Hi ladies!
Prepare yourself for a long one...
Now it's the weekend and I've had some time to read up on everything I thought I would update you a bit on the findings at my 20 week scan. All was looking really well with the baby - she was super active and growing perfectly - up until they checked babies bowel at the end of the scan. They noted that it was slightly echogenic. The ultrasound tech explained to me that as there were no other markers which indicated any sort of problems with the baby, the most likely cause for this was that I had had a small bleed early on in the pregnancy (that many women don't even notice they have) and that baby had swallowed some of the blood through the placenta which was now showing in the bowel. She said this wouldn't harm the baby at all so not to worry. However, they wanted to take some further bloods to rule out congenital infections and they also asked me to stay on so they could do some tests on both mine and babies hearts (which both came back healthy and normal). I have to go for a review at 28 weeks to check babies growth and reassess the bowel to see if there's been an improvement as well as getting the blood results.
I left the scan feeling quite positive about everything as they were quite lax about it all, but having read over my scan report yesterday and then doing some further research into echogenic bowel, it all sounds so much worse than they were making out and I'm feeling really worried and anxious about everything. It could be nothing, or it could be something really serious - 8 weeks feels such a lifetime away. Here's what it says:
'Fetal growth and amniotic fluid volume are normal. There are neither obvious structural defects. Fetal growth and amniotic fluid are within normal limits.
The bowel appears echogenic on the scan today. There are no other structural malformations or any additional soft markers for chromosomal abnormalities seen on the scan today. We have discussed that echogenic bowel can be a normal varient but it is associated with chromosomal abnormalities such as Down's syndrome, fetal infections, intra-amniotic bleeding, cystic fibrosis, gut abnormalities and in some cases fetal growth restriction. The risk for Down's syndrome in the first trimester was 1:12576, which now becomes 1:7602. Maternal blood was sent for TORCH testing to rule out fetal infections. We have arranged to review at 28 weeks to check fetal growth, assess the appearance of fetal bowel and to discuss the results of the TORCH and cystic fibrosis testing.
The mother is aware that chromosomal abnormalities and rare genetic snydromes cannot be excluded by scan alone.
A combined rise assessment for preeclampsia using maternal history & characteristics and maternal blood pressure and uterine artery doppler was offered and accepted. The results show a low chance to develop preeclampsia before 36 weeks.'
I'm wondering whether to book in for a private scan in a week or two's time to try and put my mind at rest a bit or whether that's just going to make it worse!
xx