thanks for the mammories

I woke up knowing that I would get the call today.  I've been anxious all day, but I carried on.  In the spirit of staying involved, I went to class and had lunch with Bern.  Doing just fine. 

The doctor called at 4, just as my mother was walking up the front steps for a visit.  Thank god for that.  The doctor said right off the bat that this was a bad call.  The results of the CVS culture showed Trisomy 18.  He was right.  That's really bad.  Worse than Down's Syndrome bad.  Even if I was one of those brave souls who could parent a severely disabled child, the stats are too bad.  50% are born stillborn.  90% of those don't make it to their first year.  Every system in their body is compromised, from their heart to their nasal passages.  There's just no way.

Instead of being able to surprise my mother with the pregnancy Christmas ornament I've been keeping, I had a nervous breakdown in the car (the only place I could get sufficient privacy from little Miss Nosy.) and she was sweet.  She bought me dinner and let me stay in my pajamas.  Mom's are good.

Next week, I'll lose another baby.  And then I'll try again. 

Yes, of course...

"I should have results in two or three days," says Dr. Reassuring.  Oh, but then there's the weekend.  On, and then the holiday.  That's ok, I can wait till Tuesday.  I'll just clean more stuff.  "Hi, it's Dr. Reassuring, and I'm sorry, I know you're anxious, but there wasn't a big enough sample to do the immediate test.  We'll have to culture it.  I'll have your results on Friday."  Friday?  Did he just say Friday?  Bastard.  Good think I could never run out of things to clean. Awesome.  Bastard.

oh, and that...

Reading back, I realize I left out a lot of important info.

An omphalocele is when the abdominal organs are pushed up into the umbilical cord. Thus, the balloon. This needs surgery. That's my best case scenario. A baby who needs abdominal surgery. And possibly heart surgery, which often comes with omphaloceles.

And the doctor performed a CVS, which involved him punching me in the stomach with a big needle and then him pumping it back and forth to draw out pieces of placenta. That was actually the funnest part of the day.

Eating my words...

One full month after getting all hopeful and deciding that everything would be all right, I sat in a specialist's office in Westchester. He asked me what my blood type was. Interesting. It's B+. I get the universe's little funny message. Be Postive. What. Ever.

I made it to 12 weeks, tummy growing, hungry an awful lot. Pleased with myself. Then I went in for my 12 week first trimester screening. "Um, why is my baby holding a punching balloon?" I asked the sonogram technician. "Let's look around," she said. After getting a picture of the baby, and making measurements of the back of it's neck, she sent me down to the midwife. Before she ever said the word "Omphalocele" she had made me an appointment with a fetal-maternal specialist at Westchester Medical. Four agonizing days away. She didn't even tell me what that meant. I only walked out with the words omphalocele, N.T. of 2.1 and amnio in my head. My husband and I were stunned. I had a lot of Googling to do. Often, omphalocele's are met with chromosomal abnormalities. Of course they are.

My poor husband had to go back to Boston for work, so we had to wait for the appointment separately. That's an awful kind of torture, I promise you. But I distracted myself with some massive house cleaning, and my dear friend who came and slept over just so I wouldn't have to be alone. I love girlfriends.

I was sane by the time we got to the doctor, and then sat in a waiting room full of big fat pregnant ladies and lots of babies. Yet another kind of torture. This one reminiscent of the fertility days. If not for my husband's strength and my knitting bag, I would have run out immediately. My doctor resembled Captain Kangaroo minus 40 pounds and he was lovely and reassuring. He said that 2/3 of the time there's no abnormalities other than the physical ones. OK, I can live with that stat. But there are really some scary stats out there.

Supposed to get the call today, but still waiting.