Almost 28 Weeks Ultrasound

                The last few days have been pretty emotional!  It started on Wednesday when my sister Katie FINALLY went to the hospital to deliver her baby boy.  We were waiting all day to hear the big news, and at 6:38 pm, Griffin Duke Petersen was born, perfect and healthy.  YAY!  She has had 4 pregnancies, but two of them ended badly.  She lost her first baby at 32 weeks, then a year later delivered her healthy baby boy Beckett.  After that she lost another baby at 17 weeks, so getting this little one here was HUGE for our whole family.  When she lost her first baby, Trayson was just 5 days old, so that poor girl has had four babies since I had my last one!  I was absolutely thrilled and ecstatic for her, her husband Tagg, and their little family. 
                While we waited throughout the day, texts came through periodically, giving us updates on her progress.  “They’re breaking her water.”  “Dilated to 7 and 80% effaced.”  “They’re calling in the doctor.  It shouldn’t be much longer.”  And finally “HE’S HERE AND HE’S PERFECT!!!!”  As each of these texts came in, our whole family was so excited to hear the progress.  As the day progressed though, I couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of texts would be sent when it’s our little one’s turn to make his debut.  Regardless of the outcome, the emotions are going to be SO different when that time comes.  I have been blessed with so much peace about this whole situation, but anytime I think about THAT DAY, I am filled with fear.  My imagination runs away with me and I realize how scary that day is going to be for us.  Even if it all turns out well, there will be some real moments of total fear.  When we got the picture text of that sweet little boy, it brought both Brock and I to tears to see this healthy, perfect baby without any physical problems.  Again, what pictures will be taken of our little boy?  How will he look?  Will he be stable on his own?  Will he be hooked up to machines?  Will I even be able to hold him?  I usually stay away from those thoughts mentally, but going through a labor and delivery with my sister made it impossible to avoid.  It is SO easy to be happy for my sister, but it is also SO easy to be terrified for me. 
                It was with these thoughts on my mind that I went for another ultrasound this morning with the high risk doctor.  I hadn’t seen her since we were first told about the baby’s fluid in his brain, even though I had seen my regular OB doctor.  The lab tech did her usual routine, measuring his head and body, and we did our usual routine of asking questions.  You know you’ve been to the high risk doctor too many times when you can predict what they're looking for and start knowing what to look at yourself!             
                When the tech was done Dr. Holmes came in and we started to discuss what they found.  The baby now weighs about 1 lb. 11 oz. but some of that is because of our little MegaMind’s extra brain fluid.  Because of his head’s measurement being up to date, it now puts him at the 17^th percentile for his growth.  TECHNICALLY this means he is no longer considered “growth restricted,” since he would have to be in the 10^th percentile or lower to still be labeled this way.  HOWEVER, she explained that this is false data, because the head measurement throws everything else off.  It’s all in the wording, but the point is, he’s growing but is still very small for his gestational age.  My placenta is looking great, though it’s thicker than they like to see and the umbilical cord is not as coiled as they like to see either.  None of this is new, it’s just more details we find out as we ask more questions and get more familiar with the situation.  As for the fluid in the brain, it has increased a bit.  It’s hard to tell from the angles they were able to get of the brain, but some shots made it look like there COULD be damage to his cerebellum and others made it look like everything was fine, just a little swollen.  She has recommended that we get an MRI to get more details.  You can only see so much with an ultrasound.  It’s 2 dimensional and you’ve got to get through mother and baby tissue, plus hope the baby gets in just the right spot to see things.  An MRI will be able to tell us in more detail what we’re dealing with. 
                She feels like somewhere along the line “an event” occurred, such as a stroke, that has caused all these other problems.  We’ve gotten back the final results on the amniocentesis and everything says that this baby should be perfectly “normal”.  However, they can now see enough in the baby himself to know that that is simply not true.  The other reason she thinks there may have been a stroke is how early the baby manifested the growth restriction.  She said that USUALLY that comes up much later in pregnancy, but the fact that his was as severe as it was so early in the process also makes her think of something along the lines of a stroke. 
                The point with all of this is that she wants us to get an MRI and then, based on results, decide where to deliver him.  If the baby’s brain is so badly damaged that he won’t be able to survive anyway, we could stay here to deliver him and just provide comfort care for him until he dies.  If the baby’s brain is damaged a little and just needs to be shunted, we will probably have to go to Dallas or San Antonio to deliver him.  The neurosurgeons here only do these shunts on babies in emergency situations when there’s no other option, but if they know ahead of time it needs to be done, they prefer to have the baby delivered somewhere else where pediatric neurosurgeons can handle it. 
                So while we wait to hear about whether or not insurance will cover the MRI, Brock and I are back to wondering what we will do IF ____________________ happens.  If the baby needs to be delivered somewhere else, how in the WORLD are we going to make that work with his job, the kids in school (assuming we make it that far), and the possibility that this baby could be in the NICU for a very long time?  If the baby isn’t going to make it anyway, would we want our kids to meet their little brother during the short time he is alive, or is that going to be too much for them to handle?  Brock and I feel that regardless of what happens in this life to this little boy, he will play an important role in the lives of his sister and brothers, so how do we want to help them handle this?  If he dies, what do we do about funeral arrangements?  Where would we bury him?  If we stayed here forever, I would definitely want him buried here.  But if Brock ever decides to take a job somewhere else, I couldn’t bear the thought of my son being buried here where there’s no family or “reason” to ever come back and visit.  It just all gets to be overwhelming. 
                I know that at this point, there’s still so much that we don’t know, so there’s no reason to even try to figure out the answers to those questions.  But it’s still hard to not “go there.”  We hope to hear back soon about whether or not we can get the MRI.  Once we have those results, then we’ll start to make some decisions.   In the meantime, we just wait and try to enjoy summer with the kids. 
                In spite of the uncertainty life really is good!  We know we are in the Lord’s hands and feel his comfort and peace almost constantly.  We are blessed beyond measure and know that whatever happens, it will be an eternal blessing to us.  It may be hard to get through in the here-and-now, but eventually, it will be a beautiful heartbreak for us and all our family!