So . . . in another part of my life (one of my music groups), I was talking last week to a woman who is an ultrasound tech (and specifically performs fetal echocardiograms.) When I said that with my pregnancy with Nick that I was upset that my original OB thought we needed to wait until at least 22 weeks to do a fetal echo, but I insisted that it could be done earlier, she was surprised. We did have it done at exactly 16 weeks, and she was surprised when I told her that, too. She said that is really early. I practically retorted that we could have gotten it done in Chicago at 15 weeks. She seemed really surprised by that. I also found out that she works for the other pediatric cardiology group in town than the one we eventually had the appointment with at 16 weeks. I had talked with this group that she now works for, and yes, they were very reluctant to do a fetal echo earlier - they wanted to wait until 18 weeks. I don't think MY heart could have taken another two weeks!
All of this is rather ridiculous in that CHOP in Pennsylvania can do them as early as 12 weeks.
http://www.chop.edu/service/cardiac-center/our-services/fetal-heart-program.html
Even the group in Chicago that cared for our Sam could probably do them that early, although they still don't advertise that. They still say 15 weeks. http://www.thic.com/fetalechocard.htm Northwestern does them at 16-18 weeks gestation. http://www.nwcchd.com/cardiactesting.php#fetal That seems late - at least for HLHS. Yes, I know they can't even really see images of some structures of the heart until even after the baby is born (why we had an echo on N after he was born), but they can most certainly tell early on if it appears the baby has two entire ventricles!
It was such a relief to know that his heart appeared to be healthy . . . or at the least, had nothing majorly wrong with it at that point in time!
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