Sunday, June 22, 2008

18 Week Ultrasound


On June 4th. 2008, we had our 18 week ultrasound. During the ultrasound, the technician seemed to be spending a lot of time looking at the chest and heart area. We started to get concerned, and that level of concern mounted as the technician told us the Dr. would be in to speak with us. Before this appointment, we had discussed in great detail if we wanted to know the sex of our baby. We had decided to ask the technician to write it on a piece of paper, seal in an envelope, and give it to us. Our anniversary was on May 27th and we went to Catalina Island with the intent of having a nice annivsary, but we got sick and it pretty much ruined our trip. So we planned to take our ultrasound results and have a belated anniversary dinner where we would also open the envelope given to us by the technician.

Then, the Dr. came in and gave us the bad news. We asked her if there was a problem and she told us there was. We then asked her if it was serious and she said it was. She asked is to be patient so she take take a closer look at things and give us a more definitive answer. I started to cry, I looked at Shane and we held each others hand very tightly. After a while, she stopped looking at the ultrasound and explained. She told is our baby had severe Left Side Diaphragmatic Hernia, liver up. It was weird because all she said was liver up. The Dr. said that UCSF has a surgery procedure that could help our baby while in utereo called Tracheal Occlusion. The Dr. said they would have to measure her Lung to Head Ratio (LHR). After the Dr. left the room to let us sit there together and soak up this information, we held each other and cried, we decided to open the envelope and it revealed we had a growing baby girl.

The Dr. informed me that an amnio needed to be done for us to be seen at UCSF. I was so scared but trusted in God that he would help me through this. I held Shane's hand while they did the procedure. I almost passed out. We had to wait two weeks for the results. The Dr. also told us I would have to have a echo cardiogram done on our baby before we go to UCSF. The Dr. shcheduled for me to have a echo cardiogram on our baby on June 10th.
On our way home that day, we decided together we would not give up faith and hope, and do as much as we could to learn about CDH and give our daughter the best chance possible. Our journey of positive thought, faith, hope and prayer had started.

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