nothing good ever comes from an ultrasound

Well we had the ultrasound... and i know what we are having... but i wont tell you until we have the big reveal ;)

It was a quite lengthy sonogram, i thought about this a bit while there, but assumed as technology gets better the list of things to check get longer... well i should have known otherwise.

The next day my midwife came over for my appointment, and informed me that there was some issues that the tech had found on our little baby ______.

First off, there is a cyst in baby's brain, which is a soft marker for a few syndromes, like all the trisomy syndromes. But she also informed me that it usually goes away without a problem.

Next thing, i have a high level of amniotic fluid. She tells me not to worry about it, but says the radiologists pointed it out to her to make sure she saw it.

Finally, my baby's kidneys are enlarged. we didn't touch much on this subject, she just said its on the high side of normal...

So she reassured me that this wont conflict with my plans for a home birth, but that i should have another ultrasound in about 10 weeks

After she left i was pretty devastated... not that there was something wrong more because now i know there is problems and there is nothing i can do about it except worry.

Which is exactly what i did... i spent the next 4 hours sitting on the couch researching all of the things she told me about... as a single thing each problem wouldn't be a big deal, but together they are three markers for trisomy 18

I saw the tech looking for clenched hands for a long long time, she even told me that she wanted a picture of the hands opening, and we did eventually see the hands open, and there didn't seem to be rocker feet, though i could have swore i saw an extra toe( but i didn't say anything assuming i was just being paranoid, after having a baby with a deformed foot) the nose and head looked fine, but who says that baby's at 20 week have to show markers already...

I have convinced myself that the cyst isn't a problem, i read some literature about how the cysts are so common they are considering to take them off of the scan requirements because they really usually mean nothing.

But as it turns out kidney problems and amniotic fluid levels are a package deal... so this is what i have been dwelling on, if my little _____ doesn't have trisomy 18 then he/she will have kidney problems! The symptoms of higher amniotic fluid are: unusual abdominal discomfort, increased back pain, shortness of breath, and extreme swelling in your feet and ankles. All except the swelling (though i have swollen a little) i have been having problems with... when i read the symptoms to husband you could see that they were spot on cause he has been hearing me complain about not being able to breath and how bad my belly hurts from the stretching, and the stretch marks that have already cropped up, my back hurting all the time... things that shouldn't be a problem this early on... in fact i am pretty sure i blogged about most of these symptoms... turns out it isn't a 4th baby thing it is a problem in utero thing:(

So i should be packing for my trip home, but instead i am sitting here crying. 

I should be more prepared for bad news because second baby was the only normal ultrasound we have had thus far... First baby was going to have downs(she is perfectly fine), third baby was going to have trisomy 13 (came out just a foot/leg malformation) and now this baby has what seems like bigger problems. Because it isn't just ONE thing this time, it is a group of things and i am older and it just seems more probable, especially since i have been worrying about this exact thing since we were surprised by this pregnancy.

I shouldn't have had an ultrasound... next time i wont. then i could continue having a wonderful pregnancy full of unnamed discomforts but as far as i know a healthy baby_____!