the day everything changed

On Friday we had a routine doctor’s appointment that turned not so routine.  My doctor had a hard time getting a good heart beat reading with the doppler.  She didn’t act concerned.  We thought it was the lemonade I had drank earlier….that the baby was just moving like crazy.  She sent us over to sonogram to check for sure.

As we waited to get the sonogram, I had the same feeling I’ve had numerous times the past three months. Something wasn’t right.  Although at 14 weeks and out of the first trimester I tried to tell myself it was nothing.  The sonogram tech is awesome at her job. She’s done all of my sonograms so when she started going back and forth and her face got more serious…I started to get nervous.  Finally after a few more minutes I told her that.  She said, “I know honey, I just need a couple more minutes”.  I knew then that it wasn’t good.  She told us that she found a growth on the back of the baby’s neck. She needed to talk with my doctor so someone would be back in soon.

My doctor explained that the baby had a cystic hygroma.  At that point there was a huge range of what this could mean.  The most minor was a growth on the neck with no other complications.  The baby would just need surgery after birth.  Downs Syndrome was mentioned and the baby not making it to term.  My doctor wanted me to see a high risk doctor to confirm this.

We walked to the car in a daze.  As soon my car door was closed I completely lost it.  We drove home in shock.  How were we going through this?  Telling our parents was gut-wrenching.  Seeing my father-in-law cry was almost more than I could handle.  Over the weekend we did a little online research to get a better idea what cystic hygroma was.  No good information came from that.

Yesterday we saw the high risk doctor who in a matter of minutes confirmed the diagnosis.  Once he pointed out the cystic hygroma I was in shock at how large it was.  Then he took a closer look at the heart.  It seems our little one does not have four chambers and has a very irregular heart beat.

The doctor was very up front about everything he saw.  Had the baby just had the cystic hygroma he felt like there was a chance it could work out.  Because of the major heart defect he was sure there was also chromosome abnormalities.  He said, “This baby is not going to live much longer”.

I’ve held it together pretty well.  My emotions are all over the place.  Anger, sadness, disbelief…  To be perfectly honest, the desire to get drunk is very strong.  (Considering I never drink and don’t really like drinking…I think that’s saying something.)  Our family has been incredible.  I can’t help but feel so sad for them that they have to go through this as well.

The hardest part now is just waiting for the inevitable.  I mean, how do you wait for your unborn child to die?  We are praying that God takes our little one Home soon.  As much as we would love to meet them, we know that this one just isn’t ours to keep.