20 Weeks

Yesterday was the first day of my 20th week of gestation of Booth baby #5. Today I had my sonogram and check-up. The good news to me is that I haven't gained a pound. Amazing. I figure I have the weight to spare, so why not pass it on to the kid. The nurse seemed a little less enthused. She asked if I had been sick, so I reminded her that at my last appointment I was recovering from the Moroccan Monkey Flu, and she acted like she knew what I was talking about about, "oh yea, that's a bad one". See my neighbor, who is from Morocco, went overseas to visit her sister in London, and then her parents in Morocco with her girls. Once they arrived back home, they drove straight from the airport to children's hospital since her three year old had diarrhea and was vomiting for about 24 hours. They told her it was a simple stomach virus, not to worry. But then her one year old got it. Then her in-laws got it. Then my friend, then her kids, who then graciously shared it with my kids, and of course me. So I penned this nasty bug the "Moroccan Monkey Flu". And I don't care if it all started in London, Morocco just sounds more exotic. So anyway, at my last appointment I hadn't gained any weight either. Since then I've had a bout with my gall bladder, the worst middle ear infection in my history of middle ear infections, and a couple of incidents of passing out. While on the potty. Nothing like picking yourself up off the floor, bare butted, with a black eye to show for it all. "No Vince did not clock me, I passed out on the potty. Really. No, I'm not joking." Besides all that, the baby looked good. He/she is breach (but that can change several times between now and the 36th week), has a good heart rate, and is measuring in at the 50th percentile. Not a whole lot to report at this stage. The only catch was that the baby's femur is measuring short. Which is an indicator of Down's. But, I went through this with Annamaria too, and it turns out she just had a short femur because she is a tiny. So I can have a level 3 sonogram to look for more markers. But even so the only thing that could tell us indefinitely would be an amniocentesis, and since that can cause a miscarriage we're not willing to take that risk. And even if something was wrong, we wouldn't do anything about it anyway. So now I'm debating with myself to go for the level 3 sonogram or not. Any further information they might give me would not be conclusive anyway, but might give more of an indication of what's going on. Then again, I may be worrying myself for nothing, I may just be carrying another little pixie person. It's the not knowing bothers me.