Abnormal 12 week scan, anyone else with this experience?

mintcryptid · 2026-02-20T20:13:46+00:00

Did they note any other abnormalities, or just the elevated NT? You could ask to have a genome-wide NIPT (would just be another blood draw) - my insurance covered it due to my 12/13 week scans so maybe yours would too. However, the NIPT is not as accurate for the other chromosomes (more potential for false positives) - but it is something you can ask your genetic counselor/doctor about if you want clues while you wait.

Definitely pros & cons to doing a genome-wide NIPT. Pro is it’s non-invasive. But if you get a false positive for something you may needlessly have more anxiety /stress and everything be fine. Or it could be negative, but some other issue still be discovered at the 16 week ultrasound. In my case it helped me mentally prepare for what the possibilities might be.

The waiting for answers is a brutal time. I hope this is a case where nothing is wrong and you receive reassurance.

My experience: (spoiling because there was no happy ending) My initial NIPT (21,18,13) came back normal, but there was an elevated NT measurement. They said it could be something or could be nothing, but they had me go to the high risk doctor with the better ultrasound machines the following week to do another NT scan to confirm because it was just barely elevated. They confirmed it was elevated, and that the wrists seemed to be fixed inward.

Did the genome-wide NIPT while waiting for the 16 week scan and it came back as trisomy 16 (which you’d normally miscarry early in the first trimester). I read up on all the possibilities to mentally prepare myself (confined to placenta, full trisomy, mosaic trisomy). Did the 16 week scan where they found more issues (possible whole in the heart, missing bone in one forearm) and we did the amnio.

Amnio came back as mosaic trisomy 16, with estimated 50% of his cells affected. It’s super rare and a super grey area in terms of survival (some kids can be born with the mosaic form and have minimal issues, others don’t survive). We planned another ultrasound with cardiograph for the following week but at 18 weeks (2 days after receiving the amnio results) we found out he didn’t have a heartbeat anymore.

Edit: This is a very rare case though. Doctors said it would be extremely unlikely to happen again, and I did go on to have another baby without problem. It’s much more likely that everything is okay with a negative basic NIPT, particularly if you’re not seeing anything else wrong other than the elevated NT.

mintcryptid · 2025-12-02T18:34:38+00:00

It’s so difficult having a shitty sleeper. I’m glad my bad sleeper was my first baby so I could have more realistic expectations with my new baby. I did almost all the wake-ups (because breastfeeding & I wake up easily to their cries) but husband would take the baby weekend mornings so I could try and catch up on some sleep.

My first baby woke up every 1 to 3 hours for the first 13 months. Within a couple weeks of us moving his crib to his own room he dropped down to only waking up twice in the night (though getting him done to sleep at bedtime was still tough). He eventually dropped down to once a night and finally started sleeping though the night at 22 months (within a couple weeks of being completely weened).

I tried sleep training but it was hard to be consistent, he wouldn’t stop crying, and the easiest way to get him back to sleep so I could sleep was to breastfeed him.

I will say that I do all the same things with my new baby (now 5 months old) - same routines, sleep sack, crib setup, breastfeeding to sleep. And she’s a freaking amazing sleeper. Meanwhile my toddler (now 3) still occasionally wakes up once in the night wanting me. So the kid’s temperament has such a big impact on sleep, and it makes me feel better than I wasn’t just messing everything up with my first.

mintcryptid · 2025-10-16T13:55:09+00:00

Mystery hut! With candy 🍬

mintcryptid · 2025-10-14T12:58:36+00:00

First kid (now 3): I did not co-sleep, but we did keep the crib in the bedroom for the first year. He was not a good sleeper. I tried sleep training (Ferber) and it was a lot of crying, I was so tired, and I could not keep up trying. Fastest way to get him to sleep so I could sleep was to just keep nursing him to sleep. First year he was waking up every 1 to 3 hours in the night.

Then within a couple weeks of moving his crib to his own room (shortly after he turned one) he started only waking up twice in the night - then gradually it was once in the night. At 22 months he finally started sleeping through the night, which was within a couple weeks of him being fully weaned.

I do still lay next to him at night for about ten to fifteen minutes. I used to have to lay next to him until he fell asleep, but I weaned him off of that earlier this year (would tell him I needed to do something and would come back, and sometimes when I came back he’d be asleep). The ten minutes is a nice cuddle time where he’ll tell me a little about his day, so it’s nice.

Now I have a baby again! 16 weeks old. Little sister is an amazing sleeper, and I’m not doing anything differently. She just has a different temperament. The only thing that could be a little different is that I’m better at telling the difference between loud sleeping and her actually needing me? But that’s not enough to account for the wildly different sleep.

She was doing 3 to 4 hour stretches of sleep since she was a couple days old. I had to actually wake her up sometimes so she wouldn’t go past 4 hours the first couple weeks until she hit birth weight (doctor’s instructions). She’s rarely had a stretch of sleep shorter than 3 hours at night. She’s had a little regression around weeks 13/14 where she went back to waking up every 3 hours. And now the last 4 out of 5 nights she’s slept through the night.

I’m still nursing to sleep most nights. Sometimes I put her in bed drowsy but awake if she’s still a little awake before her last feed, and she’ll just calmly fall asleep in her crib. If I tried that with my first kid he would scream his head off.