Since March, we have had so
many doctor appointments already with Rauri. Of those appts, 97.2% of those I
have left with tear filled eyes, fighting to keep my head up. This was
something I was never really faced with before; we had two extremely healthy,
quick, surprising, wonderful pregnancies, so some days it has been especially difficult
this time around. However, through fears, tears, trials, and triumphs we have made
it to the glorious HALF WAY POINT of our pregnancy. Which as many of my fellow
Facebookers saw, I celebrated with some online shopping. ;) Anyways, many of
you know today was a really big day for Charlie, myself, and really all of the kiddos,
but Rauri in particular. And now that our morning has come to a close, I am
incredibly excited to be writing for you all. Thankfully this time, my heart,
mind and nerves are much more at ease than they were when I wrote the first
installment.
I had to really giggle this morning
throughout our ultrasound (which mind you, was so long I was even granted a pee
break mid way through, for real!) Rauri, much like her older brother spent most
of the ultrasound with (as most of us with Nash called it) “her dukes up!” She wasn’t
much for flash photography. There’s no way she gets that from her big sister!
;) It was priceless. We have been told countless times, “don’t worry she will
probably be sleepy and lazy in utero”, “you probably will rarely feel her
because they aren’t strong enough for you to get nudged hard enough”, “don’t worry
when you don’t see her move on the ultrasound that’s common in kids with down
syndrome”. I giggle. Why? Because none
of those have proven to be true with Rauri. Not a single one. Typical to the
stubborn, stubborn people she shares her bloodlines with; she already needs to
prove others wrong. Big time. Once again, priceless.
As the tech stepped away after
the first portion of the ultrasound to make room for the Maternal Fetal
Medicine Dr to conduct some of her own ultrasound exam she joked with us after
we shared a story of Bubba, not exactly loving to wear clothes now adays, and
about how he put his parts right out there for us to see when we found out that
he was a little boy in the cities during an ultrasound that this little girl definitely
shared the love her brother has for being an exhibitionist as her lady parts
were well on display. She already isn’t very modest. Great. She definitely gets
that one from her mama. We will save those stories for another day though.
This Dr. was incredible, and
had a lot better bedside manner than we had previously been warned of. She went
on with her exam and began to rattle off one hell of a run on sentence (definitely
guilty of that myself). This sentence started with, “The reason we really
conduct these lengthy ultrasounds is to pay close attention to the heart and
its function - as you know it is extremely common in kiddos with Down syndrome
to have heart defects and over half of them are affected BUT IM NOT SEEING A
SINGLE ONE OF THOSE WITH HER HEART.”
WAIT! WHAT? It took a few
minutes for my mind to catch up with what she had just said. And then the tears
came. Again, another doctor appointment where I didn’t leave without tears, but
this time they were tears of relief, of gratitude, of understanding, of ease,
of happiness.
Though they still plan to
continue with the ECHO in another months time just to be sure there wont be
changes in her status, I left the office today without worry, without thinking
of delivering in a very strange hospital with staff I didn’t know, I didn’t worry
that my daughter would be taken from my body and immediately rushed into heart
surgery, I didn’t think of what it could be like to go days without even getting
to hold my daughter for the first time. For the first time I could picture my
beautiful girl, snuggled in a blanket, with a little pink cap WITHOUT the
tubes, and cords, and staples and bandages.
I could sleep. I could
breathe. I could eat.
I know that this doesn’t mean
that we are out of the woods entirely, as that doesn’t ever really happen. But
we were also informed that there was no evidence of her intestines, her bowel,
or her stomach being affected. Also extremely common birth defects in these
peanuts. She went on to say that though there are obvious indications that
Rauri does in fact have Down syndrome her ultrasound looks incredibly typical
in most aspects. True textbook to peanuts that have Down syndrome Rauri’s
femurs rang in at a whopping 12th percentile. Dropping her U/S
gestational age from an average 20w 2d to 19w 6d, I will take it! My belly on
the other hand is measuring at 22 weeks, with a gigantic weight gain of 4 lbs!
;) They explained that with the first trimester screen findings, all of the
blood work and genetic testing, and this ultrasound compiled - we are sitting at
a 99.(something)% definitive that Rauri has full blown, full range, Trisomy 21
and not mosaic, translocation, or otherwise. This is something we already have
kind of figured and come to terms with, and now spend hour by hour and day by
day becoming more and more excited for our perfect little girl.
I want to thank everyone for
their ongoing prayers, support, phone calls, text messages, facebook messages,
friendly smiles, ect. They continue to fuel our positivity and excitement. We
cold not feel more prepared and more thankful for the resources and family/friends
that we are surrounded by. After today I feel like we could never be defeated.
I am kind of bummed, that for
such a long ultrasound we didn’t really get great photos but we got to really
see her true personality and got to see her face a ton. Due
to the placenta being really close to her face it didn’t translate well
into 3D images. We will try again at the echo in a month but i will post what i have from today later.
All I know is that she is
perfect. Beautiful. Healthy. Squirming. Growing. Strong. Mine. Ours. Perfect.
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