NT ultrasound

We opted for genetic screening for the baby for known defects like Down's Syndrome, Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18. On 11th Jan '08, they took a few drops of blood from me along with info about my race, origin etc.

Today they did an ultrasound called Nuchal Translucency ultrasound. They use this data with the first blood draw to give us an 85% accurate screen result for Down's syndrome and the accuracy is 91% for Trisomy 13 and 18.

In the second trimester, there is another blood draw, which is combined with the previous 2 results to increase the accuracy of prediction to 93% for Down's syndrome and almost 97% for Trisomy 13 and 18.

Case in point: Today's NT ultrasound. By far the worst experience I've had in my life so far. The technician could not position the baby correctly to get the measurement of the fluid behind the baby's neck. What followed can only be termed as abuse. The tech got increasingly frustrated and literally started "jabbing" the ultrasound machine (size of a computer mouse) into my belly. The jabs were so hard that I was wincing at every single poke, my legs wanted to curl up and protect my belly. There was no time to think as she barked orders "cough", "turn to your side" (as she physically pushed me over), "turn back" (she pulled me back), "cough again". She made statements like "oh, your uterus is tilted, more trouble for me, not for you". Something that really offended me was "turn, turn baby turn, this baby just won't turn, it is SO stubborn". Did she just call OUR baby stubborn? The nerve of her.

Relief came when the frustrated tech called for another tech to help, to "confirm her results".
This tech on the other hand was totally relaxed, even attempted to give a back rub to the apparently "frustrated" original tech, then proceeded to take all the measurements without hurting me.

I spent almost 3 days with aches in my abdomen. Amit was really pissed and wanted to lodge a formal complaint, but I just want to run into that tech again in the hospital. Anyways, bygones are bygones. We did get a cute pic of the baby from this one.