Waiting for an update...

Well, we saw the Doc. twice this week. The first appointment was an ultrasound at UNC Health for Natalie and the second was for a physical check-up at Rex for Joanna.  During Natalie's ultrasound the tech told us that she would be putting her through 8 physical tests.  I don't remember all 8 of the categories but the tests basically looked at her extremities (arms, legs, fingers, toes) for movement, heart rate, lung growth, etc, etc.  She passed all 8 categories of the test which is a good thing.  It doesn't tell us any more details concerning her overall development and growth but I guess passing any test at this point can be seen as a small victory.  Plus we got some pretty cool 3D images as can be seen in the above picture.  Also during this visit our Doctor (Dr. Goodnight...and yes, that's actually his real name) told us the preliminary results of a test that they were doing on some amniotic fluid extracted last week via amniocentesis called a "FISH Test" (see this article link http://bit.ly/iysZaI for a good explanation of the FISH test).  Basically, the results tell us that they have ruled out Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 18 and most of the more common chromosomal abnormalities.  The FISH is a preliminary test but Dr. Goodnight seemed pretty confident in these results.  So what does that tell us? We're not really sure.  It tells us that Natalie probably doesn't have one of the more common chromosomal disorders but it still keeps Neurological Disorders and/or Infection in the running.  They are running tests for infection but we haven't heard anything back from the Laboratory yet.  As far as the Neurological option, we definitely will not be able to speculate on this option until after she is born and she is tested in the Neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU).  So we're still waiting.  As for Joanna's physical check-up she is healthy and doing fine.  She'd lost about 7 pounds because of the amniocentesis but that was to be expected.  Also during this visit they monitored Natalie's heartbeat and physical movement for 30 minutes and everything checked out ok.  

An interesting thing that we did find out was that Natalie's feet are "clubbed".  I used to think that having clubbed feet meant that you didn't have toes and that your feet basically just looked like a big solid club...thing.  However, I found out that it means that her feet are turned in like "pigeon toes" and turned up slightly.  Her feet basically look like little turned in ballerina feet all the time.  They're quite cute.  The cool thing we found out about clubbed feet is that it's an issue that can be typically corrected 100% through casting and bracing.  I learned also that Kristi Yamaguchi, the Olympic figure skater, had the same type of clubbed footing that Natalie has and she started skating as a rehabilitation exercise for her clubbed feet.  Kinda neat.

So that's our "update while we're waiting on an update...update".  We'll continue to post as we hear new things.  We have 2 more appointments this week and hopefully we'll hear some more news.  Whether it's a good or bad thing we're hoping to hear SOMETHING within the next few days and weeks.

As you can imagine we're pretty worn out from this past week and hopefully we'll be able to catch up on some sleep.  Through this process your kind words and prayers have been instrumental in helping us hope for the best and prepare for whatever might come.

Thanks for being there for us :-)