-has-downs to now-you-have-to-get-a-needle-put-in-your-womb within less than a twenty four hour period is a bit trying. However, I trust my doctor completely and knew that the amnio and all the tests were necessary and that he wouldn't put me through that mess without cause. I got thorough it, came home, cried my eyes out a bunch and did some work to distract myself.

One really interesting moment to note was that the first time I felt the baby move was when I was sobbing on our bed on Friday, a nervous wreck. I was all sorts of snotty/crying and then I felt this odd movement in my belly. I stopped crying and realized it was the baby. It was totally a Tim's Kid moment... I could just hear the kid going, "why the heck are you crying, woman? I'm FINE! Chill!" I stopped crying and felt a bit better, though also found myself wondering if I'm delusional.

Then on Saturday, we had to get up at 5 a.m. again to go in for another ominous visit with the doc. We weren't sure exactly what we were in for, as the doc only really said, "Hey. Can you meet me tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m.?" Fearing the worst, we got ourselves up and went back to Annapolis for the second day in a row.

When we got there, the doc had me do another ultrasound where he checked the baby, mentioning how it's very active (which is good) and my fluid levels were back up from the amnio. He then asked if we wanted to know the sex, whether he had already told us the sex yesterday (he's a bit absent minded professor/has a million patients he sees) to which we replied no, he hadn't told us and yes, we'd like to know. He pokes around a bit with the u/s, then points out the two lines where the genitals are... apparently, we're having a girl (girls have two lines on u/s, boys have the infamous Turtle Head).

Then he gets up to leave, saying, "any questions for me?" At this point, I wanted to say, "hell YEAH I got questions!" Instead, I asked if he noticed any of the physical markers of downs that, through my internet sleuthing, should be apparent by this time in the pregnancy. To which, he looked at me, a bit surprised, and said, "oh no. The baby's fine! I checked the neck- no webbing, the head is the right size, no shortened femurs, no holes in the heart or liver. The baby's just fine. Oh, but I have to remember to call you in two weeks so you don't worry..." The best thing was that he looked confused as to why we'd be worried about the baby, but it wasn't in a jerk way... more of a that's so silly kind of way. He then walked away, said goodbye and was off. Tim and I high-fived each other, hugged and I felt like a huge weight was off my chest.

Sure, it's not 90 percent sure, like the amnio results will be. But something about the experience made me think, "of COURSE the baby is fine. This is all going to be fine." I felt like I was finally going through the worst possible outcome and stepping into calm, tranquil waters. And I'm deciding to stay there, whether I have "concrete evidence" or not.