22-8-2008 - story....

My mood while writing this blog: Ok

To my surprise I found out I was pregnant in Nov. 07. After the initial shock and panic my husband and I became very excited. I read everything I could get my hands on, took prenatal vitamins, and began planning for an Aug 08 baby. The best feeling was when I first felt her move inside me. I was at work and had to announce it to everyone. At that point my maternal instincts truly kicked in. I was going to be a mom and I only cared about the health and safety of my baby. At my 18 week Dr. appointment I chose to have an optional quad screening blood test. The test measures your risk of having a baby with downs syndrome or other abnormalities.When the test came back abnormal I freaked out. It seemed however, everyone I talked to knew someone who had had an abnormal screening and delivered perfect babies. This made us feel better. We just prayed that we were in that group of people. We had a level 2 ultrasound scheduled and we were hoping to get good news. At the ultra sound the tech pointed out that the baby was a girl (I was sooo happy) but her overall composure was a little cold. The dr came in and said the words that will be engraved in my mind forever, "we have a problem." I turned to the screen and he began to explain that the baby had very little brain tissue and no skull bones. I became hysterical and couldn't believe this was happening. I felt like I was in a nightmare and would wake up soon. The dr explained that the baby had a rare neural tube defect that was a variation of "encephalocele" and "anencephaly." He said that it was nothing that we did it was just "one of those things." He explained that the little brain tissue that the baby did have at the base of the brain was causing the reflexes I was feeling. He also explained that the baby had no chance of living outside of my body and could die at any time. After long discussion and researching the conditions we decided to have a second opinion for piece of mind. If the second opinion confirmed the first we were going to terminate the pregnancy (something that I didn't think I believed in). The dr said that the baby had no feeling and would never be conscious. We did contact a funeral home and are having the remains cremated. Together we plan on spreading them somewhere special to us. This has been a very difficult time but we are strong people and with God we will get through this. We look forward to having a large family in the future.