Layne’s Story – Part Two

After the initial shock of finding out we were pregnant wore off, I immediately started to search for the perfect OB.  I had zero knowledge of the OB’s in my area as this was our first pregnancy and I never had a need for one prior.   I had no idea where to start.  I enlisted the help of Google and a few of my mama friends and I kept being lead to one practice in particular.  I searched for them online and on their webpage was a group photo of everyone that worked for this practice.  I immediately fell in love.  They all looked so kind and welcoming and I knew this is where I wanted to be.  The next day I called and scheduled my first appointment for a week out #longestweekever.  Also, I may or may not have taken ten more pregnancy tests, just to be a million percent sure, while waiting for that first appointment. 

Finally, August 14, 2019, the day of my first appointment.  I was six weeks pregnant.   Jeff and I both left work early to meet at the house so we could ride together. We arrived early, filled out all the necessary paperwork and sat in the waiting room anxiously awaiting my name to be called.  Once it was, we both followed the nurse back to our room where she took my vitals.  When we met our nurse practitioner for the first time Jeff and I both fell in love.  She was so patient and so kind.  She answered all 500 of my questions and made us both feel at ease as we were stepping into this new season of life, parenthood.  After chatting all things pregnancy and laughing and joking with us for a good hour we finally got to hear the heartbeat of our sweet babe for the very first time.  It was 176 beats per minute.  I will never forget this memory.  

Fast forward a few weeks and it was already time for my second doctor’s appointment.  It was September 10, 2019 and I was finally going to have my very first ultrasound.  I was ten weeks along.  Jeff and I found ourselves back in that waiting room waiting for my name to be called.  Once it was, we both followed the sonographer to her room where she introduced herself and congratulated us on our pregnancy and briefed me on how the ultrasound was going to go.  I laid down on the table and lifted my shirt to expose my stomach and she coated it with warm gel and started to do her thing.  She was moving the probe all around and informing us of everything she was seeing.  To us it looked like a little dot.  I still have no idea how these technicians can make anything out of those tiny humans, but I sure am thankful they can!  After about fifteen minutes the sonographer let us know that everything was looking great so far and baby looked amazing.  Jeff and I could not have been happier in that moment.  Everything appeared to be on the right track.  A few weeks later we had our third routine appointment at 14 weeks. Everything seemed to be going well then too.  Heartrate was perfect and we had zero reason to ever think anything could possibly be wrong.

Four weeks later and it was finally time for my anatomy appointment.  The biggest ultrasound appointment of them all.  Looking back, I was so naïve to how important that appointment was.  I had zero reason to believe that anything could ever go wrong in our pregnancy. We were both young and healthy and I was having a picture perfect pregnancy.  The thought of our baby being sick never crossed my mind.  It was November 14, 2019 and we were once again in the waiting room anxiously waiting for our name to be called.  Soon enough I found myself laying on the same table waiting for the technician to come in and start the ultrasound.  While Jeff and I were waiting for it to start we were casting our votes on whether baby Y was going to be a girl or a boy.  He really wanted a boy and I had my heart set on a girl, even though either of us would have been perfectly happy if we didn’t get our way.  Soon after the ultrasound started you could immediately feel the energy in the room change.  The sonographer went from laughing and carrying on with us to completely quiet.  I could feel something wasn’t right.  I finally worked up enough courage to ask how the baby was looking and the sonographer said nothing.  All she could do was shake her head.  I immediately started to freak.  The room was getting hot, I was getting hot, my stomach was in knots.  It was a feeling I had never felt before.  I knew things were not okay, and at that point in time I was not okay.

Once the sonographer had a few minutes to figure out what she was seeing she began to fill us in.  She told us that the skin around the baby’s scalp was swollen, there was fluid in the chest and abdomen, and there were cysts in the chest.  She was unable to see organs that should have been present at that point in my pregnancy and our baby’s heart was displaced in the chest and severely compressed. After hearing all of these I remember just shutting down.  I stared at the ceiling the rest of the appointment and just cried as Jeff held my hand.  We were devastated.  Our entire future seemed to crash in a matter of minutes and I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it.  One good thing that came out of our anatomy scan is the sonographer was able to identify the gender and Jeff and I were going to soon find out what we were having.  

After we had a few minutes to process what we had just been told we started jotting down questions.  What went wrong?  Did I do something wrong?  Was it something I ate? What was the diagnosis?  What is the prognosis?  I had so many questions and I wanted answers fast.  Just a few weeks ago everything was looking perfect.  It was such a shock to hear that things had gone so wrong so fast.  We were told that afternoon that our pregnancy was now considered high-risk and we needed to be seen by a maternal fetal medicine group for the remainder of our pregnancy.  I was crushed.  I loved our OB and I wanted to continue our journey with her, but I also knew that I wanted to give my baby the best chance at survival and that meant having our care transferred to a different group that specialized in high-risk pregnancies. 

After our appointment Jeff and I got to the car and just cried.  We both couldn’t hold it in any longer.  Our entire world had been flipped and we were in shock.  We had a gender reveal party already planned for the weekend.  Invitations had already been sent and decorations had been bought.  Everything was running through my head.  Should we even have a gender reveal?  Was our baby going to make it?  We had no idea.  We didn’t even have a diagnosis. Neither of us had any idea on how to proceed.  On the way home we both called our parents to fill them in on what was going on.  Then Jeff and I discussed how we wanted to move forward.  Did we want to move forward with our plans of having a gender reveal that upcoming weekend, or cancel it?  We ultimately decided to cancel the gender reveal. We felt like it would be too hard to celebrate when we had just been given such terrible news.  As soon as we pulled in the driveway I looked over at Jeff and asked if he was okay if we opened the envelope right then and find out.  Just us.  And for the first time since getting the news we smiled.  We found out we were going to be having a baby girl.  

I spent the rest of that night googling anything and everything I could think of to try and get some answers as to what baby Y could have.  I know everyone says to stay off Google because it will make you crazy, but for me, I needed to do my own research.  I needed to know what we were up against.  I needed to mentally prepare myself for what my future could look like.  I was looking for any kind of hope the internet could give me.  For the first time during our pregnancy we were so unsure of everything, except for one thing.  We knew that we were going to do everything under the sun to give our sweet girl a chance at living.  She still had a heartbeat and was fighting every day to stay alive, and we were going to do the exact same thing.  We were going to fight hard.  And fight hard is exactly what we did in the ten weeks to follow.