And A Small Pancake Shall Lead The Way...

So today was a fun filled day of medical adventures. ;->

We started off with our meeting with a genetic counselor at Kaiser. As with most everything in the Kaiser bureaucracy, this was mostly useless. It went something like this:

Us: Hey, Vanessa is 36 years old and there is a non-trivial chance of Down's. We'd like an amnio please.

Kaiser Doc: No, you must meet with a genetic counselor first.

Us: Seriously??

Kaiser Doc: I'm totally cereal.

(two weeks later)

Us: Hello Genetic Counselor, we'd like an amnio please.

GC: No. First you must give me $15, then we must spend over an hour going over all the basic information you have already read in like 2 pages of every baby book on the planet, then I will draw a detailed family tree even though you have already told me there is no history of genetic problems in your family.

(An hour goes by)

GC: ...so in conclusion, you should have an amnio!

Us: (slaps forehead) We'd like to die now please.

The Genetic Counselor was a really nice lady though. It's not her fault she works for morons.

So later in the day Vanessa wakes up from a nap, gets out of bed and promptly starts gushing blood out of her lady parts. This is not good. To the ER we go. I'll spare you the long, not very funny story. Let's just say that it contains many hours of heartache, anguish and tears on the part of the prospective parents as they wait helplessly under the uncaring glare of fluorescent lights, holding hands and desperately hoping for good news.

It wasn't fun.

In the end it turned out that Vanessa has a small pancake in the way.

She has been diagnosed with Placenta Praevia. This is good news for now. It is not an immediate threat to mom or baby. Over 90% of cases will clear on their own before birth. Most of the rest will deliver normally via c-section.

Placenta Praevia is a condition where the placenta is covering the cervix. Normally this is not a problem in early pregnancy as the placenta will "migrate" up and out of the way over the next few weeks.

The hilarious part is that as I have learned more and more Latin, medicine has started to sound sillier and sillier. "Placenta Praevia" literally translates as "a small pancake comes first" or "a small pancake is in the way".....

Awesome. ;->

Joe