Friday, December 2, 2011

Part Three of the "Baby #5 Saga"

(this is just a pic from the web)

One week of torture. One week of “why me’s?”, “What did I do to deserve this?”, “Did I do something to cause this?”, and even more “Why me’s?”. Luckily I have an amazing family who are just a phone call away, and I have a couple of local friends that are always willing to help me when I need it, or just lend me a shoulder to cry on. We held a family fast on Sunday and then Josh and the men in his family gave me a blessing for peace, comfort and strength. It was amazing to feel the Spirit surround me, and I knew that no matter how hard this was going to be, I wasn’t alone. Not one single step of the way will be walked alone. Now I just had to wait for Tuesday at 2 pm.
Because a week is a super long time to wait, I called the hospital and asked to be put on a waiting list for any cancelations that might come up. I was hoping that I might get in on Monday or even Tuesday morning, but I’m just not that lucky. Sure, I get front row parking 98% of the time, but I can’t manage an earlier appointment. What’s up with that? Late Monday afternoon the Imaging Center called and said that an opening came up for Tuesday at 1 pm. and they were telling me I could take it if I wanted. Are they crazy!? Of course I did. An hour earlier is an hour earlier, HELLO!
Tuesday morning brought me a nervous stomach and the jitters. I just couldn’t shake the dread and the anticipation, and my bursting bladder didn’t help one single bit.
My best friend took the boys for Josh and me while we were at the hospital, and I’m so glad she did because we were there for 3, almost 4 hours. Yes, she is an ANGEL!
The ultrasound tech was all sugar, spice and southern sweetness. She helped ease my worries by chattering away with me about everything and nothing, all at the same time. She wanted to know if we knew why we were there, to which I reluctantly replied yes. The initial ultrasound took nearly an hour. She measured all photographed all the internal organs, looked at the arms, legs, hands and feet, and obviously did quite a few scans and measurements of the baby’s head. I say baby because at this point we still couldn’t get a sex for the little stinker. He or she kept bringing it’s legs up and crossing them right in front of the goods, and so we got a couple peeks that looked like a girl, and a couple that looked like a boy. Seriously, this kid is just bound and determined to give me an all around hard time!
After the tech did her thing, she graciously let me use the facilities to relieve the pressure. Though, fat lot of good it did because I drank so much water in preparation for this friggin’ ultrasound that my bladder was full again by the time she had me lay back down for the Specialist to come back in. We had to wait about 15-20 minutes for the Specialist to over all the images from the tech, and then it was back up on the table for me. The lights were flipped off once again, and then more jelly for the belly. Now let me begin by saying that upon the first five minutes of meeting the Doctor, I really thought that I would hate her. She might not have meant to, but she out right blamed me for causing this whole situation. You see, I had a baby boy born with Anencephaly – a fatal neural tube defect- and was stillborn. One of the causes is believed to be my body’s inability to properly breakdown and use Folic Acid (take your Folic Acid ladies!!!). I was instructed by my OBGYN that I was to take 4 times the regular amount when I was pregnant to prevent another neural tube defect. If you can remember back to the beginning, this pregnancy wasn’t planned and was quite the surprise, But you can bet your bottom that I was taking my prenatal vitamins and folic acid as soon as I found out (which was right around 4 weeks and the danger zone is weeks 7-9, so I was good). Well, the Specialist asked if I had been taking my folic acid, to which I said that I had been as soon as I found out I was pregnant. She smacked my foot and told me that I was to be taking that much Folic Acid ALL the time. Our reply: “this pregnancy wasn’t planned. We didn’t know that we were supposed to be taking folic acid all the time.” Her reply: “That’s why you take it all the time, to prevent things like this (meaning my current situation) from happening.”
Well, smack me silly and call me Sally. Did she really just tell me that this was all my fault!? Oh heck no! I already felt like it was my fault. (What mother doesn’t feel that way?) Did she really have to just reaffirm my fears like that? Ouch – that hurt to hear. Bad.
Well, I managed to hold in the tears through the ultrasound. During which Josh and I were completely ignored. The Specialist stood over the tech’s shoulder telling her what to do and saying words like “cleft lip”, “cysts”, "lobes", "nose" and several things referring to the baby’s hands and feet. I wanted to scream! “HELLO! I’m right here. Tell me what is going on! You’re scaring me!” All of a sudden my belly is getting wiped off, and I’m told I can go to the bathroom again. Guess that’s over then. The Doctor tells us she’ll talk to us in her office. And as soon as she’s out the door, I start bawling about how she made me feel responsible. The tech gives me a hug and reassures me that she (meaning the doctor) didn’t mean it that way blah, blah, blah. But the damage was already done. It was all my fault. And apparently, from what I heard during the Ultrasound, it was a lot worse than we had originally thought.

4 comments:

Aunt Mona said...

Bree, I'm about to come down and b-slap that specialist into next week...WOW!! Hang in there, we all love you to the moon and back! XOXO

Torman said...

Love you hanging on every word here

grammaDawn said...

You are a BIG part of Heavenly Fathers' plan. You are my HERO!

neenerneener said...

i'm with aunt nona on this one....and can you stop stopping at such pivotal parts of your story!! i can't take it anymore!! i want to keep reading! love you sister.