Our Second Child

After loosing our first child, this preganancy was very different. I was a lot more skeptical, and definetly much more nervous. Things were progressing just fine and morning sickness kicked in full force, just as last time.

Our first appointment was when the baby was 8 weeks. We had an ultrasound just to confirm gestational age, as I told them I was irregular. According to my last menstrual period I was supposed to be 10 weeks, but because of charting I knew that I should be 8 weeks and a few days. They set up the ultrasound and as I expected our baby was in the 8th week. However a few days behind what I expected, but knew that could all be related to when implanation occured. Our due date was confirmed to be November 18th. The day after my husbands birthday. This was truely our miracle.

On the ultrasound we also saw the most beautiful sight, our little ones heart beating, this was something we never saw the first time around. I also didn't mention, that my husband was determined to be present at all appointments this time around. He did not want to miss out on anything, good or bad. I was thankful that we got to experience this together.

Week after week things were progressing normally, at our 12th, 16th and 20 week appointment, we heard the baby's heartbeat and were thrilled to be out of the first trimester. This was it, our rainbow baby would be with us this November. We were so thankful and blessed to have this child.

On July 1, at 20 weeks we had our anatomy scan, the day after our regular OB appointment. At the 20 week OB appointment the doctor measured my fundal height and said everything was right on track.

The anatomy scan was in the morning, I was so nervous the evening before, that things wouldn't be alright, this again I associate with having lost a child. The innosense of pregnancy was gone. My husband always said do not worry until you are given a reason to worry. He was so right, because there worrying is not going to change fate.

We told the ultrasound tech we didn't want to know the gender, and she was so exited as most people find out these days. She contined to scan us, and was pointing out the hands, arms and head. She took a lot of measurments and I started to realize that our baby was smaller than should have been, by several weeks, and I figured, well we must just be having a small baby. The tech mentioned that she would like to call the doctor to determine if he would like to see us after seeing the measurements behind.

Sure enough we were scheduled for later that day. We were a little weirded out by the fact that we were being rushed to get in, just because the baby was small. But figured, they know what they are doing and are likely being precautious.

We met the high risk doctor later that day, who when came in the room stated our amniotic fluid was lower that what he would expect to see at 20 weeks. This was definetly not something we expected to hear as the tech never let on to this. In addition our baby had 2 soft markers, indicating there may be a chromosomal issue.

I broke down at that moment, hardly able to ask questions and keep it together.. I felt the world, the world with our healthy child, start to be pulled away, once again. We were offered the opportunity to get an amniocentisis, which would help the doctor determine what could be causing, the small size, and low fluid. In addition would help them with monitoring the rest of our pregnancy.

We weren't given much time to decide, as they said there may not be enough fluid in a week to even be able to perform an amnio, so we decided to proceed with it, knowing if the baby had Downs syndrome, it wouldn't change anything for us. I was most worried about the issues incompatible with life.