If you have facebook you know that it will send you a notice saying that "you have memories on this day " and it will show you your memories that you have posted in years past. I just recently signed up for this reminder thing. Most days I like this reminder. I'll remember funny things that my children have said or milestones that they have hit, or events that I attended that I had a great time at. They generally give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Well, not today. Today it reminded me that 4 yrs ago I had a not so great Dr's appt while pregnant with Sadie.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I slept like crap the night before because my head was spinning in a million different directions. I had to be at the Dr's first thing in the morning as they were going to do an echo and 3d imaging on Sadie's heart to see the defect more clear, so they could be more prepared for her birth day. They would know what to expect, and how to prepare us for what may happen. My husband at the time was working night shift, so as soon as he came home, we left for the appt. Neither of us said anything in that 30 min drive to the office. We walked in hand in hand, both of us had sweaty palms, both of us had slight tremors from our nerves. We had heard many scenarios up to this point, including the chance of delivering her that day. She would have been about 8 weeks early.
They call me back, lay me on the table, prep me up and the ultrasound tech starts her thing. Measuring everything, checking fluid levels, listening to the heart beat, making small talk to try to ease our nerves. She then becomes quiet. and turns the screen some so we can't watch. I knew something was wrong, ultrasounds for this pregnancy always came with bad news, so I prepared myself. The tech left, and came back with 3 Dr's. The fetal cardiologist, my OB Dr, and some other Dr, that to this day I still don't know who he was. They talked and pointed at some stuff on the screen that I still couldn't see. They mumbled a little here and there. My heart was pounding hard and fast and I'm pretty sure it was so loud that everyone in the room could here it. I tuned out everyone in the room, and went to a happy place in my mind and started to pray. I felt like they sat there staring at the screen, pointing to things, making quiet comments and examining Sadie forever, in reality it was about an hour long ultrasound. Finally, they said "OK, we are done. The tech will show you to a room. We will be in shortly." I finish wiping my belly off from all that goopy stuff, and we follow the tech to the room.
We sit there and wait. It felt like a million hours, but I'm sure it wasn't. Finally, the fetal cardiologist comes in and says "do you want the good news or the bad news first"? What do you say to that? My heart just stopped and my mind started racing. I wanted to say "hey a$$hole, just start talking and give me the news because I may explode with anxiety". But I didn't, we sat there in silence, staring at him, until he decided what order to give us the news. "The good news, we won't be delivering the baby today and we have no reason to believe that she won't be born alive, her heart is very stable for the time being". My eyes filled with tears, I breathed a big sigh, grabbed my husband hands and squeezed it. We both had tears of joy in our eyes (at least at that moment they were of joy). And then he continued and this is where things get a little blurry in my mind cause he just started spitting out all of these new findings. I just remember hearing bits and pieces... her heart currently looks stable... the hole isn't where we originally thought it was... but she still may need open heart surgery within hours of being born cause we can't completely be sure the depth/size of the hole... we found a rare finding with her vena cava, honestly, personally I've never seen it before... I looked it up and with the defect in her heart and the brain malformation she may have blah, blah, blah disorder... here is what I found (he hands us a Xerox copy of a page in a medical book)... I tuned him out. I got stuck on brain malformation. Up to this point we had never heard that anything was wrong with her brain. Finally, I interrupted him and told him that he might have the wrong person cause there was nothing wrong with her brain. He got quiet and said "OK, wait a minute, I'll be back". He came back in with my regular OB and that's when they explained that this was a new finding as of today and that her cerebellum had stopped growing. Again, they reiterated that they had no reason to believe that she wouldn't be born alive. They explained what the cerebellum did, they said "it probably won't effect her too much, she may be clumsier than normal , or have trouble sitting and such things that need balance, nothing else should be effected", they said it so nonchalant, like it was no big deal (HA, little did they know the WHOLE story that the future revealed)! The Dr's continued to talk at us, I'm pretty sure that my husband and I tuned them out from that point on. Finally, we heard "anymore questions"? I wanted to scream "HE%# yes, a million more questions"! But we didn't. I shook my head no, my husband was in a daze (a combo of lack of sleep and the news). They told me that I had to have a non stress test before I left to make sure the baby was OK. I sent my husband to the car to sleep, and I sat there staring out the window for a half hour while I listened to this precious heartbeat, praying for it to stay strong. Was all this really happening to me? To my baby? To my family? It all felt so surreal. The nurse came in and said that all looked good. I could go home. I made an appt for the following week and left in a complete daze, confused, and thankful that my baby was still safe, deep down inside of me and for now there was no signs of her making her way into the world early.
