January 2, 2010

The Pregnancy

We had decided early on that we wouldn't find out the sex of our baby.  We knew that this was our last time being pregnant, and really enjoyed not finding out when we had Jovie. On the way to the ultrasound appointment, Michael and I had a change of heart.  We decided that it might be better to find out so we could start talking about the baby by name to our older kids. My mom went to the appointment with us.

The tech got started and right away asked us if we would like to know the sex.  We told her that we would, but she was having a very hard time giving us a definite answer.  She told us that the baby was in an awkward position.  She was 70% sure that it was a boy.  Since we had originally planned on not finding out the sex, this didn't seem like a big deal.  She went on with the ultrasound, and it seemed to take forever (this is coming from the girl with the very full bladder).  The tech kept pointing out different parts of our baby, and did say a few times that the baby was being a little uncooperative.  I noticed that she did seem to stay on the heart, lip, and kidneys for a long time but she never gave a clue that something was wrong.  When we left the office I felt really good about things.  We had pics of our baby to show the kids, and were pretty sure that it was a boy.  It wasn't until we drove about a mile or two that I started to have a weird feeling.  I told Michael that I thought the tech had seen something wrong.  He told me that he felt that everything was fine, but if I was worried about it I should call the doc.  I did just that and left a message with the nurse.  The doc called me back about an hour later and told me that he saw nothing wrong on the ultrasound, but if it would make me more comfortable we should schedule an appointment with a Perinatologist.  I had a regular OB visit scheduled for a few days later, so we made plans to talk about it then.

When we went to the appointment a few days later, the doc came in and told us that he had a conversation with the tech and she felt that there was possibly debris in the amniotic fluid, and she couldn't get clear pics of the heart and kidneys.  The doc then proceeded to tell us that the good news was that our baby had a brain.  What?!  Excuse me?!  The good news is that our baby has a brain?  I had no idea what to make of that, but did the absolute WRONG thing when I got home and Googled "baby, brain, debris, amniotic fluid".  Let's just say that it really was good news that our baby had a brain.  The photos I saw on that day will haunt me for the rest of my life.  The soonest that we could get into the Perinatologist was a couple of weeks away, so all we could do was wait.

1 comment:

stephanie h said...

Oh my gosh, I would been completely upset as well!

Google sometimes can be a very bad thing, can't it? :(