January 4, 2017- 30+ weeks

New year and it already sucks.

My nerves were so shot on this day. Literally scared out of my mind.  I just cannot even fathom what is about to happen.

All checked in at the Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist, I for sure thought this was going to raise my blood pressure but surprisingly it was in perfect range!

We went back to our room and started the ultrasound to see our baby again! Just going over every little part of her perfect body again and we stopped on her face and got some 3Ds of her. So overwhelming I just immediately had tears feeling my eyes. All I could think about was how perfect she looks and I’m going to have to say goodbye to her. I literally cannot even stand the thought of it.

I asked the nurse if we were going to get the amniocentesis done today and she said if that’s what you want. I will go get the doctor and he can discuss everything with you.

Waiting for the doctor I just stared at all the pictures she printed off for us and just examined every little thing. She got pictures of her feet and they were seriously the sweetest thing. Soooo perfect.

The doctor came in and took another look at he baby and got measurements of her. She was measuring a little smaller but it wasn’t to concerning as that is what we had expected.

He also told us, based on our blood work that we had a 93% chance that our baby is completely healthy and a 7% chance that she has it. So if there were a hundred people that got the same results you did only 7 of them would have a baby with this problem. I definitely liked those odds!

He went over everything about the amnio. How he does it, what to expect and any risks. I was so scared but I needed to do it. He got his gloves on, rubbed some alcohol on my belly and used the ultrasound machine to find the biggest area of fluid farthest away from the baby and stuck the needle right into my stomach.

I could see everything he was doing on the screen. The needle was right next to the babies leg and I just thought, one tiny move from her and she gets poked. But she held still the ENTIRE time. I couldn’t even believe it. Like she knew what was going on so she didn’t even flinch.

He said there will be some cramping during the procedure and thats normal and after a few minutes I definitely felt those cramps he was talking about.

When he finally pulled the needle out after filling 2 tubes full of fluid, he told me anything I could expect. Bleeding, fluid leaking, and cramping. And I just asked a million questions. Like, “Is this going to put me in labor tomorrow? What if my water breaks? What do I do if I start bleeding? Am I going to have a miscarriage?”

He was running two tests, one of which to verify is she has Trisomy 18 and one will tell us if this was just a fluke and my next pregnancies should be healthy or if one of us carry the gene for down syndrome.

The test to verify for Trisomy will come back in just a couple days and the other part of the test can take up to two weeks to come back. He rushed the first test for us. Obviously sooner the better.

After we were done he wanted to just run an NST (non stress test) on the baby to make sure her heart rate and everything was good and that she continued moving and to make sure I didn’t start contracting.

We went to another room for this test and sat there for about 30 minutes and her heart rate was jumping all over the place. Honestly it scared me to death, but she was kicking up a storm and I just sat there and watched my belly move all over the place. I think that is one of the best parts of being pregnant. Feeling your baby move from inside your belly. My absolute favorite!

Finally when all was said and done we made another appointment for 3 weeks down the road to come back and check on little miss after we go see the Cardiologist one more time and we can hopefully start planning for her birth.

A few days had passed it was now Friday January 6th and we were on our way to the grocery store to get a few things when my phone started ringing. I knew exactly who it was. My heart was racing so fast I almost didn’t want to answer the phone because I was dreading this phone call.

Riley pulled over and I put the phone on speaker. She said, “Hi Tasia this is Lauren calling about your results, is now a good time to hear them?” With a shaky dreadful voice, “Yes, now is fine.” “Okay, well your test did confirm that your baby does have Trisomy 18. Now, this is a diagnosis” I lost it. Completely lost it. We drove to the store parking lot and I just sat there and cried. She talked about all these support groups and people that can come give me a blessing and I literally couldn’t think of anything at this time. I just said, “I’ll call you back” and hung up the phone.

One stupid phone call and your whole world is flipped upside down.

Now we just sit and wait for my next results to come back and tell me if I have to go through this again if we decide to have another baby.

We pray so hard and can only hope for the best. Im putting all my faith into gods hands. Only he knows what is best for our baby. No matter how much it hurts.