20 Week Ultrasound

We had our 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday Aug. 21st. I was very excited to see our baby girl again and see how she's grown. They did all the measurements and looked at the head and heart and blood flow and all looked perfect and normal. We even got to see her in 3D which is AMAZING.

 

 I love my Dr's office they get me right in within 5 min of arriving and usually take me right back to do the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech is the best and tells you everything she's doing. She knew at 15 weeks with Arianna and this time what the sex was. The Dr. says she is never wrong. That's why toward the end of the ultrasound when she found a little something that was a bit off by the umbilical cord and wouldn't tell us what it might be I started to get concerned. She said " I'll show it to the Dr and see what he says about it". Those words are never good to hear... especially from her! So she gave us our awesome ultrasound pictures and sent us to our waiting room for the Dr. to come and see us. Below is what I stared at for what seemed like forever before my Dr came to see us.

 Here is our sweet baby girl. Look how perfect she looks with her rosey cheeks and everything .

 I love this picture, She's giving us a big thumbs up. Like everythings going to be OK... or she's trying to suck her thumb. I perfer the first one after the news we got.

 This is a bad quality pic but it's her profile. It's kinda hard to make out.

 And here's her heartrate. Still around the 150's like it's been for a while. Good and strong. I can feel her moving all around, way more then I remember Arianna moving. It's one of the best feelings in the world to experience a miracle gorwing inside you!


So now that you had to wait and look at my pictures I will tell you what the Dr. came in and told us. He said I wish I could always come and and tell my patients that everything looks perfect but in this case we have an issue. My heart sank at this point. He then when on to explain that all her measurments look perfect and normal until you reach this little part by her umbilical cord where her belly button would be. He explained that he thinks our baby girl has something called Omphalocele. From what I heard him say is that it's like a larger ambilical hernia that will need surgery within 2-3 weeks after delivery. OK no big deal, i can handle that. I know lots of people who have had ambilical hernia's and they are just fine. He continued on saying I want you to go and see a specialist in Maternal Fetal Medicine, he can do another ultrasound and tell you what he thinks about it. I said Ok not thinking much of it other then she will need a minor surgery to fix something by her bellybutton. My Dr's office called me about an hour later saying they have an appointment with Maternal Fetal Medicine for the next day! I said yes lets do it. Altho there was 1 thing that made me worry it was that the lady making the appointment mentioned something about genetic councling before i hung up the phone but I figured that probably routine.

This was a tuesday and that is always one of my busier days. So I went straight from the dr's office back to babysitting then straight to YW's until 9pm then I came home and Clayton had rented Hunger Games and I was dying to watch it so I watched that and was so tired I headed right off to bed not worrying too much about our visit from the Dr. Well at around 4am i woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so I thought " what a good time to research what my Dr was saying". BAD IDEA!! When you research Ompholocele you get pictures like this....

Seriously!! This is what my Dr. said was going to be like a umbilical hernia? Now to give my Dr. credit he knew exactly what it was he's a specialist and is AMAZING he just knows all the heartache and troubles we have had over the last 6 years trying to concieve and wanted me to stay positive. Plus he HATES telling me bad news because I'm so crazy, so he probably wanted the MFM specialist to deliver all the bad stuff. I can't say I blame him. Then you start hearing all these things like they usually have other genetic problems or heart issues or something else with the omphalocele. It's a birth defect and it's serious!! They have to have immediate surgery and have a LONG stay in the NICU. I was bawling and freaking out to say the least!! 

So the next day was a complete diseaster. I was an emotional mess I was watching 4 kids that day and they all had the worst day of their lives. Baby Gramm is usually so happy and easy going but that day he was HORRIBLE. He didn't feel good at all. He kept throwing up and having gas and you could feel and hear his little belly a rumbling. Then Arianna just woke up mad, she wanted her blaket and binkey all day and just wanted me to hold her. She usually only gets her blanket and binkey at night time and is usually super independent. I'm running around the house carrying Gramm because if I sat him down he would cry and trying to clean the house and make things presentable for my neighbor to watch all the kids while I was gone at my appointment. On top of this Arie the 5 year old I watch started her 2nd day of kindergarten and was riding the bus for the first time. So I was stressed out trying to haul all the kids in the rain to her bus stop and worried about how she was going to do and all. Then Arie got home from kindergarten at noon. I hurried and fed them tried to do some last minute cleaning and I could tell Arie was not feeling like herself but I honestly had no time to ask or see what was the matter and I just figured she was tired from school. I also had Journey that day but she was perfect so at least someone was having an OK day otherwise I would have lost it. So my fantastic neighbor came over with my craziness and watched all the kids plus her own... she's amazing!! Thank you so much Eliza! And off Clayton and I went to the Dr's. Then to top it all off after I came home sweet Arie was not feeling good. She kept going to the bathroom every 5 min and finally she just ended up staying in there for very long periods of time. I finally got it out of her that she probably had a bladder infection. I called her mom and by the time she came to pick her up she was crying on the toilet refusing to leave her "saftey net" Poor girl. Seriously when it rains it pours... why not!

