Question From Expecting Father

[pa writer]

I can relate to your situation.

Me and my wife are also expecting a baby in the spring (St. Patrick's Day, actually), and went for an ultrasound this week.

The doctor told us about things to watch for and scheduled another ultrasound. He mentioned a potential problem in kidney development that, 99 percent of the time, resolves itself in utero, and rarely requires surgery even in the worst-case scenario.

Of course, my wife heard this as, "Your unborn child is doomed!"

We're also scheduled for another ultrasound, and I think the doctor said something about a third one around 30-something weeks.

As a sidenote, my kid was extremely cooperative in the gender discovery department. We're expecting a boy who, based on the ultrasound, has my wife's beautiful eyes.

 

[kingcreole]

Hey Pete, sounds like everything is fairly normal. If they want you back in for another look sooner than you expected, chances are it's nothing serious. It's good.

 

[Dan Rydell]

Good advice here. But why not call back and discuss your questions with the doctor's office? Might keep you both from worrying yourself sick for 15 days. Go right to the source.

 

[ADifferentOkie]

My wife and I had a prenatal scare where we had to go see a specialist. Our doctor told us he was just being overly cautious and it turned out to be nothing.
Keep in mind that seems to be the attitude of most doctors when it comes to the prenatal stuff, because they try to catch things as quickly as they can.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Good advice here. But why not call back and discuss your questions with the doctor's office? Might keep you both from worrying yourself sick for 15 days. Go right to the source.

Two problems:
1) I was at work when they called again today, so was the wife.
2) The midwives we have don't take calls on Friday - and as luck would have it, the wife and I are both working days. (I NEVER work days!)

 

[Idaho]

All four of my children are currently uncooperative.

As someone married to a doc who does OB, I can tell you (in most cases anyway) you have nothing to be too concerned about if the ultrasound nurse/tech didn't sound the alarms and call in an OB while you were there.

Ultrasounds aren't perfect and if a kid keeps his legs closed, you might not get the perfect view of the boy or girl bits.

Midwives -- and I'm biased because of the M.D. I sleep with -- often are nontraditional in their approach to just about everything. That's neither good or bad in most cases. But it might explain why yours wants another look.

I think you're safe. But if you're losing sleep or getting stress out of it, see if there's an after-hours on-call doc or midwife at your clinic. And if the midwife doesn't take calls on Fridays, I sure hope labor doesn't start on that day.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

All four of my children are currently uncooperative.

As someone married to a doc who does OB, I can tell you (in most cases anyway) you have nothing to be too concerned about if the ultrasound nurse/tech didn't sound the alarms and call in an OB while you were there.

Ultrasounds aren't perfect and if a kid keeps his legs closed, you might not get the perfect view of the boy or girl bits.

Midwives -- and I'm biased because of the M.D. I sleep with -- often are nontraditional in their approach to just about everything. That's neither good or bad in most cases. But it might explain why yours wants another look.

I think you're safe. But if you're losing sleep or getting stress out of it, see if there's an after-hours on-call doc or midwife at your clinic. And if the midwife doesn't take calls on Fridays, I sure hope labor doesn't start on that day.

No, no. They deliver Friday. And they see their clients Friday. They're just so swamped (we almost didn't get in) they can't/don't field telephone calls on Fridays. They only answer pages, see their appointments, and deliver babies.

 

[micropolitan guy]

If you don't want to know the sex of the baby, tell them beforehand and they won't tell you during the ultrasound. Of course, you might be able to tell. We didn't want to know, they didn't tell us and we didn't find out until the child was born, even though my wife had a dream about it and she was right.

Of course, she had a 50-50 chance of being right, which is more than she ever give me.

 

[outofplace]

All four of my children are currently uncooperative.

As someone married to a doc who does OB, I can tell you (in most cases anyway) you have nothing to be too concerned about if the ultrasound nurse/tech didn't sound the alarms and call in an OB while you were there.

Ultrasounds aren't perfect and if a kid keeps his legs closed, you might not get the perfect view of the boy or girl bits.

Midwives -- and I'm biased because of the M.D. I sleep with -- often are nontraditional in their approach to just about everything. That's neither good or bad in most cases. But it might explain why yours wants another look.

I think you're safe. But if you're losing sleep or getting stress out of it, see if there's an after-hours on-call doc or midwife at your clinic. And if the midwife doesn't take calls on Fridays, I sure hope labor doesn't start on that day.

No, no. They deliver Friday. And they see their clients Friday. They're just so swamped (we almost didn't get in) they can't/don't field telephone calls on Fridays. They only answer pages, see their appointments, and deliver babies.

Man, my wife would have dumped them fast.

My wife drove her doctors crazy. We ended up going with a large group, so there was always somebody on call that could be reached if need be. Only downside is she really didn't like all of the doctors. The one that really bugged her, of course, was the one on call overnight when the labor pains hit. Luckily, by the time my wife was ready to start pushing, her favorite was there to take over.

