Posted by Kim
In the days leading up to the 20 week ultrasound I had posted on Facebook many times about how excited we were, asked everyone to guess the gender, posted a picture of my new “ultrasound day” haircut. When August 10th went by with no posting as to who guessed right, friends started to ask what was going on.
This was my post on Facebook:
By now you’re probably all wondering what happened yesterday. We were so excited for “Ultrasound Day”. We had always talked about having a big family. After a rough start with Aden, then losing our second to triploidy very early on, we had two healthy boys. Four kids sounded like a good number so when we found out number four was on the way we were finally going to complete our dream of a big family. It was scary at first. Only 16 months between kids. But it was meant to be right? Stop worrying. Enjoy. This is the last time.
We went in for the ultrasound and relief started flooding over me as we saw the first images. Head, spine, hands, feet. Then we saw the “3 white lines”. After 3 boys we had no idea that meant – GIRL! We were elated! Finally our family was complete. We sat in the waiting room discussing names.. trying to sort out all this would change in our family. They called us in for our follow up appointment with the OB for what we thought would be a routine visit. With beaming faces we said “It’s a girl!”. The OB with a serious look on her face said “Yes, it’s a girl.. but there are complications.” She proceeded to tell us what the ultrasound tech had not – our daughter has brain cysts, a rotated heart, a 2 vessel chord, club feet, severely underweight.. the list went on. She said this was consistent with Trisomy 13 or 18.
Suddenly the images of braiding her hair, shopping for prom dresses, walking her down the aisle disappeared. None of those things will happen. Instead we will be planning a funeral.
We saw the high risk OB today who confirmed everything yesterday’s OB suspected. He believes this is Trisomy 18. He used the words “incompatible with life”. He gave us a 1-2% chance of her making it. And even if she left the hospital, she would most certainly not see her first birthday. Unbelievably by law he was required to tell us, even though we didn’t ask, we were under the 24 week requirement for abortion.
This has been a lot to process. By all accounts having 3 children with non-hereditary chromosomal abnormalities just shouldn’t happen. We will know for sure when the results of the amniocentesis come back on Monday. Any of you who know my shear fear and panic of needles will understand that the decision to do the amnio was extremely difficult. But knowing the results will mean that if I go into premature labor, instead of a possible emergency c-section or whisking her off to the NICU, they will put her in our arms where she needs to be.
Please pray for us. The next few months will be very difficult.
