That Crazy Umbilical Cord

On October 2nd we had a sonogram as part of my 2nd trimester testing and to find out the sex of the baby (as you may have guessed by my post “It’s a Boy!”, it’s a boy). We were in the room with on sonographer and it seemed as though she was having difficulty visualizing something and sent for a doctor. I didn’t think twice about it until the sonograher said something about the umbilical cord to the doctor and left the room. This made me a little nervous but the doc seemed so calm that I soon got over my fears and became enraptured with how much the li’l tadpole seemed to be moving in there. She asked me if we wanted to know the sex and without any hesitation she told us that it’s a boy at which point I forgot all about my worries. She took so measurements of his head and abdomen looked at the heart and kidneys and everything looked just perfect. She printed off some pictures for us and showed me where his little penis is; thank G-d because I sure wouldn’t have been able to tell what the speck was. Then she starts explaining that an umbilical cord usually has two arteries and one vein and asks me if I’ve had my 2nd trimester blood work done yet. I hadn’t, that was scheduled for the next day and I told her so. She tells me it’s really nothing to worry about because my first trimester testing was good and because the li’l guy is the right size and his heart and kidneys are functioning well but he only has one of the two arteries in his umbilical cord. She told us that unless the 2nd trimester testing comes back and there are concerns about the results that he should be right as rain and that because the 1st trimester testing was so positive that she doesn’t see any reason for us to worry, we’ll just need to monitor his growth very closely.

So we go to the doctor for the blood work the following day and my OB also seems to think that there is nothing to worry about, that we can just do a sono every other appointment to make sure he’s growing on schedule. They take my blood and tell me to call back in a week for the results. Because my OB wasn’t worried and because of the lack of urgency in getting my test results back my husband and I decide that there is nothing to worry about. Of course you can’t help but worry a little bit, that doubt can creep up on you so fast, but we kept the anxiety to a minimum (something I am very proud of).

A week later I call for my test results and the lady who answers the phone tells me to hold on while she goes to pull my file. I’m thinking cool she’ll be back to tell me that everything is okay in just a minute. But nooooooo…she gets back on the phone and tells me that the nurse is going to have to call me back. Well what the hell are you doing answering the line for test results if you can’t give them to me!? And now the panic sets in. I called my husband and told him what happened and put him in a panic, though he seemed pretty calm to me. It was a mess, I was a mess. It seemed like it took the nurse years to call back but it was probably no more than an hour and as it turns out I was all freaked out over nothing. The tests came back negative and the baby is growing perfectly and all is well with the world. Thank G-d!