Monday, October 09, 2006

Okay, Kids, I Am Completely Weirded Out

Much ado about finding out the sex of the children has been made on this site by yours truly. Well, not about finding out, but whether or not we should. [ed. note - Sarah made a very compelling argument for finding out.]

In all the excitement tied up in whether or not to find out, I totally forgot that tomorrow is the day!

Tomorrow is our 20 week ultrasound (although officially it is only week 19). The 20 weeker is a much longer scan than the usual ‘thanks, we're just browsing’ cursory look around the womb.

During this megasound (my word), they will look at several things on the twins –

•The head
•Spine and abdominal wall
•Heart and stomach
•Kidneys and bladder
•Hands and feet
•Placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid

The question is, what will they find? Well, they could find problems.

Problems like –

•Anencephaly (absence of the top of the head) – 99%
•Exomphalos/gastroscisis (defects of the abdominal wall) – 90%
•Major limb abnormalities (missing or very short limbs) – 90%
•Spina bifida (open spinal cord) – 90%
•Major kidney problems (missing or abnormal kidneys) – 85%
•Diaphragmatic hernia (hole in the muscle separating chest and abdomen) – 60%
•Hydrocephalus (excess fluid within the brain) – 60%
•Down's syndrome (some babies with Down's may have heart or bowel problems that may be seen on the scan) – 40%
•Major heart problems (defects of chambers, valves or vessels) – 25%
(the percentage number at the end represents the chance of seeing the defect if it exists)

Oh yeah, they can usually tell the sex during this scan.

I don’t mean to be a doubting Thomas or a nervous Nellie (see my blog about idioms or go ask Tony over at Creative-Type Dad), but I stress out about the pregnancy and the health of Mommy and babies. After all, they are the three most important people in my life.

Actually, I had another post in mind for today, but when it dawned on me that we had megasound tomorrow, I figured this would be a good topic for today.

Oh yeah, still not sure if we’ll find out about the sexes or not. Best to tune in tomorrow to find out for sure.