Again we drove home in silence, neither of us had much to say, both of us taking in the lastest news.
I remember that day like it was yesterday. I slept like crap the night before because my head was spinning in a million different directions. I had to be at the Dr's first thing in the morning as they were going to do an echo and 3d imaging on Sadie's heart to see the defect more clear, so they could be more prepared for her birth day. They would know what to expect, and how to prepare us for what may happen. My husband at the time was working night shift, so as soon as he came home, we left for the appt. Neither of us said anything in that 30 min drive to the office. We walked in hand in hand, both of us had sweaty palms, both of us had slight tremors from our nerves. We had heard many scenarios up to this point, including the chance of delivering her that day. She would have been about 8 weeks early.
They call me back, lay me on the table, prep me up and the ultrasound tech starts her thing. Measuring everything, checking fluid levels, listening to the heart beat, making small talk to try to ease our nerves. She then becomes quiet. and turns the screen some so we can't watch. I knew something was wrong, ultrasounds for this pregnancy always came with bad news, so I prepared myself. The tech left, and came back with 3 Dr's. The fetal cardiologist, my OB Dr, and some other Dr, that to this day I still don't know who he was. They talked and pointed at some stuff on the screen that I still couldn't see. They mumbled a little here and there. My heart was pounding hard and fast and I'm pretty sure it was so loud that everyone in the room could here it. I tuned out everyone in the room, and went to a happy place in my mind and started to pray. I felt like they sat there staring at the screen, pointing to things, making quiet comments and examining Sadie forever, in reality it was about an hour long ultrasound. Finally, they said "OK, we are done. The tech will show you to a room. We will be in shortly." I finish wiping my belly off from all that goopy stuff, and we follow the tech to the room.
We sit there and wait. It felt like a million hours, but I'm sure it wasn't. Finally, the fetal cardiologist comes in and says "do you want the good news or the bad news first"? What do you say to that? My heart just stopped and my mind started racing. I wanted to say "hey a$$hole, just start talking and give me the news because I may explode with anxiety". But I didn't, we sat there in silence, staring at him, until he decided what order to give us the news. "The good news, we won't be delivering the baby today and we have no reason to believe that she won't be born alive, her heart is very stable for the time being". My eyes filled with tears, I breathed a big sigh, grabbed my husband hands and squeezed it. We both had tears of joy in our eyes (at least at that moment they were of joy). And then he continued and this is where things get a little blurry in my mind cause he just started spitting out all of these new findings. I just remember hearing bits and pieces... her heart currently looks stable... the hole isn't where we originally thought it was... but she still may need open heart surgery within hours of being born cause we can't completely be sure the depth/size of the hole... we found a rare finding with her vena cava, honestly, personally I've never seen it before... I looked it up and with the defect in her heart and the brain malformation she may have blah, blah, blah disorder... here is what I found (he hands us a Xerox copy of a page in a medical book)... I tuned him out. I got stuck on brain malformation. Up to this point we had never heard that anything was wrong with her brain. Finally, I interrupted him and told him that he might have the wrong person cause there was nothing wrong with her brain. He got quiet and said "OK, wait a minute, I'll be back". He came back in with my regular OB and that's when they explained that this was a new finding as of today and that her cerebellum had stopped growing. Again, they reiterated that they had no reason to believe that she wouldn't be born alive. They explained what the cerebellum did, they said "it probably won't effect her too much, she may be clumsier than normal , or have trouble sitting and such things that need balance, nothing else should be effected", they said it so nonchalant, like it was no big deal (HA, little did they know the WHOLE story that the future revealed)! The Dr's continued to talk at us, I'm pretty sure that my husband and I tuned them out from that point on. Finally, we heard "anymore questions"? I wanted to scream "HE%# yes, a million more questions"! But we didn't. I shook my head no, my husband was in a daze (a combo of lack of sleep and the news). They told me that I had to have a non stress test before I left to make sure the baby was OK. I sent my husband to the car to sleep, and I sat there staring out the window for a half hour while I listened to this precious heartbeat, praying for it to stay strong. Was all this really happening to me? To my baby? To my family? It all felt so surreal. The nurse came in and said that all looked good. I could go home. I made an appt for the following week and left in a complete daze, confused, and thankful that my baby was still safe, deep down inside of me and for now there was no signs of her making her way into the world early.
Again we drove home in silence, neither of us had much to say, both of us taking in the lastest news.
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