Saturday, March 5, 2011

A Heartbreaking Confirmation

I spent the majority of Monday evening in tears. They were uncontrollable tears. The amount of tears that take away your breath and sting your cheeks. I anxiously waited for G to get home from work. I cannot begin to explain how much I needed to be in his arms.

He arrived home. We talked about the situation. We talked about the options. It was a repeat of many of the days that passed but with a little more reality and I hate to say this a little less hope.

The following day was what I had considered "the day". This was the day things would be confirmed and decisions would be made on the terms G and I had discussed the previous evening.

I had decided it was not needed for G to take the day off of work and to be honest I really wanted him to be sheltered because I needed him strong. In the end this was a selfish decision that made little sense if any. My Mom and sister wound up going with me to the perinatal specialist.

We arrived early and waited in the small waiting room for over an hour due to an emergency the doctor had encountered. The wait was miserable. Little did I know there would be another wait even more painful than the 1 hour I waited to hear about my baby boy's destiny.

The doctor arrived and my heart dropped. I had anxiously awaited her arrival and now that it was time to speak to her I wanted to stop the clock. I wanted to shelter myself.

She reviewed my ultrasound reports and couldn't tell much from them. She immediately rushed me next door to the ultrasound office. This was something I felt I had sheltered G from... another glimpse of our baby boy. I was flat on the table and unable to breathe. I attempted to shelter myself from the sight I sheltered G from but I couldn't. When I saw him clearly on the screen and his heart beating my hope had returned. I can tell you my hope was fierce. I quickly looked away as the ultrasound tech had difficulty finding the screenshots the doctor needed. I moved from flat on my back, to my left side and to my right side trying to squander some pictures that would give me hope. I felt I could change the end result. He was in a fetal position. I glanced toward my doctor who was mouthing "he isnt moving much" to my Mom.

After about 1o minutes my doctor called for another doctor to give his opinion. They whispered back and forth "cerebellar vermis, hydrocephalus, posterior fossa". My eyes were closed the majority of the time but I opened them to see the doctor mouth the words "not good" to my Mom who was for the first time seeing her first grandchild. They continued examining the images. The doctor who was giving his second opinion reached down to me, held my shoulder and told me it was not my fault and it could have been a fluke.

More tears but they were tears mixed of grief and comfort. To an extent his words comforted me.

The ultrasound tech and outside doctor left the room leaving my Mom, doctor and I remaining. My doctor diagnosed Dandy Walker Malformation which after all of the research I had done I knew was much worse than the "possible Dandy Walker Variant" 1st diagnosis I had received. She also told me there was water on the brain, Hydrocephalus. In addition, there was a 2 week delay in his growth. She explained to me that there were possibly more issues that could not be viewed from the ultrasound because of the fetal position and lack of movement.

I was lost for words. I was lost for feeling. My eyes flooded with tears that were escaping quicker than I could keep up with. This was the confirmation I feared and hid from.

It was already 5:15 and the doctor had told me that she had instructed the office not to close because she wanted to offer me an amnio in case I needed more information to make a decision on how I wished to progress. I shaked my head. I knew this was the end for my baby boy. I couldn't imagine the suffering he would endure if he even made it through birth.

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