Meg and I thought we would periodically add posts to a series called “Checking In”. These posts will be a bit shorter and more “to the point”, and will primarily summarize any new information we’ve learned from the appointments we attend. Although they’ll contain less reflection, we hope they serve as a useful source of information and a quick update on how we’re all doing.

We’re currently seeing three specialists: a primary obstetrician (POB), a high-risk obstetrician (HROB) and a pediatric cardiologist (PC). On Halloween, we had an appointment with our POB, Dr. Uma Penmetsa, at Park West Women’s Health. The appointment was anything but spooky. Dr. P has been tremendously supportive and reassuring throughout our pregnancy, and we spent most of the time during this appointment talking about how we’ve processed the single ventricle diagnosis and what treatment will look like moving forward. Following the lead of a good friend, I have taken the role of scribe during our appointments, jotting down notes to gather our thoughts and questions to ask other specialists at future appointments. Dr. P gave us some helpful things to think about and some insightful questions to ask during our first appointment with our PC this Monday, November 5.

As we always do, we ended the appointment hearing Teddy’s heartbeat through a Doppler — another appointment, another healthy heartbeat. It is amazing to us that even with a single ventricle, in the womb a baby can have such a strong heartbeat. Meg and I agreed during our debrief after the appointment that the sound of that heartbeat will never get old.

You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice. — Bob Marley

Second trimester: “The honeymoon trimester” — when morning sickness fades, energy comes back, your bump starts to show, and strangers begin smiling at you. We certainly didn’t expect to begin our second trimester at our 12-week ultrasound learning that our baby boy had a 50/50 chance of making it to term, and that if he were to make it, there was a 80-90 percent chance he would have a moderate to severe health condition.

The four weeks that followed were the longest four weeks of my life. Brian and I grew more in our relationship in that month than we had in over three years of being together. We learned quickly that we dealt with fear and uncertainty in different ways, and that we could misinterpret each other’s coping strategies. Brian feared that my resolve to find hope and optimism prevented me from appreciating the potential that everything may not be OK, and left me vulnerable to heartbreak. Meanwhile, his willingness to talk about the possibility of losing our child triggered my fear, and I felt that his way of trying to prepare for what we may learn was getting too far ahead of ourselves.

Throughout this emotional roller coaster, I would stop at the chapel down the street from our house every night on my way home from work. I prayed for a lot during these four weeks, and one of those prayers has most certainly been answered. I prayed for unity with Brian. We would eventually learn that our perspectives were much more aligned than we previously thought. Through grieving the loss of a “normal” pregnancy together, we have been able to lean on each other for support and to communicate effectively through some of life’s most difficult conversations. From then on, Brian stood by me at the chapel each night. I am incredibly grateful for our unity, as it has made the future look so much brighter for our baby boy.

The strength and clarity we were able to find individually and together allowed us to much more constructively process the news we would hear at our 16-week ultrasound.  We both agreed that during weeks 12-16 we felt like we had been equipped with the tools we needed to support each other moving forward.  In the meantime, we were comforted by the fact that Theo was and will continue to be in the safest place possible as I carry him through this pregnancy.

 

 

Meg and I learned we were pregnant around six weeks along, and the six weeks that followed were predominated by feelings of joy, excitement, gratefulness and a sense of ease. I remember walking into our 12-week ultrasound with a level of confidence that bordered on unfounded invulnerability. I felt on top of the world and genuinely, yet naively, believed nothing could go wrong.

Teddy wasn’t exactly cooperative during our first few ultrasounds. When he wasn’t doing flips during his 12-week scan, he was contorting his body in ways that made whatever the sonographer was trying to look at nearly impossible to see. In between bouts of frustration and impatience, we revered his existence. There simply had been no feeling as first-time parents like seeing your child on a small black and white monitor in below average resolution showing crystal clear resemblances of his father’s recalcitrance.

When the sonographer told us that Teddy’s nuchal fold — the area containing fluid behind his neck — measured around seven millimeters thick, and that they typically liked to see this measurement under three millimeters, initially I was confused.  Did that mean something was wrong? That couldn’t possibly be the case . . .  The sonographer was so calm as she reported her findings. Only a few minutes later would Meg tell me as tears ran down her face that she knew something was off when the sonographer’s hand holding the probe started trembling on her belly. Seconds later the sonographer would deliver the results.

The feelings that followed may best be characterized as deep fear and uncertainty. Would we lose our child? What was causing his symptom? We were told that causes could range from a genetic defect, to a virus, to a heart condition, to an innocuous anomaly, and that only time would tell. In a matter of minutes, the foundation upon which our prior optimism had been built was shaken to its core. We didn’t know at the time that we would be tried, strengthened and shaped in a way that would bring us closer together and more resolute in our love and commitment to our precious boy. In the meantime, we prayed, we cried, we fought and we forgave until the picture became clearer.