Dr. Fox called me at around 9:00AM and said the scan showed a couple areas of concern. He said that the radiologist believed the baby’s bowels were on the outside of the body, a condition known as Gastroschisis. He also said that the amniotic fluid looked low but that was consistent with Gastroschisis. He wanted me to go to a genetic counselor and a high-risk doctor to get another ultrasound. I teared up on the phone after every word he said realizing that the hope I had for the baby to be healthy upon arrival was slowly diminishing. I called my husband and once I heard his voice I burst into tears. Verbalizing that our baby has a significant birth defect became real as the words were leaving my mouth and flowing into the phone. I so wished to have held on to those words for a few more seconds because once they were said out loud my dreams of having a healthy pregnancy vanished. I felt like my body was betraying me. The body that was supposed to nurture, protect, and create our first baby was not doing it’s job. Guilt. Anger. Sadness. Worry.
My husband called my mother-in-law to check on me and when she came over I burst into tears. We hugged, cried, and processed the new information. Oh, I forgot to mention, my mother-in-law is a social worker too. The genetics counselor called when Carol was over. We set up a meeting at 8:45am and then an ultrasound appointment at 9:15am for the next day. She told me that we would discuss Gastroschisis and what that means for the baby. She was empathetic and answered my tearful questions about the prognosis for a baby being born with the digestive system on the outside of its little body.
My husband came home early and we both poured over the Internet for hours. We googled and read almost everything there was on this condition. We devoured medical journals and personal stories. What we found comforting was that although it was a serious condition, babies are in the NICU for a couple weeks/months and often fully recover. We wrote down all of our questions for the doctor and the genetics counselor in a notebook, a notebook I generally use for my own clients, and placed this next to my purse for our morning appointment.
I couldn’t sleep that night in anticipation for our upcoming appointment. I stayed up visualizing how when our toddler was four and asked about his/her scar I would lovingly kiss it and tell the little one how it was a special mark of survival. Then I thought about having a pre-teen girl cry in her room about not feeling comfortable going to a pool party because of the scar on her stomach. I envisioned us talking on the bed and me showing my c-section scar and stretch marks (I’m assuming I would have a c-section because of my muterus. Also, who knows…I’ll probably have stretch marks too) and having a discussion about body image and the value of a person. Clearly this was all in my head because as a former pre-teen girl, I probably would have thought my mom was so unrelatable and had noooo idea what I was going though. I continued to think about how we would make our baby the best home possible and tried to mentally prepare for the journey ahead.
My husband called my mother-in-law to check on me and when she came over I burst into tears. We hugged, cried, and processed the new information. Oh, I forgot to mention, my mother-in-law is a social worker too. The genetics counselor called when Carol was over. We set up a meeting at 8:45am and then an ultrasound appointment at 9:15am for the next day. She told me that we would discuss Gastroschisis and what that means for the baby. She was empathetic and answered my tearful questions about the prognosis for a baby being born with the digestive system on the outside of its little body.
My husband came home early and we both poured over the Internet for hours. We googled and read almost everything there was on this condition. We devoured medical journals and personal stories. What we found comforting was that although it was a serious condition, babies are in the NICU for a couple weeks/months and often fully recover. We wrote down all of our questions for the doctor and the genetics counselor in a notebook, a notebook I generally use for my own clients, and placed this next to my purse for our morning appointment.
I couldn’t sleep that night in anticipation for our upcoming appointment. I stayed up visualizing how when our toddler was four and asked about his/her scar I would lovingly kiss it and tell the little one how it was a special mark of survival. Then I thought about having a pre-teen girl cry in her room about not feeling comfortable going to a pool party because of the scar on her stomach. I envisioned us talking on the bed and me showing my c-section scar and stretch marks (I’m assuming I would have a c-section because of my muterus. Also, who knows…I’ll probably have stretch marks too) and having a discussion about body image and the value of a person. Clearly this was all in my head because as a former pre-teen girl, I probably would have thought my mom was so unrelatable and had noooo idea what I was going though. I continued to think about how we would make our baby the best home possible and tried to mentally prepare for the journey ahead.