6th Appointment - 23 weeks

Today's appointment was at Douglas's Mt. Elizabeth clinic. Today's the day Lina is going for the Obstetric Fetal Anomaly Screening Ultrasound Test. All of our baby's physical appearance, extremities and the major internal organs were scanned.

Today's detailed scanning calls for the use of the state of the art medical equipment. This machine can scan the baby in 3D - Static and the impressive 4D - Real Time "video" mode.

Our baby was sleeping soundly when the scan was being done. We could see her face, abdomen, hands, feet, and even her lips! All in 3 dimensional pictures. Douglas took a couple of the 4D - Real Time video and recorded all the pictures and videos into the machine's harddisk. We could choose to pay an additional 30 bucks for his staff to burn everything onto a CD for us to bring home. Well, we decided to tkae up his offer.

Douglas also mentioned about getting a "confinement maid" early to avoid disappointment. Seems like there's only 2 choices : the maid agency or those working freelance. The difference between those two, of course, turned out to be: COST. The maid agency charges an extra which they termed "maid levy". Both "factions" seem to be on par in their competency levels. Well, this issue is still open for discussion, and a decision should be made in about 1 to 2 weeks time.

The detailed scan went well. There were no major anomalies detected. Our baby is still a girl. The only minor observation might be the "low lying placenta on the anterior". Hopefully this observation could be ironed out before week 30.

The next appointment is going to be tough for Lina. She'll be required to do a blood test once, and urine test twice. The appointment is scheduled to be at 0830hrs, at Mt. E again. She could only drink plain water from midnight up till the 1st test. 2nd urine test is at 0930hrs and the appointment will end at 1030hrs. Only then can Lina get to eat any solid food. Boy, I have a feeling that it's going to be tough on me too. But I guess it wouldn't be much, compared to what Lina has to go through.

Next update: 23rd Jan 2006.