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Monday, February 4, 2013

Explanation

I didn't want to write a book in my facebook status so I figured I'd put it in a blog post. :)

Most of you know that we had our 20 week ultrasound last week and they found a couple of areas of concern.  Harrison has a fluid cyst on his brain and a "bright spot" on his heart.  These are both relatively common, but because two things were present we needed to go have a more in depth appointment at the perinatal clinic.  At our initial ultrasound they told us the cyst is very common and can go away on it's own.  It's likely spinal fluid that just isn't down in the spine yet.  They also said the spot on his heart is likely a calcification where an extra valve started to form and then stopped.  It will always be there, but won't grow as the heart does so it will be smaller in relation to the size of the heart as Harrison ages and won't cause any issues.
 We went today to the perinatal clinic and the doctor said everything else looks great!  The cyst can be a marker of Trisomy 18 and the bright spot can be a marker of Down's Syndrome, but in our case none of the other signs are there so the chances of him having either is something like 1 in 376 and 1 in 500.  Obviously the doctor can't say absolutely for certain nothing will be wrong, but in our case the chances are tiny.  We could have an amnio to know for sure, but with chances so small he said he definitely wouldn't recommend it and we didn't want to have one because of the chance that you could actually cause a miscarriage.  He said the cyst and the bright spot won't be detrimental to Harrison in any way.  We will stick with my normal prenatal care and won't have to come to him anymore.  During the ultrasound he kept saying Harrison's heart was beautiful. :)  We are so relieved and thankful for everyone who has been praying for us!