2. Our 20 week Appointment
May 3rd, 2017.
At 6:45 pm we went in for our routine, 20 week appointment to find out if we were having a baby boy or a baby girl. As the ultrasound tech passed the wand over my stomach to look at our little baby, she seemed quiet, and the ultrasound seemed to be taking quite a long time. I tried to ask her questions during the test to try and make things a little less awkward, but I began to start feeling a little nervous. At the end of the ultrasound she told us that we would no longer be following up with my normal OB, but would instead need to follow up with Maternal Fetal Medicine and the perinatologist specialists. When I asked her why, she said that our baby’s bone measurements were not what they were supposed to be, and that we needed a specialist to read the ultrasound.
As we waited to be taken into the exam room, Justin and I quickly googled some of the information that the ultrasound tech had told us, but we were not able to get many answers. They took us into the exam room, and while we waited we debated whether or not we should open the gender reveal envelope. We were supposed to run to target after this appointment so I could get blue and pink food coloring so I could make cakes that night. We were supposed to be doing a small gender reveal party the next day with some family, and I needed to make the reveal cakes. We were supposed to have an uneventful night, go to noodles and open the envelope while we were eating dinner, and be excited when we found out we were having a healthy, normal little boy or girl. That was how that night was supposed to go, but didn’t. We decided to open the envelope while we were waiting for the nurse practitioner to come in the room, and I am so thankful we did. We had a moment where we found out our little baby was a boy, and we were so excited. Justin had a big smile on his face, and for one more moment we were so happy and were able to picture all of the things we were going to be able to do with our little boy. Teach him to ride the John Deere, play football with him, teach him to ski and how to do DIY projects with his daddy. For those few moments we were able to just celebrate and be so excited we were having a baby boy.
The nurse practitioner came in and told us that she was not able to give us much information. She knew our baby had some sort of skeletal dysplasia, but was unable to tell us much more than that. We were told that our baby might be a dwarf, or that our baby might have something much more serious. She said she has never seen anything like what was seen on our ultrasound, and apologized for not being able to tell us more. She was kind, compassionate and did the best she could with the information she had. She said they would try to get us an appointment with MFM the next day, as Justin was leaving for Brazil that weekend. So that night we skipped the Target run, and we went home to google every piece of information we could about skeletal dysplasias. We worried, and did’t sleep much, and just had to pray and wait.