I don't even know where to start with this one, I still cannot believe that this has happened.....
It was supposed to be just a routine trip to the OB office for our 21 week ultrasound. My husband was with me and I was excited for him to meet our doctors and to see our daughter again. We were even going to grab a nice breakfast after the appointment. Then our world came apart.....
The ultrasound tech seemed to take a long time and kept trying to get our baby to move so she could "get a better picture." After about 30 minutes she got up and told us that she was all set. They moved us to the standard ob office room and I hopped up on the table. As we were waiting for the nurse practitioner to come in my husband kept saying that something was wrong. He didn't like the questions that the ultrasound tech was asking. I told him that everything was fine and that he was over reacting. After what seemed like forever the NP came in the room and said the worst 6 words I had ever heard (up to that point in my life), "There is something wrong with baby." I don't think I heard much of what she said after that, something about the baby being small, something about her heart and something about her brain. That was all I heard. She said they wanted me to see a specialist but that the one at their hospital wasn't in until Monday (it was Thursday). We then spent the longest 30 minutes of our life waiting for them to find a doctor who would see us that day. I felt the walls closing in on me....I had to get out of that room.
Finally she came in and told us that they got us an appointment for us in an hour and a half at U of M. My husband drove and I called our parents. Those were some of the hardest phone calls I have ever had to make. I don't even remember how we got there, but an hour after we left the first hospital we were at the second.
They took us, almost right away, to an ultrasound room. Bigger and fancier than the one we were just in and this time we had an actual doctor preforming the ultrasound....we were hoping for better news this time. They took the most detailed ultrasound possible (for about 1.5 hours) and then broke the news to us. Our daughter had Dandy Walker Varient (a malformation of the vermis of her brain), Inter Uterine Growth Restriction (she was measuring at 19 weeks when she should have been at 21), only one artery in her umbilical cord, and a Velementous Cord Insertion (the umbilical cord didn't go directly between her and I). They told us that she could have Trisonmy 18 which is "incompatible with life."
We met with a genetic counselor, 2 doctors from the fetal diagnostic center, and a few other people who's titles I do not know. We decided to have an amnio done. The two doctors preformed it that day. It didn't hurt, but to be honest I couldn't watch. I just kept watching my baby on the ultrasound machine thinking that this could be the last time I see her alive...I cried the whole time.
They called us on Monday with the FISH results of the amnio that everything looked good (no genetic disorders). They scheduled a fetal MRI for that Thursday. I had to deal with insurance that Wednesday when I got a call from the doctors office telling me that the authorization for the procedure was "pending". Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!? PENDING??? I need to know whats wrong with my baby now!!! Luckily everything worked itself out and our procedure was on for 6:50 the following morning.
We drove to the MRI in almost silence. I think my husband and I were both exhausted and scared. They took us back for the MRI and told us that it was going to take about an hour to an hour and a half. I was terrified!!! I had never had an MRI before and the thought of sitting in the MRI tube for that long with nothing to do and not being able to move scared me. As they moved me into the tube I prayed....and I kept praying for most of the procedure. 40 minutes after we started it was over.
Now, my husband tends to over react some times but he has always been a very good judge of character so when he told me that he was worried because they said it would take an hour to an hour and a half and then it only took 40 minutes he was really concerned. We went home and took a nap and had our parents come over at 2pm (they were supposed to call with the results between 2:30-4:30). The 6 of us sat around making small talk till the phone finally rang at 4:40pm. The MRI confirmed what we already knew but showed no other problems. We were happy...........
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