This babe...

Here I am, 8 + months pregnant and haven't made a single post about this baby.  I guess it's because a post like this requires a lot of words, and I find it easier to blog with pictures and short descriptions, rather than paragraphs, and feelings and such.

Plus, as I said, I'm pregnant, and have no energy to do anything past 6 pm anymore, you know what I'm saying? (or noon, or whatever)

Jordan had a dream before I was pregnant with Ty that we were going to have a little boy.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but it turned out to be a dream come true.

Months before we officially decided to try for a fourth child, he had another dream, that we were going to have one more girl.  

"Babe, you gotta stop having dreams like this,"  I said.  "It's putting a lot of pressure on me!"

I kind of laughed it off, but deep down I figured that this dream was probably no different from the first, and that we'd have another girl, eventually.

Toward the end of last summer, although I had only been off the pill for a month and a half, I bought a mother load of pregnancy tests from the dollar store, and would just use them whenever I thought about it.  "Maybe I'm pregnant today."  I had no symptoms, but who cares, I still might be pregnant.

 I have a stomach ache after dinner...maybe I'm pregnant.

I'm soooo tired today.... pregnant for sure.

All of my tests were negative, and I had not a single one left in my bathroom cupboard in case the real thing came along.

             One day in September, I realized that I had had real symptoms for an entire week.                              I remember texting a good friend, who had been receiving weekly updates as to my non-pregnant status.  The text said something like: "Feeling pretty pregnant today.  Going to the store to get a test.  Chat with you later."

After I bought the test, and got back into the car, I realized that I still had a few errands to run, and kids to pick up before I'd have a chance to go home and take the test.  There was no way I was going to wait that long to find out.  I had to find a place to take this thing, pronto.

Now don't judge...

but the closest place I could think of that had a bathroom, was Goodwill

(I said don't judge.)

 and that is the exact location where I found out I was going to have another baby. :)

The weeks that followed were awful, which I guess is to be expected.

I was on the bed...on the floor...on the couch for a majority of the day, every day,

gagging...moaning...moving anything that was touching any part of my body.  

The less clothes I was wearing, the better. (for me.) (my poor family.)

We looked forward to the the Early Fetal Scan which for those who are unfamiliar, is just an ultrasound (as well as a blood test) that they perform at around 12 weeks to rule out specific birth defects.

We saw the baby for the first time on the screen, and our hearts melted. 

There really is a baby in there, and look how adorable!

We watched the baby move around and expose that it had all the right parts, and was growing right on target.  Once the tech left the room, J and I talked about how actually seeing the baby made it so much more real, and how much more excited we were.

The doctor then came in and revealed that there was a concern with one of the measurements, and went on to explain that our baby had excess fluid on the back of its neck, which is often associated with a genetic disorder, specifically either Trisomy 13, 18 (which are both often fatal) or 21 (Down Syndrome). 

My heart stopped beating for a few seconds and I didn't even really know how to react.

So I didn't.  I just sat there and stared at him...waiting for a hint of anything positive to come out of his mouth.

The doctor never once said "It could be nothing,"  or gave me any sort of hope that this was something that could resolve itself over time.  He said it was something to be concerned about and recommended that I get a CVS test done which would tell me for sure what we were dealing with.

Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) is a prenatal test in which a sample of chorionic villi is removed from the placenta for testing.  It's an invasive procedure and carries a small risk of miscarriage.

We chose not to do it, in part because I wasn't emotionally ready to know, but more because it wouldn't have mattered what the result was, we still would have planned to go on with the pregnancy just as we would have if nothing were wrong.... and, we didn't want to risk miscarriage. 

When the doctor left the room, I couldn't move from the bed.  The tears just started rolling.

I had so many questions that couldn't be answered...  All I could do was cry.  J gave me a blessing in the ultrasound room and then we drove home in sad silence.  Neither of us really knew what to say, we just needed time for it to sink in.  I put on my best fake smile for my mom, when I showed up at her house to pick up Ty, but that lasted a half second before my face crumbled and I fell into her arms and started sobbing.

 Like a little child.

I was a disaster.

