Scariest Day of My Life

I think it's probably important with all the stuff that I record to take some time and write about what's going on with our little bun in the oven.

We are not sure of much at this point but I do feel prompted to document his story even though he hasn't made his grand debut yet.

Here goes.

I went in for a routine check up last Wednesday.

In fact, we were expecting it to be so routine that I told Jimmy it would be totally fine to just drop me off and go to this gun store that he had been wanting to go to. We were all in Phoenix for the day because Lexi had a later appointment for her eye and we wanted to both be there for it. So naturally Jimmy came with me for my check up that was earlier that morning. 

 But honestly, every time Jimmy ever comes to an appointment with me, Murphy's law makes sure that it's at least triple the time. So again, I told him it wouldn't be the worst thing if he went and did something else, even if it was to just grab some food. He obliged and in I went.

And sure enough as soon as I finished peeing and opened the bathroom door, the nurse was right there waiting for me. It was actually kind of funny because I thought, "See! when Jimmy isn't here, it goes SO fast!"

Except, instead of having me follow her into an ordinary room, she lead me into the ultra sound room... This was weird.

BUT at our last appointment, we had an ultra sound and they claimed it was hard to get a good picture of baby. So I didn't think much of it. I just thought, hehh they probably just want some better images. In fact, they actually asked us to get a better level 2 ultrasound at the end of the last one but since they gave no good indication as to why, we just figured it wasn't a big deal. 

Anyways, I didn't get spooked too easily and figured everything was fine.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. 

About 10 minutes after the ultra sound, the doctor came in and everything in my world changed. Honestly, I didn't even hear much of what she said. All I heard was that something was wrong with baby's brain and I remembered certain words like severe, surgery, retarded....

I could immediately realize that I could not possibly retain everything the doctor was saying, nor handle it all by myself, so I told her that my husband was only a few minutes away, and asked if she could come back in, when he was here. She said yes, and I immediately called Jimmy. As soon as I heard his voice, I immediately started crying and told him that he needed to come and that something was wrong with the baby's brain.

He came as soon as he could and a couple minutes later the doctor came back in and explained everything again. She also gave us a piece of paper that had, "Dandy Walker-Syndrome" written on it. She told us that was what baby had. She told us she knew this because they could not see the Vermis around the Cerebellum and because his ventricles were very enlarged. She said that most people's ventricles are under 5 mm and our baby's were measuring at 20 mm.

She also said that this Dandy Walker Syndrome was a disorder that could either mean our baby might not be able to ever eat, talk, or walk, or that he might just be a little slow his whole life. There was really no way to tell how bad it would be.

She told us though, that we should immediately get a better ultra sound at a neonatal facility. So she made some calls and we had an appointment later that afternoon.

It was so hard. For one, we were absolutely terrified and scared for our sweet baby boy. And for two, Lexi had her eye appointment that afternoon, something that we have been worried about for months, not to mention that the wait just to get an appointment was over a month.

I didn't know what to do. We got back to my parent's house and before we could even say anything, Jimmy and I just sat there on the couch hugging and in tears. 

I'll never forget that feeling. I was completely overwhelmed, scared, and just in shock. This couldn't be happening.

Eventually we decided that Lexi's eye appointment would have to wait and after a short while, Jimmy and I headed over to Arizona Perinatal Care. I kept telling myself that it would be fine.

But again this wasn't exactly the case.  After we had the level 2D ultrasound and the tech confirmed that the ventricles were way over what they should be, we knew that it wasn't good.

However, we met with a neonatal specialist right after, who was actually a little bit comforting. His name was Dr. Blumrick and he told us that although the baby definitely has what's called, severe Ventirculomegaly, it was possible that it could be isolated and that we may never even be able to tell.

He did tell us though, that we should get a fetal MRI done immediately as it would tell us more definitively what was going on.

We definitely still have hope but both Jimmy and I just feel like this huge black cloud is above us. It's hard to think of anything else. We are so worried about our baby.

We have our fetal MRI in a couple days and hopefully we will find out more then.