Ryan and I have been keeping something very close to our hearts.
At first we wanted to tell our parents and siblings only - it was
too sensitive to share. Then we were overwhelmed with support and love,
and knew by sharing with our closest friends we would feel that support in
Utah.
Then recently, as I was catching up on my favorite blogs, I ran
across a young family with a similar story, and my eyes welled up with tears.
It was encouraging to know we weren't alone, that others were having
similar worries and heartache and it was a comfort to me.
Which is why I have decided to write it down - to maybe bring
comfort to someone else.
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Back in July of 2012, on a typical Saturday after a quick stop at
the farmers market, Ryan was picking some vegetables from the garden and I was
preparing an early lunch. I had been feeling a bit unusual and decided to
investigate - surprise! We were pregnant, shocked and pregnant. The
pregnancy was typical, with early-set nausea and many sleepless nights, but
around week 9 I felt miraculously better. I remember thinking "hey
this pregnancy thing won't be too bad after all!". It was about two
weeks later, on the first day of fall semester classes, that I went in for a
routine ultrasound, and was told the terrible news. Alone and scared,
shoulders drooped letting out the most polite sobs I could muster, the sweet
doctor held me until I was able to pull myself together and go home.
{Fast forward to a year later}
We found out we were expecting again - and could not be more
thrilled. The first 12 weeks were extremely nerve racking, and our entire
family gave a silent (or quite loud) cheer when I made it past the first
trimester. The first sigh of relief.
Thanksgiving was around the corner, and we wanted to know the gender
before going home to surprise our families. We scheduled an early ultrasound, and went in the Friday
before we were to go home. For
months I had been feeling strongly it would be a boy, and Ryan was a waffler
but placed his bet on a girl.
We were extremely excited, and as the ultrasound tech went through
the different structures in the body, we were overjoyed when she said things
were “looking good”. Heart, brain,
spine…then came gender. A sweet
baby boy was to join our family and we couldn’t have been more thrilled. A few times I asked her if she tells
the couple if she sees things that may be concerning, but she avoided my
question. Then after several more
minutes of re-measuring and re-surveying parts of the body, we asked if we
could stay for a few more minutes just to make sure it was a boy – I didn’t
want to be blindsided later on. So
she said she would check for any other patients to see if there was time, and
left the room. Those few minutes
she was out of the room, Ryan and I beamed, shook our heads and couldn’t
believe what was happening. A
sweet baby boy.
Minutes later, the tech walked back in, with our doctor at her
side. I thought, “oh a routine
‘congratulations’ from the doctor- how nice”, but my heart sank when he said he
had debated telling us some heavy news before the holidays, and wanted to walk
over certain parts of the baby’s body.
Over the next few minutes, the doctor explained our baby had a
developmental issue, with a large amount of his intestines and possibly other organs
that were outside of the body. He
also said to prepare for many scenarios, one being the baby not making it, the
baby being born with severe disabilities, or a surgery at birth and a potential
normal life. Those few minutes of
absolute bliss were swallowed up with the heart breaking news that was just
delivered.
We were told from now on we would see a specialist, that our baby would
be delivered by a specialist, and to expect a surgery soon after delivery. They scheduled a few appointments, and
we were out the door.
Hearts heavy and feeling numb and confused, we went home and
sobbed – feeling as though our shoulders were just too inexperienced and
unprepared for such news. Would I
even be able to carry my little boy full-term? Would he make it?
What other complications would accompany his life? Will I be able to hold him or feed
him? A flooding of questions and
eventually despair overcame us, but our dear family and bishop carried us
through the weekend with their incredible strength and love. We named our baby Caleb and tried to be
strong.
A week later, on December 6th, we were asked to see a
perinatologist to go over the entire body once more, and to talk more about the
implications of what was happening.
He immediately told us that Cal had an omphalocele, and in many cases it
involves other complications due to a chromosomal issue. After two hours of our doctor counting
fingers and toes, chambers of the heart, every single detail of the body that
could be detected at 20 weeks, he told us some very encouraging news. Everything looked normal, but the
intestines that were outside the body.
He was growing at a normal rate, and from what he could see with his
limited technology, the heart (one of the most frequent abnormalities
associated with an omphalocele) looked fine. He immediately scheduled an echocardiogram with a pediatric
cardiologist for January, scheduled an appointment with our pediatric surgeon,
and a genetic counselor.
We felt like we had been involved in a miracle. Our baby, as far as we could tell, did
not have any other major complications and would only require surgery at
birth.
We met with our genetic counselor and said we did not want to do
any chromosomal testing until birth.
We then met with our surgeon who said surgery/recovery could take
anywhere from 2-8 weeks, with no other complications at birth.
Although for the first few hours after the gender ultrasound we
felt completely at a loss, mostly wondering why we have not been able to have a
“normal” pregnancy, or a happy ultrasound. We were reluctant to leave our appointment with the
parinatologist full of optimism, but felt strongly that things will be fine –
no matter how they turn out.
Now it is all about little Cal. We are overjoyed every time I can feel him move, and are
anxiously awaiting our next two appointments in January. We are ready to handle whatever surgery
and recovery may mean and look forward to the day when we are told “he is ready
to go home.”