More Ultrasounds - More Doctors

On Thursday at 1pm we had our appointment with the perinatologist, Dr Stettler. A perinatologist is a doctor that specializes in high risk pregnancies. They did an additional ultrasound and basically re-did everything that was had been done the day before. The findings were similar, although Dr Stettler was much less concerned about the heart, but he did have us visit a pediatric cardiologist, later that day.

The main issue with the new ultrasound was the baby's intestines. The baby has a duodenal atresia, which means the small intestine doesn't connect to the stomach. The fact that they can see this on an ultrasound is pretty amazing to us. The duodenal atresia is the reason why the stomach is enlarged. 30% of all babies with duodenal atresias also have Down's Syndrome. Dr Stettler confirmed that babies with chromosomal abnormalities tend to be smaller. Because of that, he recommended that we get an amniocentesis, which would test all of the baby's chromosomes and determine whether or not there are any abnormalities. We'll have some results early next week, and then the rest a week later. The primary concern (in terms of chromosomal abnormalities) is Down's Syndrome.

So what about this duodenal atresia? The duodenal atresia can be fixed! Shortly after birth (within a few days), the baby will have a surgery to connect the small intestine to the stomach. Based on what I've read online, it will take about 2 hours, and has a very high success rate and rarely comes with complications. I've also read that depending on how things go, he could be in the hospital for 2 weeks or longer after the surgery. That sucks. Basically, he won't be able to poop until the small intestine is connected to the stomach, and it takes some time for the surgery to heal and everything to start working correctly. This also means that he won't be able to eat, so he will be fed through an IV in the beginning.

Another issue with the duodenal atresia is due to the baby's stomach issues, he won't be able to swallow very well in the womb. That results in the amniotic fluid building up faster than normal, which usually means premature delivery. Most of the cases I read about online ended up delivering 2 weeks to a month early. Because our baby needs surgery right after birth, he'll now be born at Presbyterian St Luke's in downtown Denver, instead of Skyridge. Our prenatal care has been transferred to Dr Stettler, since this is now considered a higher risk pregnancy.

Lastly, the best news of the day. After seeing Dr Stettler, we went to see the pediatric cardiologist (Dr Miller) on the other side of the hospital. Long story short, there's really nothing wrong with our baby's heart. Due to the way the chambers pump before birth, one chamber appeared to be slightly enlarged, but Dr Miller said it really wasn't enlarged and everything is fine. He predicted that he'll never see us again. Woohoo!! Because 50% of Down's babies have heart problems, he said that might be an argument that our chance of Down's is less than 30%. At this point, we're much more interest in the results of the amnio as opposed to statistics!