At first the doctor couldn't get a look at her little face because she was turned around and had her hands up in front of her face. That seems to be one of her favorite positions. :) It was snowing that day (yes, I am STILL in Texas) and so they were short staffed. Since Mia wasn't cooperating, the doctor left to finish with another patient while we waited to see if Mia would turn or not. Zeus and I were shaking my stomach trying to get her to move around. :) I also turned to the different sides for a little bit at a time and we took turns rubbing my belly. That must have done it because when the doctor got back in Mia had changed positions. We felt a little bad when we saw her new position because it didn't look at ALL comfortable as you can see below, poor thing!
For those of you who have a hard time seeing anything besides static in an ultrasound, this picture above has Mia's head on the right, her bum on the left, and her feet stretched up over her head! We have decided she must be some kind of acrobat and that she has her momma's flexibility. :) Because of the angle to get her profile, you can't see her little arms in this pic, but they are ALSO stretched up over her head, almost like she's playing with her toes. We now refer to her as Mia the Acrobat.
Here's her little face looking directly forward, head on the right and torso on the left.
Here's Mia's little profile picture. In this picture you can see that her little upper lip isn't defined under the bump of her nose. We found out that our sweet baby girl does indeed have a cleft lip and palate. The term for her kind of clefting is called a bi-lateral cleft lip and palate. This means that she has two clefts, one from each nostril. I think we were a little in shock at first at the news. We knew it was a possibility, but to see the evidence and to hear it specifically diagnosed was hard to hear because we wanted everything to be perfect for our little Mia. It breaks our hearts to think that our sweet little baby girl will have to undergo surgeries and be in any kind of pain, but are grateful that so much is known about these issues and that they know what surgeries to do, when to do them, etc. The specialist also said that with these babies that have the clefting, there can be other things going on with them to - a lot of what they call mid-line issues with other things along the midline also having problems. They checked her little hands and legs, fingers and toes, heart and brain, head, etc. There can also be something else called Trisomy something that can cause lots and lots of problems too. Everthing looked good so far with Mia and we are SO thankful for that!!! We will still go into the fetal specialist once a month too for full scans to continue to monitor Mia and her growth. It will be fun to get to be able to see her so much, because you usually don't get that many ultrasounds. They will also be doing 3 and 4D ultrasounds so we'll have a pretty good idea of what her sweet little face will look like before she's born, and to find out more about the clefting. There will also be a team of specialists to evaluate her shortly after birth who will be able to do a full evaluation. I asked about feeding issues, and the doctor said that quite often these kiddos are still able to nurse, I guess because of the flexibility of the human breast they are able to get the nipple far enough back in their little mouths so that the milk doesn't go up into their sinuses. She also said that it's about the best thing for them too. We're hoping and praying that Mia will be able too. It will be so good for her, and also make it one less thing we have to be juggling. Cross your fingers for us!
Good times at the Olive Garden (from the center clockwise: Jeff, Nathan, Michelle, Eunice, Bertha, Lupe, Rosario, Carlos and me.