 

[Webster]

It's amazing how strong people's opinions are on the whole learning the gender thing. We found out and my brother and sister-in-law were horrified.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

All four of my children are currently uncooperative.

As someone married to a doc who does OB, I can tell you (in most cases anyway) you have nothing to be too concerned about if the ultrasound nurse/tech didn't sound the alarms and call in an OB while you were there.

Ultrasounds aren't perfect and if a kid keeps his legs closed, you might not get the perfect view of the boy or girl bits.

Midwives -- and I'm biased because of the M.D. I sleep with -- often are nontraditional in their approach to just about everything. That's neither good or bad in most cases. But it might explain why yours wants another look.

I think you're safe. But if you're losing sleep or getting stress out of it, see if there's an after-hours on-call doc or midwife at your clinic. And if the midwife doesn't take calls on Fridays, I sure hope labor doesn't start on that day.

No, no. They deliver Friday. And they see their clients Friday. They're just so swamped (we almost didn't get in) they can't/don't field telephone calls on Fridays. They only answer pages, see their appointments, and deliver babies.

Man, my wife would have dumped them fast.

My wife drove her doctors crazy. We ended up going with a large group, so there was always somebody on call that could be reached if need be. Only downside is she really didn't like all of the doctors. The one that really bugged her, of course, was the one on call overnight when the labor pains hit. Luckily, by the time my wife was ready to start pushing, her favorite was there to take over.

I should have anticipated this with my wife. My wife had a wedding party, and three girls to HELP THE WEDDING PARTY! I called them the auxilary.

My wife NEEDS an army of doctors.

 

[outofplace]

Pete, I hear ya. Honestly, it's going to be tough to keep her calm at times no matter what. Women just go through so much physically, particularly with the hormones, when they are pregnant. Take a woman who has any kind of....control needs....and it can get interesting.

Just be there for her as best you can. I know the approach that seemed to work for me was to let her and the doctors take care of the baby. My job was to take care of my wife. You and Mrs. Inky will find what works for you.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

Pete, I hear ya. Honestly, it's going to be tough to keep her calm at times no matter what. Women just go through so much physically, particularly with the hormones, when they are pregnant. Take a woman who has any kind of....control needs....and it can get interesting.

Just be there for her as best you can. I know the approach that seemed to work for me was to let her and the doctors take care of the baby. My job was to take care of my wife. You and Mrs. Inky will find what works for you.

Trying as best I can. Sneaking away from work when I can. Doing whatever I can. She's a handful when she's wound up like this (which, I keep telling her, isn't good for the baby either).

Anyway, she's all flustered today because the midwives called three times yesterday and left one message saying "Everything looks good. There's just something we have to double-check. Call us and we'll discuss it." (this after my wife called and talked to the secretary begging to have someone call back).

Me? Regrading that message, I hear and reason "Man, that crazy mother to be really wants us to call her. So we better." Which is why they called three times, coupled with the fact they aren't in the office Friday. They probably were going to "discuss" the fact they "were scheduling a second one because the first isn't clear enough on something."

Mrs. Inky? She hears and reasons "You're baby is f*cked! Call us right away!" forgetting SHE'S the one who practically begged them to call back and TOLD the secretary she's "a worrier."

I'm in line for a lovely weekend.

 

[93Devil]

My wife is due in February with our first, and she is 35, so we are having all sorts of tests done. I just show up and nod my head.

There are two ultrasounds, one they go inside and one is done above the belly. The one above the belly was at about 20 weeks or so. In that one they measure the femur(?), head and other things to make sure the development is going fine. No worries. It's normal.

My wife had an amnio as well so we had visits for that.

Oh, these people seem to do all the scheduling on Fridays. That's just the way it is. One tip though; if you do an early visit, you have a much better chance of being seen on time. Later in the day, you might get pushed back due to people with issues or emergencies that walk in off the street.

Hey, knowing the gender makes everything a lot easier when you need to go shopping for clothes. We (I, who am I kidding?) painted the room last weekend, and this weekend I will be assembling the crib. Mrs. 93Devil has already bought decorations for the room.

Happy times.

 

[baskethead]

We decided early on we weren't going to find out the gender, and stuck to it, which I'm happy about. And while I don't understand why people want to find out, I don't have an issue with it. I understand people take a baby's wardrobe pretty seriously, but I've yet to hear my four-month old complain about what he's wearing. As long as he gets his food, sleep and attention, he doesn't really care what his outfit is, or what his toys are, or what bib he's wearing. Hopefully he'll feel the same way when he's 11 (and hopefully he's still not wearing a bib then).

 

[expendable]

It's amazing how strong people's opinions are on the whole learning the gender thing. We found out and my brother and sister-in-law were horrified.

I found out both times. MrsExpendable wanted to know, and I'll be damned if I was going to paint a room twice. Other than that, I really didn't care if I knew or not.

 

[Webster]

My wife was very set on finding out; I didn't care as much, but I'm happy that we did.