This post was from December 16th, 2010, since that time so much has happened and it can be found under the original post.
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We found out on Friday, December 10th at 19 weeks pregnant that we were expecting a baby girl. We already knew that if a girl she would be named Lauryn Jae, Lauryn after our mothers - my mom Laurel and Ryan's mom Robyn and Jae is my oldest sister's middle name (Lauryn's God-Mother-To-Be). As we walked out of our ultrasound on cloud 9 at the thought of having a baby girl, a little sister for Cole to watch out for growing up, to teach her all of the amazing things that this world has to offer, we never thought that two hours later our world would come crashing down on us.
The ultrasound technician was different. That's the only way that we could both describe her. She asked a lot of questions, but nothing out of the ordinary. Did we have the IPS testing at 10-12 weeks? No. Was this our first child? No, our second. Had we had any previous ultrasounds for this pregnancy? Yes, 1 to confirm a heartbeat at 17 weeks. Did we want to know the gender? Yes, if possible. All normal questions right? After she took all the measurements she turned to us and said, 'And let's just leave it at that.' Hmmm, weird but okay. I asked if we could find the gender and she hesitated and then looked and confirmed that it was a girl. We were so excited about the news that we let her hesitation slide.
Back at work that afternoon, I mistakenly updated my Facebook status letting everyone know we were expecting a girl. This has prompted 60 some odd comments and 'likes' all congratulating us on such wonderful and exciting news. Within an hour of doing so, my cell phone was ringing and it was my doctor's office. I ran out of the office to talk to her and knew right away that something was wrong. She asked if I was with Ryan and when I said no she suggested that I go to him and call her back. I couldn't wait that long and needed to know right then and there what was going on. She began by telling me that the baby was showing signs of sever deformities. After she said that I didn't hear much. I ran back into work, told my boss and left to meet Ryan at his parents'. She called back shortly and I was able to ask her to tell me everything again and as she did I repeated it to Ryan. She told us to take the weekend together and that we would have a level 2 scan early the next week and confirm what was going on and go from there. Thankfully we have Cole, our adorable almost 3 year old who can make you smile no matter how terrible your mood, to help us through the weekend. By Tuesday we were booked into the hospital with a specialist and had our scan. After a 2 hour scan by the technician and himself he took us into a consultation room and asked us what we had been told previously. We told him that our doctor suspected that the baby had several deformities, that some of her bones were smaller than others and that others were curved. As well that the neck was showing a thickness, leading them to believe that there was a possibility of Down Syndrome. He said that most of it was accurate but to further elaborate, the baby is lying in a head right back (nose to the air) position, not because she is comfortable, but because she is 'stuck' in that position due to the formation of her spine. Furthermore, her spine is not curving under at the base as most do, rather it's curving out. Her arms are very tiny, measuring at 13 weeks versus our 19.5 weeks and her feet are clubbed. All of her bones aren't as healthy as they hoped, some are curved, not as solid as they should be. They were unable to locate her kidneys during the scan and believe that if they are there they aren't going to be functioning at the required level. Her chest is
very narrow and isn't showing good signs of development, therefore, her heart is small and difficult to see. They were unable to confirm if the valves were all there and functioning up to par. With the current development of her chest they were led to believe that her lungs will never function as they need to for her to make it in this world, let alone much further in the pregnancy. At this time we were provided with 3 options:
1- Testing before making any decisions: loads of testing on the baby, including amniocentesis to determine what skeletal disorder the baby has and to determine what type of mental syndrome.
2- Managing the pregnancy: monitoring the growth of the baby until the pregnancy terminated on it's own
3- Terminating the pregnancy
We listened to all the options and let the doctor outline them all and then Ryan asked him 'In your honest opinion, what should we do?'. The doctor informed us that our best option was #3, to terminate the pregnancy. We asked him several questions, thanked him and headed home to wait to hear from our doctor. The next morning our doctor's office called us to see how everything went and when I asked to meet with our doctor that morning to discuss the results I was told that she was on holidays. At this point, all I could do was cry. I called Ryan and cried and cried and cried and told him I was tired of waiting. He knew exactly how I was feeling as that's all we both had been doing was waiting. Waiting from Friday to Tuesday for the scan with a million thoughts running through out heads, waiting for Wednesday morning to finally meet with our doctor only to hear that she was on holidays for the rest of the week. Waiting on everyone while the world kept turning for everyone else. The doctor's office called me right back and explained that they had called our doctor at home and that she would come in to meet us at 11:30 that morning. 11:30 finally rolled around and we were taken to one of her offices to wait some more while she reviewed the report. She came in with tears as big as ours and hugs and apologies like so many we have been hearing lately. She went through the report with us, presented us with our options and confirmed what the other doctor had told us, termination was our best option. She also informed us that the baby's brain activity was extremely low, basically non-existent and that there was not a baby there, only a body. How my body has continued to tolerate this pregnancy is beyond her, there is no way that I should be carrying this child still at 20 weeks.
Ryan and I had been discussing what we would do and we were able to agree that there wasn't any sense in carrying Lauryn any longer. We wouldn't want to have to go through this at 30 or 35 weeks or carrying her full term to have her born into a life she wouldn't survive. If by some miracle she did survive, she would be forced into a lifetime of surgeries and pain and would have no quality of life according to the doctors. We have thought of what is best for Lauryn, for Ryan and I as a couple, for Cole, for me physically and for us as a family. This has been the toughest decision that we have ever had to make and I thank God that we were able to find this information out early and that we have the options we do. The next couple of days are going to be tough, tomorrow we meet with the doctor who will complete the termination and Saturday is the procedure. I am scared beyond belief and don't know what is to come, but I do know that all of the waiting will soon be over and that our little Lauryn will be able to rest.
I was so scared to post this and to let people know of our decision, not out of fear that we are making a mistake, but out of fear of being judged. But if there is anything we haven't learned over the past week, it's that you never know what you will do in any situation until you are in it and that no one has the right to judge what they don't experience. I hope that you will all hold our family close over the holidays as we do our best to make it through. No doubt that Cole will brighten our spirits and continue to fill our lives with joy as we celebrate Christmas and his 3rd birthday, but all the love and support are a huge help as well.
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As previously mentioned, since this post we have been through a tremendous amount. We met with a specialist who informed us that along with all of the issues listed above there is also a deformity in Lauryn's nose and stomach. He then proceeded to inform us what would happen during the next 48 hours from the time of our appointment. I'm not sure that it's something that everyone would like to hear and to be truthful, I'm not sure I'm ready to share it.
We lost our baby girl, she wasn't born yet, but from the moment we found out that our baby was a girl she had become a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin and so much more. She brought joy to our lives from the moment we found out that we were expecting her, we had such great plans for her and for our family as a whole. We were about to have the 'million dollar family' as so many people put it, but right now our family is broken hearted and in a lot of pain. Don't get me wrong, we still have the 'million dollar family' in my eyes, we have each other and a beautiful, amazing 3 year old who warms my heart each and every day with the simplest gestures or looks. As much as I have hated hearing it over the past 3 weeks, everything happens for a reason and someone else needed our little angel much more than we did. She'll never be forgotten and the pain of losing her will never go away no matter how much we pretend or go about our daily lives, but thankfully we have grown so much as a family and Ryan and I have become closer than I ever thought we could.
Lauryn, know that you are loved so much and that you will never be forgotten. x
