Tonight at dinner, my husband and I were reflecting on this year. I can't believe a new year is upon us already. We spent NYE 2012 with a Dr. visit to my Obgyn, because I was bleeding for the 2nd time after being on bed rest and only about 12 weeks pregnant. After we had an ultrasound to confirm the baby was ok, the nurse proceeded to give us the results of our 12 week nuchal screen that we had the week prior. Her exact words were, "You failed your 12 week nuchal screen for downs syndrome."
My heart sinks. Thoughts rushed my brain and then I came to for a moment. I asked her for more information, this wasn't my first rodeo and I know there is a scale. She said she didn't have any more information other than we failed and we would need to go to a specialist for more information. Ummm, really? It is New Years freaking eve, there are NO doctors in the office and the specialist is closed for days! What in the world made her think it was a good idea or a good time to deliver this type of news?
We left the office in tears, calling our family and thinking about our unborn baby, how our lives were going to change, what his life would be like and the sacrifices we would make in order to give him the best possible life. You name it, our minds went there. We cancelled our New Year's eve plans, clung to our daughter and after moments of coldness to each other, clung to each other as well. Clung to hope, prayer and love of each other and family. It was all we had.
Later, we learned that yes our pregnancy is high risk, our baby did not necessarily have down syndrome and we barely failed our nuchal screen and the only thing that caused us to fall right below that "fail" line is something called Papp-A. This is a measure of my placenta function and showed that I was at an extremely, extremely high risk to have my placenta fail me and my pregnancy could be terminated, result in pre term labor or a baby with special needs. We were asked to consider what we would do if our baby did have special needs and how we wanted to proceed. We made the decision to go with a very expensive blood test to determine with 99% accuracy if our baby had downs. It didn't test for all of the trisomy diagnoses, but downs it did test for. The results of that test were favorable, which was a major blessing. Whatever the results were, I would have loved my baby to the moon and back I just wanted to prepare. I needed to prepare.
We proceeded through my pregnancy with many doctor's appointments, ups and downs, times we didn't think we would make it to 30 weeks to times when we thought hell, we may make it to 39. Ultimately, through it all we made it to 37 weeks by a hair and Miles decided he would wait no more and I went into labor on my own as my pre eclampsia struck and my blood pressure sky rocketed. Yes, I had pre eclampsia which led to an intrauterine growth restriction, but I delivered a beautiful healthy boy with the lowest papp A that my very highly specialized doctor had seen.
This year has been one of the greatest years of my life. We welcomed our son, completed our family and conquered many obstacles. We have come out of the year stronger, but I must say I am hoping and praying for less doctor visits in 2014. We are blessed beyond words and while our obstacles have paled in comparison to others, I pray that 2014 brings our family (and yours) good health, love and good fortune. I can't believe 2014 is almost here!
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