Week 20

Sunday, October 9, 2011
The Sunday following that fateful doctor's appointment was a Fast Sunday. I actually felt the evening of our appointment that I needed to bear my testimony. I admit, its not something I do regularly because I hate being the center of attention and always get so nervous. But the more I thought about it the more I knew I needed to. I had a calling at the time as ward chorister. My visiting teacher Emily offered to lead the music for me that week so I didn't have to be an emotional wreck in front of everyone. I deeply appreciated her doing that for me and was able to sit with Scott and cry quietly in the pew.

As time was turned over to the congregation for testimonies, I was one of the first to get up. It's all kind of a blur now, I can't entirely remember what I said. I remember briefly telling a little about our situation - which quickly explained why I was so emotional. But I didn't want to dwell on that - its not why I got up. I wanted to express the immense gratitude I felt to my Heavenly Father for all the blessings we'd already received through this trial. I didn't feel cursed, I truly did feel blessed and loved. We'd seen the love immediately after discovering our son's condition and we felt that no matter what happened, our Father in Heaven had a plan for us and we wouldn't be left alone. I also expressed my testimony of Visiting Teaching and what an inspired calling it is. I expressed my love for my Savior and the blessing of having the Gospel in my life. To know that no matter what, my family is eternal and if my son were to pass away, that we'd see him again.

I didn't do it for sympathy. In fact, I debated for a long time whether I should write this down or not. But I decided to do it, because expressing my testimony helped to strengthen it. I needed to get up and share that because it helped set the atmosphere for the rest of our trial. We decided to put our trust in God and saying it aloud help solidify our decision. It also allowed us to open up to a lot of ward members. Even though we'd been in the ward for awhile, we didn't have many friends. We'd tend to keep to ourselves, doing our calling, but not stepping too far out of our comfort zone. By sharing our experience we made some wonderful friends and allowed for others to get to know us. I am grateful I shared my testimony. I needed the love and support from our ward and they were more than ready to give it!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011
I ended up taking three days off work to compose myself and come to grips with our situation. I went back to work on the 11^th of October and it was hard. How could I focus with so much on my mind? I spent a lot of my free time trying to figure out what was wrong with my baby. We weren’t given many specifics to go off of other than Down Syndrome, and Turner’s, so I started googling our baby’s symptoms and came across two things – Hydrops and Hygroma. They fit the baby’s symptoms but I prayed this isn’t what ours had – every website I went to said they were terminal conditions. I guess that’s what I got for self-diagnosing. I stopped searching after that and decided to wait to hear more information from the doctor.

We were told to expect preliminary results from the amnio on Monday the 10^th – mine and Scott’s two-year anniversary. But it turned out we didn’t get the results until Wednesday the 12^th. The nurse who called gave me the FISH results (that’s the name of the preliminary results) and she said so far everything looked good – they didn’t detect any major chromosomal abnormalities. Then she asked if we already knew or wanted to know the gender. I felt excitement course through me as I told her we definitely wanted to know.

A boy. A precious little boy.

I smiled from ear to ear as I hung up. Even after everything, I felt myself filled with so much joy! Have you seen the 2003 Peter Pan, directed by P.J. Hogan? You know the part when Peter starts…glowing at the end after Wendy kisses him? I felt like that. Like I was literally glowing and nothing could take this happiness away from me.

A son, our baby was a little boy. No matter what condition he had, he was a HE! Our son. Our little boy! How was that not news worth celebrating? I ran outside (because there was really nowhere private to have a conversation at my work) and of course called Scott first.

As happy as this news was though, the joy started to fade and was quickly replaced by confusion. Honestly, we were expecting to hear we had a little girl with Turner Syndrome. But to be told they didn’t find any problems and that it was a little boy was rather surprising. I called my sister and parents as well and told them all I knew, then I went back inside.

I couldn’t focus much after that so I did the only practical thing. I left work early to call the nurse back. When I told her we were expecting them to have found something, she looked at my file and realized why. She was kind and explained that the FISH report only looks at certain disorders – Down, the Trisomy’s, and any gender related disorder like Turner. She sympathized with me to help calm me down and let me know that yes we were still in limbo, but she’d talk to the doctors and see if they could come up with anything else. She also said that at our next appointment they’d do a follow-up ultrasound to check up on him and also they should have the full amnio report to go over with us. I hung up feeling more calm, but still frustrated.