At Maternal Fetal Medicine they did about an hour long ultrasound looking at every tiny thing. Making sure there were 5 fingers and 5 toes on each appendix, checking and double checking measurements. Looking detailed at the brain checking everything with the heart looking for cleft palate and other facial markers. I mean EVERYTHING, they didn't skimp. Then she finally got to the umbilical cord and said "man I'm surprised the tech saw anything. That's not very big" I was so happy to hear that after seeing everything I researched that morning. So then we waited in the room for the specialist dr to come. He explained that there is an omphalocele with our baby girl and showed us the pictures that prove it. He then went on to explain that it looks like it's just the small intestines in the omphalocele  sometimes there is everything small and large intestines, spleen's and bladders, but this just shows that only the small intestines are outside our baby girls stomach. But with having a small omphalocele it's more likely the baby will have genetic disorders or other things wrong with her. He stated that everything looked fine for now but sometimes these things dont show up till later. The only way to make sure and rule out the genetic disorders is through an amnio. This is where they stick a long skinny needle into my belly through the uterus and extract some amniotic fluid. They then grow the cells out and count the genes and make sure there are 2 sets of all 23 chromosomes. There is a 1 in 300 chance it can disrupt the pregnancy so some people wait, some people don't do it at all and others want to know right away. I decided I DO want it done but not until the sweet baby can survive on her own if something happened. So around 28 weeks we will have that test done. It will be hard to not know right away but I think that is what will be best. There are 4 major genetic problems 2 of which will end in termination of the pregnancy or death right after delivery, 1 is down syndrome, the other is weird genetic mutations and 1 other is she will be a girl and be totally normal but will never be able to reproduce. But after talking to my Dr again he really truely believes She has just this one isolated birth defect with no other problems. If that's the case I will deliver in SL they will wisk baby girl from my arms stuff her insides back inside where they belong and she will have to stay in the NICU for a min of 2 weeks. They ususally are totally fine after 1 surgery and a stay in the NICU they develop and are just perfect after their rough start. I have faith that my Dr is right and baby girl will be fine. Like I said she's doing acrobatics in my belly every second and she looks absolutely beautiful.  So as of now this is what we know. Hopefully soon we will have more news and i will try and update with each ultrasound we get but right now we are in the wait and see stage.

Below are some pictures I think will be similar to what our sweet baby girl might look like when she arrives. It's going to be a long bumpy road no matter what happens. Good thing this family of mine have our protection on :-)

 

It's been hard to wrap my head around this new news especially when I was expecting things to go "a little better" with this next pregnancy and labor and delivery. with your first you don't know quite what your doing and everythings new and with this one I was having all these thoughts like. I'm not going to gain nearly as much weight, I'm going to try and keep my blood pressure down, I want to go all natural in the new tubs they have at the hospital, you know all these thoughts that you are going to improve upon. And then I hear this news and all I want is a happy outcome. I don't care whatsoever about anything else. All I want is for my sweet baby to be able to have a normal life. It really brings alot of perspective to pregnancy.

 

I also know that Clayton and I can handle anything that comes our way our heavenly father has been preparing us for a while with lots of trials and tribulations. Maybe it was to prepare us for this event, maybe there will be harder events to come, who konws, but I do know 1 thing. We are strong and we are strong only with our lords help and no matter what happens and no matter what the outcome is it will be Gods will. I have the faith now to know and understand that true undaunting faith doesn't come from believing everything will work out the way I want it to or think it should, true faith comes from knowing our father in heaven loves me and has a plan for me and my family it comes in believing he knows what's best for me and it's trusing in HIS plan. It means putting all my trust and faith in HIM.

 

This whole pregnancy I told myself from the very begining I'm going to enjoy every second of this pregnancy from the emotional roller coaster at first to the aching back and swollen ankels at the end. Even with this news I'm still going to enjoy every second I have with this sweet baby girl, I especially now don't know how long it will last or if I will ever have it again. I'm trying to live each moment as it comes and make the best of it.

 

Thank you to all our family and friends who have been so sweet and so supportive of our situation. I know there have been people praying and fasting for us since before this little lady was concieved. I can't put into words what your faith and dilligence and love for my family has done for me. We are truely blessed with amazing support. We love you so so much!!

 

These are from my neighbor Jessica Franz. Thank you, everytime I look at them they bring a big smile to my face... Love you girl :-)