Greats and Scares

These past couple of weeks have given us a lot of scares and greats. It all started at my 15 week appointment. I was able to hear the heartbeat of the baby through the Doppler and we announced that day to everyone that we were pregnant. I had been waiting so long for this! Our immediate families knew and a couple of close friends, but that was it. That weekend, I had to go home for a family funeral. On the way back up to Salt Lake City on the following Monday, I received a call from my doctor's office with a scare. The blood test I had done on Thursday came back abnormal. This was the blood test that was a screener for Down Syndrome. Normally for a woman my age, the odds of DS are about 1 in 1250. Mine came back 1 in 72. Now this does not mean that I am automatically having a child with DS. It just means that I have a higher risk because of it. So they wanted to set me up with a genetic counselor to talk about options. To us, this didn't change anything for us. Children with Down Syndrome are some of the sweetest children there are. If Heavenly Father decided to place one of these children with us, then we would love and care for him just as much if the child did not have Down Syndrome. So we accepted and were looking forward to meeting with the genetic counselor for more information.

Then, on Wednesday, I got a call from my doctor. She started talking about the abnormal blood tests and meeting with a perinatologist, who is an obstetrician for high risk pregnancies. During all of this, she mentioned something about a mass that was found during my first ultrasound. At this, my heart dropped. I had never heard anything about a mass before. Was it on the baby? Was it on me? How big was it? What does it mean? I finished the conversation with my doctor in a stupor and didn't ask much questions. All I was left with was that I had an appointment the following Monday with a perinatologist and a genetic counselor for a detailed ultrasound and whatnot. I still had no idea about the mass. I was at work, in my classroom, and just started crying. One co-worker walked in and talked to me for a little bit and left. Soon after, my brother, also my co-worker, came in and asked what was wrong and it all spilled out again. After the conversation, it was decided that I needed to talk to my doctor again to find out more information. She eventually got back to me that night. She apologized that she had not mentioned the mass before. It had been noted by the radiologist that there was a mass found during the ultrasound. She said that it could be a pocket of fluid, a fibroid cyst, an ovarian cyst, etc. After finding out a little more information, I did feel somewhat better, but was looking to the appointment for much more information.

When we got to the appointment on Monday, they took us back for the ultrasound. For the first part of the ultrasound, a technician handled it while the genetic counselor talked to us. We were able to really get the DS scare out of the way. Because my due date is still up in the air, this can throw off the test. They were very positive that this was the reason that the test came back abnormal. We have the option to do a newer blood test that is a lot more definitive that we are think about. The amniocentesis was out of the question for us. During all of this though, I kept thinking, "Tell me more about the mass!" Eventually the tech finished up, printed off some pictures and left without saying much. I thought they weren't going to talk to us again. But the perinatologist, Dr. Esplin, soon came in. He started up on the ultrasound again, and eventually confirmed that I did have a mass and he was pretty sure it was a fibroid cyst, which is a benign tumor. So that is a relief in one way. The problem was how big it is. He measured it as 10 cm one way and couldn't measure it the other because it was too big. As he was doing the ultrasound, he kept moving up and up and eventually used his fingers to feel it. He had me feel it too. So it is big enough to feel!

With this fibroid cyst, I can still completely progress through my pregnancy with no problems. I just have to monitored often. There are a few things that can happen. It can stay the same size and just crowd the baby as he grows a little, but all will be well. It could also grow so fast that it will actually die and shrivel, which will actually cause me quite a bit of pain (not my favorite option!). The other is that it could grow and affect the growth of the baby and maybe cause pre-term labor (definitely not a favorite). So we are definitely praying for no more growth. Then after I have the baby, I would go back in and talk options about getting rid of the cyst.

Dr. Esplin was wonderfully informative and great with us. We will be meeting with him along with my original doctor during my pregnancy. But because I had to have an ultrasound early, he gave us an early present. He told us the gender of our baby! As he was doing some measuring, he asked if we had been told the gender or if we wanted to know. Definitely! So he started looking and our little stinker was in an awkward position. But it was so much fun to see our baby! The first ultrasound was so early, all we saw was a little spot still. So now we actually got to see our baby! Eventually, he froze the picture and showed us one leg and the other leg and the body part in between which pretty much showed that we have a boy! We also got to see a hand and a profile look at the baby. It was so great!

So we had our greats and our scares. I have been upgraded to a high-risk pregnancy because of the fibroid cyst being so large, but we are having a lot of faith that things will work out as we meet with the doctors who will help us. But this being said, any and all prayers on our behalf is always appreciated! We love you all!

Love,
Anne, Emmett and BABY BOY!