Echo Echo Echo.....

As mentioned in one of my earlier blog postings, my older brother was born with a genetic defect called hypo-plastic left heart. Because this could be passed onto any of my children, my OB ordered a Fetal Echocardiograph to be done during week 20 of the pregnancy. Finally the time had come to make our way to Kingston to meet with the Pediatric Cardiologist.

We first met with a female ultra sound tech who would be taking all the pictures of the heart for the Cardiologist to review. Given my previous experience with ultra sound techs, we were slightly nervous that would we be in for another round of the silent treatment and absurd comments, but she quickly put that fear to rest when she invited Rob into the room from the very start and began cracking jokes.

Once the ultra sound got under way she explained everything she was looking at. She showed us the various chambers of the heart, which way the blood was flowing, how open the valves were, what the heartbeat was and even took the time to let us casually watch our little girl swim around., which is basically all our little bun wanted to do. She didn't cooperate in the least. The second the tech would get a decent frame, the baby would block the picture with her arm or decide it was time to roll over.

The tech was remarkably well spirited about the entire thing. She kept cracking jokes about the baby, saying she was gonna win in the end cause she wasn't about to give up. It made for a very enjoyable experience, although she was making me giggle so much that my entire tummy would move and she'd have to try and find the right angle again. Rob found it particularly funny when the tech squeezed a giant amount of ultra sound goo directly into my belly button, because he knew i'd be trying to get it back out of there for hours.

After about 20 minutes she had all the pictures of the heart she needed, so she gave us a few more minutes of watching the baby kick where she was pushing the probe, re-confirmed that it was indeed a little girl, and then she sent the photos to the Cardiologist and informed us that he would be in shortly.

We waited about 10 minutes for him to show up and it literally took him less than 1 minute to tell us everything looked perfectly fine. No signs of hypo-plastic left heart or any other condition and all the pictures showed her in excellent health. That was fantastic news! Now we have one less thing to worry about and can just enjoy the fact that we have an active healthy little girl who will be showing up in a few more months.