That day was long and hard, as was the day following.  I wondered how on earth someone like me could handle something like this? What kind of life was this poor child going to have to endure?  I even had shameful questions come to my mind, like "Why did we ever think that we needed to try for a 4th child?  3 healthy happy children weren't enough?  What have I done?"

By the end of the second day and after a lot of thought and prayer, most of the negative feelings had kind of slipped from my mind, and I started to see things in a more positive light.  I've always known that God would never give anyone a challenge that with his help they could not handle.  Whatever it was...it would be okay.

 A few weeks later, at a follow up ultrasound, they revealed that Baby Smith was a girl.  (I was secretly hoping it would be. :))  They still noted that there was some swelling on the back of the neck.. which he told me had been written in my file as a Cystic Hygroma.  What an awful sounding name. Most other body measurements were right where they were supposed to be, BUT the baby was missing one of it's umbilical arteries, which they said was also often a sign of something being off, genetically.  They would need to keep an eye on the baby's growth, specifically the growth of the heart and the kidneys.

Weeks later at a fetal echocardiogram, the test showed that the baby's heart contained all of the chambers, and the growth was on point...however, she was missing yet another part, called the Ductus Venosus, which is a shunt that directs oxygenated blood away from the liver and directly into the inferior vena cava.  Babies don't need this shunt after birth, but it was yet another indicator that something was not right, and that there was a genetic problem, "possibly not as 'simple' as Down Syndrome".  (Doctor's exact words.)

You can imagine how I felt when I walked away from that appt.  'Not as simple as Down Syndrome.'  As if Down Syndrome was even remotely simple.  

My kids were all in the car when J picked me up from my appt, so I had to act like everything was just fine.  But I didn't feel fine.  Not even close.

A few days later, Unbeknownst to me, my mom had rallied the troops on both sides of my family, and suggested that a family fast be held for us and our baby.  Jordan's family also fasted and prayed.  I received texts and emails from family members I hadn't heard from in a really long time, telling me that they were thinking about, and praying for us.  It meant so much to Jordan and I to know that we were cared about by so many people and that they were willing to sacrifice and pray for us as we were dealing with all of this.   

I really struggled over the last few months about what to pray for exactly.  I didn't feel right about praying for God to take the problems away from my baby girl.  I felt that asking for all of my problems to be taken away was a selfish thing to do...so I focused mostly on praying for the strength to deal with whatever the circumstances would be.  We continued and still continue to pray that she would grow and develop as she is supposed to, and that she will be healthy and strong, but that didn't mean I thought that the genetic defect would be taken away.

At a follow up Echocardiogram, all systems connected to the heart were studied and measured.  At the end, the doctor went and sat at the edge of the room for a minute and looked at us, and then came back to our side of the room and told us that everything looked good.  There was indeed an absence of the Ductus Venosus, but it may not impact anything with the baby.  For now, with the heart, everything was just fine.

This was the first piece of good news that we had had with the pregnancy.  We were overjoyed...even though it didn't mean anything had changed....just that the heart was working fine.  We decided to celebrate with some frozen yogurt.  Over yogurt we laughed about the way the doctor had gone on the other side of the room and stared at us, before he told us what the results were.  What was that all about?    But who even cares, her heart works!

We have had another ultrasound since then and she is measuring on target with everything, and besides the things that have already been brought up, no other concerns have been noted.  We are proceeding with cautious optimism, and continued prayer.  I have several ultrasounds and biophysical profiles scheduled so that they can keep an eye on the growth of the baby, but we will not know anymore for sure until she is born.

Her due date is May 17th and we can not wait for her arrival.   I am reminded on a daily basis of how huge I am.  I have had to back out of parking spaces and find other places to park because my enormous belly prevented me from being able to exit my vehicle without doing damage to the car beside me.  We laugh daily at how labored every single move I make is....and how I'm out of breath by the time I walk into my house from the car.  I can't get things out of the cupboard...I can't bend down and pick things off of the floor..I pee every 5 minutes, and J has to roll me out of bed in the morning. 

Pregnancy is always an adventure.

And a blessing that we are incredibly grateful for.

Thank you so much for thinking about us and keeping us in your prayers.  We are so grateful to all of you.

We will keep you posted with anything else we find out!