Ultrasound Appointment......Healthy Baby - Ticked off Parents

Please forgive me - I just need to vent!!

We went in for our 20 week ultrasound today and needless to say we're thrilled to know our baby is healthy, but it was one of the most frustrating & disappointing appointments I've had in a long time. The tech came in (15 minutes late & me with a FULL bladder!) and said "so now what was the situation with your last baby?" I replied that she had Trisomy 18 to which she asked "oh, how did she do? everything come out okay and she survived?" If you know that she existed wouldn't you know a little more to the story!!??? And what a STUPID question!!! Do you not know what T18 is????? Later I read in my chart notes online that it has written (and I quote): had integrated screen, last child with Trisomy 18 and a heart defect. Even if she didn't have the rest of the story in her notes wouldn't you think she'd either #1. find out what happened BEFORE asking. #2. have at least SOME clue what T18 even is!! #3. not ask such a definitive question. or #4. just keep her mouth shut.

I had a similar thing happen at my 6-week check up after Kristen's birth. The nurse didn't know that she had passed away (although isn't it odd to have a mom come in for her 6-week check up without a baby?) And she's going through her list of questions she has to ask and I am getting a feeling she doesn't know the outcome. That assumption is confirmed when she asks the baby's weight at birth and then if I am nursing or formula feeding. I then had to eek out the words. I don't remember what I even was able to say but it obviously took her by surprise and horror. She apologized profusely and then finished the check-in process. The midwife then came in and told me the nurse was crying and felt so horrible about what happened. I asked if it wasn't in my chart and she said it is there, they just didn't know/think to look. Since then I've asked that it be plastered throughout my medical file....apparently that hasn't happened and people are still asking STUPID questions!!

The rest of the ultrasound appointment progressively got worse. She has been doing this for 20 years so she does it all so fast we can't tell what anything is and she never stayed in one place long enough for us to see the baby move much at all.

Then when she was done she leaves and says she'll be back in 10 minutes or less. FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER she walks in with another radiologist. All I can think is -- great - we've been here and done this before! Then get this...she says "this is Dr. So and So and we just wanted to get one more quick look." I ask if something was wrong and she says "oh, everything's fine, we just wanted to take a quick look at the kidneys." Bull-sh*t everything's fine! You don't bring in a second opinion if everything is fine. I told them both that I know it's not good when they have to bring someone else in to take a look, at which the radiologist says "we don't want to do anything to worry you so we thought it's better to take a quick look now instead of having you come back in." So they look at the kidneys and then start looking at the heart. After a number of code-worded conversations I finally ask what is going on and why they're looking at the heart so much. They said it was because they weren't able to get good scans of all the heart's structures before and wanted to try again. But this time the baby has turned and its spine has shadowed its heart and they can't get a good look. The radiologist is leaning over me so I can't see the monitor or what they're looking at and finally she says it's fine and leaves the room.

Needless to say we were a little less than pleased with the visit. We were now 10 minutes late for our midwife appointment upstairs so we booked it up there and got in right away but the midwife was still 10 minutes away from seeing us! (I had called while we were waiting for the tech to return and told them we were going to be late because we were still down in our ultrasound.) I shared my concerns with the midwife and she helped us to understand where some of what happened had come from. Because of our excperience with Kristen, they wanted to be 100% sure they checked everything really well this time. And since the tech has been doing this for so long she knows when she needs a 2nd pair of eyes to look at something. That's also why she went so fast through most of it, because she's been doing this for so long it's "normal for her". Sorry - it's not normal for US!!!! You better believe I'll be contacting radiology AGAIN tomorrow to let them know how our appt went! I had to do it last time with one of Kristen's appointments too. Not only do I not appreciate being treated like an ignorantly-bliss 1st time parent who only cares about gender, but I don't like being lied to either nor do I appreciate them treating my appointment so insignificantly. They may do this 100 times a day - BUT I DON'T! This is my baby we're talking about here!! Give me 5 seconds to just look at it move for goodness sake!! Will it kill ya to have an ounce of bed-side manner!!?

So, yes the baby looks good and ultimately that is really what mattered. We still don't know gender yet, its legs were crossed - just like ALL our babies have done!! We unfortunately didn't really even get any good scan photos like we did with Katelynn. I mentioned that to our midwife too and she said that she'd do an in-office scan next time and see if we can't get a good photo of the baby AND maybe check gender. So that's one good thing that came out of that appointment.

But all in all, the baby has none of the signs that Kristen had. Our midwife even showed us comparisons of their ultrasounds (gotta love technology!) and it was amazing the difference there is between a T-18 baby and a healthy baby! Thank you Jesus!