18 weeks

I now know why so many people refuse the genetic screening tests.  So I have worried this whole past week because of an elevated AFP when my AFP wasn't high at all, in fact it was perfect at 0.99 MOM.  The problem was the other blood values, especially papa-a that was only 0.38MOM that brought our downs risk to 1 in 110.  So the doctor's office had everything wrong!  First they told me at 15 weeks that the pappa-a was normal because I wasn't worried about it because of what happened last time, and then they tell me AFP is high which makes me think a neural tube defect, when none of this is true.  Of course if they also would have told me the correct information on the phone that it was downs they were worried about I still would have freaked out because it is a higher risk than last pregnancy when I screened positive and looked what happened.

Anyways, I felt much better after finding this out this morning since at least with downs it isn't lethal like other trisomies or some neural tube defects. 

The good news is everything looked perfect on the anatomy scan so our risk dropped to 1 in 220 which even though is still screen positive, I am pretty confident to say there is 0% chance this baby has any trisomy problem.  Heck even with dd she showed hydronephrosis, this baby didn't even have that.  Growth is also pretty good.  It was measuring 2 days behind at 17w5d and estimated weight right now of 7oz.  So the peri that we saw afterwards wasn't concerned at all, and no future u/s will be done unless my doctor who I will be seeing on Monday for my regular 4 week check up decides to do extra ones to check on growth, which I am hoping he will since I still do have the fear of iugr and pre-eclampsia happening again.  At least the good news is if it does, it will be later than last time.

Also I was wrong about the sex.  I was 85% sure the baby was a boy, but nope it is another girl - I even made her show me since I couldn't believe it and unfortunately the tv was broke in the room so we couldn't see hardly anything during the whole scan.  I am glad that we got to know the sex though since I would hate to get this shock at birth after thinking for 9 months it was a boy, I can't imagine how tough that must be for people before u/s were routine. 

Just so overjoyed that we can finally start to be happy and prepare for the baby over the next few months since before this point I couldn't be confident that things would be okay.  I even finally came out on facebook which feels good because it was getting hard keeping quiet and not being able to get excited for the baby like other pregnant couples can.