One month ago my husband and I were completely beside ourselves that we were getting our first little boy! As soon as I found out we went straight to buy a few things for his room and began the process of creating the perfect little room for daddy's future athlete. We went for our first appointment a little late in the pregnancy (14 weeks) and had the initial ultrasound to make sure the baby was growing right and had a healthy heart beat. All went well and well after three girls and we saw a shot between the legs real fast, our curiosity was high!
Two weeks later (16 weeks) we paid to have a gender ultrasound done at a local 4D clinic and got confirmation it was a boy! He was so active during this ultrasound. Opening and closing his mouth. Literally playing with the umbilical cord that was floating around him (almost looked like a cat grabbing at a string) and sucking his thumb. The U/S tech even commented on how strong his heart beat was. We left and had no idea 4 weeks down the road we would get news that he had a very serious/life threatening heart defect. The statistics are even 1 in 5,000 babies are born with this rare heart defect each year...
At our 20 week OB appointment we went in smiling because we knew when the U/S tech at my doctor's office showed us our very active little jumping bean that we would already know it was a boy. Surely enough he was not shy in showing us that he still was indeed a boy! haha! We weren't scheduled for an U/S because they had worked me in for my appointment last minute. We got back there and she started the ultrasound of the detailed anatomy scan and as I watched a proud daddy smile at our little boy on the screen and pointing things out to our youngest, Courtney, I had a gut feeling something was wrong with his heart. (Not even making that up!) She kept zooming in and spending a lot of time on his little heart (which she commented was a very good strong heartbeat) but I had never had an U/S tech spend so much time looking at one of my babies hearts. I dismissed that feeling and thought I was just being paranoid. I have told Shaun this whole pregnancy that I was afraid something was wrong or going to happen to the baby. He always comforted me and said that I was just worried something was going to happen to our son, since it was our first boy out of all of our children we've had.
We went back into the waiting room what seemed like forever and then finally got called back. I weighed and did all the usual appointment stuff then went back to the room to wait for the doctor. He came in and was fidgeting and flipping through a few of his ultrasound pictures then talked about some things with me (Making sure I was eating enough and all that)...then he told us that he had some worrisome concerns about the ultrasound today with the baby's heart. The mood in the room changed automatically and he began explaining that it looked like our son's heart was smaller on the left side and he was afraid he had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. He said he didn't look like he had any other syndromes or anything like that because he was growing perfectly (Except the heart). He didn't have any swelling on his body or brain and his heart beat was strong (which still confuses me!) He said he was referring us to the ROC in Chattanooga and he wanted us to gt in ASAP to help us get answers as well. We left furious at the U/S tech because she kind of rushed us through our U/S and automatically wanted to blame her for taking a "bad" picture. He had his arms crossed the whole time over his chest and would not move them. On the other hand he was very active (yet again) playing with his little fingers and swallowing/opening his mouth. In our mind nothing could be wrong since every thing else stacking up against him was positive.
I left the doctor's office with a heavy heavy feeling. I made it to the car and just couldn't stop crying. Which made Shaun upset that we had to wait all weekend with me super stressed because I have a heart problem too. I was the last person on my mind though. All we could do was wait because the ROC was closed until Monday and then the quickest we got in was that next Thursday. A week of praying and worrying and crying...I hated that wait, but I needed to know if there was something wrong with my son...and now! I will never forget that feeling. It was the most helpless feeling I've ever had and I automatically thought it was my fault. I thought I had done or ate something, or got around something I wasn't supposed to and it caused my little boy not to grow right...which I learned from the specialist that following Thursday that it was far from what really happened. They don't really know what causes it. It just happens...so now we are waiting for our specialist appointment...
Two weeks later (16 weeks) we paid to have a gender ultrasound done at a local 4D clinic and got confirmation it was a boy! He was so active during this ultrasound. Opening and closing his mouth. Literally playing with the umbilical cord that was floating around him (almost looked like a cat grabbing at a string) and sucking his thumb. The U/S tech even commented on how strong his heart beat was. We left and had no idea 4 weeks down the road we would get news that he had a very serious/life threatening heart defect. The statistics are even 1 in 5,000 babies are born with this rare heart defect each year...
At our 20 week OB appointment we went in smiling because we knew when the U/S tech at my doctor's office showed us our very active little jumping bean that we would already know it was a boy. Surely enough he was not shy in showing us that he still was indeed a boy! haha! We weren't scheduled for an U/S because they had worked me in for my appointment last minute. We got back there and she started the ultrasound of the detailed anatomy scan and as I watched a proud daddy smile at our little boy on the screen and pointing things out to our youngest, Courtney, I had a gut feeling something was wrong with his heart. (Not even making that up!) She kept zooming in and spending a lot of time on his little heart (which she commented was a very good strong heartbeat) but I had never had an U/S tech spend so much time looking at one of my babies hearts. I dismissed that feeling and thought I was just being paranoid. I have told Shaun this whole pregnancy that I was afraid something was wrong or going to happen to the baby. He always comforted me and said that I was just worried something was going to happen to our son, since it was our first boy out of all of our children we've had.
We went back into the waiting room what seemed like forever and then finally got called back. I weighed and did all the usual appointment stuff then went back to the room to wait for the doctor. He came in and was fidgeting and flipping through a few of his ultrasound pictures then talked about some things with me (Making sure I was eating enough and all that)...then he told us that he had some worrisome concerns about the ultrasound today with the baby's heart. The mood in the room changed automatically and he began explaining that it looked like our son's heart was smaller on the left side and he was afraid he had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. He said he didn't look like he had any other syndromes or anything like that because he was growing perfectly (Except the heart). He didn't have any swelling on his body or brain and his heart beat was strong (which still confuses me!) He said he was referring us to the ROC in Chattanooga and he wanted us to gt in ASAP to help us get answers as well. We left furious at the U/S tech because she kind of rushed us through our U/S and automatically wanted to blame her for taking a "bad" picture. He had his arms crossed the whole time over his chest and would not move them. On the other hand he was very active (yet again) playing with his little fingers and swallowing/opening his mouth. In our mind nothing could be wrong since every thing else stacking up against him was positive.
I left the doctor's office with a heavy heavy feeling. I made it to the car and just couldn't stop crying. Which made Shaun upset that we had to wait all weekend with me super stressed because I have a heart problem too. I was the last person on my mind though. All we could do was wait because the ROC was closed until Monday and then the quickest we got in was that next Thursday. A week of praying and worrying and crying...I hated that wait, but I needed to know if there was something wrong with my son...and now! I will never forget that feeling. It was the most helpless feeling I've ever had and I automatically thought it was my fault. I thought I had done or ate something, or got around something I wasn't supposed to and it caused my little boy not to grow right...which I learned from the specialist that following Thursday that it was far from what really happened. They don't really know what causes it. It just happens...so now we are waiting for our specialist appointment...