I’ve been silent over the last week because, honestly, I’m not sure what to say. I’m not really good with sharing my feelings. Yes, I’m a woman! However, I can’t stand showing signs of weakness – yes, a character flaw – so I rarely let people inside the introspective part of me. When I do, I usually have worked through the feelings, and am just providing a summary. So, that’s what I’ve been doing the past week, processing.
To catch most of you up, for the last two months, I have been experiencing the joys of morning sickness. Bad morning sickness. We tend to keep things pretty close to the vest around here so we decided once again to wait until I was through the first trimester to tell people about the baby. We shared the news with Natalie around 10 weeks and let her tell people in her own timing.
At 12 weeks, last Tuesday for me, we went in for a routine screening that measures the nuchal fluid at the back of the baby’s neck. If it is abnormal, as ours was, they look at other areas of the body looking for abnormalities consistent with chromosomal issues such as Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18. Downs is referred to as Trisomy 23. The beginning of the story is, I say beginning because we have no idea what and when the end will be, the baby’s heart is protruding outside of the chest cavity (known as Ectopia Cordis). Apparently, the sternum didn’t close properly and the heart worked it’s way out through the opening. While it is beating normally, it is not functioning properly – thus the fluid build-up which caused the sonographer to look further in the first place.
The prognosis is that the baby is already experiencing congenital heart failure, due to the incorrect positioning of the heart, and is not expected to reach full term.
We are certainly saddened by the news and I’ve done my fair share of crying. Some days are brighter than others as I go through the normal ups and downs of processing such information. It’s hard to hear your baby will die, they just don’t know when, then you will have to go into labor to have it (because I’m so far along), and not be able to bring it home.
There is a lot more to say….but I’m not up to it today. Please know that we are okay. We are hanging in there. Our hope is not in how many healthy children we have, but in a God who promises peace in a storm, an ever present help in trouble.
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Sept. 2008 –
August was an emotional month for our family. For those of you who don’t know, we are expecting our third child in March 2009. That makes me about 15 weeks pregnant as of early September. However, we were told at the beginning of this month at a routine screening that the baby most likely won’t make it to term. Apparently the sternum didn’t close properly and the heart has worked itself out of the chest cavity. The main concern for the doctors (we visited a specialist after hearing the original news) is that the baby seems to already be experiencing significant heart failure. That is why the prognosis is so grim.
We are, of course, saddened by the news. It isn’t what any parent wants to hear. However, Henry and I both feel God knows what He is doing and we are just waiting to see what happens.
Henry has also been distracted by the rumors and now the announcement of the government’s interference with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Henry accepted a position with Fannie Mae in June (although he consulted there for almost 2 years prior) so his work environment has become increasingly stressful over the last few months. With the most recent announcements, it’s become an extremely stressful environment working with folks who have lost a tremendous amount of value in their company stock holdings and have no idea what the future holds. The coming months will show us how this thing will play out, but unfortunately, Henry is having to live in the middle of the shake down.
The girls are doing great. They know mommy is having a baby, but don’t know it is sick. They are extremely patient – I brag on them often – with my morning sickness. You can get more details on their going-ons under their individual pages.
