Amnio Appointment Part 1

{Missed the previous posts of our Journey to Faith story? start HERE}

~~~ Flashback Post ~~~
Amnio Appointment Part 1 (March 4, 2015)

We returned to the specialty clinic for our next appointment, four weeks after our first visit there. I wasn’t sure what to expect and if I’m completely honest, I wasn’t sure what reality I even wanted to find.

We knew what we were dealing with now. Trisomy 18. But we did not know if she was still alive. We did not know if we would be leaving in an hour after a standard appointment, or if we would be checked in and leaving after whatever would have to happen next. At sixteen weeks – I wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if she had passed away. The only thing I knew, was that I was not going to allow them to send me home like they did after my miscarriage sixteen years earlier. I had not been able to pass naturally and had hemorrhaged. The acute memory of that horrifying event left me wide awake and filled with fear each and every.

Part of me honestly wanted it to be over and done with, and part of me prayed there would still be a precious little heartbeat still pulsing on the ultrasound screen.

We were greeted with the same warmth and kindness as our first visit, with an additional level of care and gentleness, as they now knew we were on a level beyond a standard high-risk upper age pregnancy. I again had tears and overwhelmed emotion as we sat waiting for the appointment.

I carried an uncertainty and fear knowing there would be an amniocentesis procedure administered during this appointment, if she were still alive. I was all too familiar with daily shots and needles, but this was in a realm all of its own in my mind, and I was scared.

We were soon back in the same exam room as the first appointment. And soon the same the ultrasound tech entered and got me ready. The lights went dim and the tv screen on the wall lit up and nearly immediately my husband leaned forward pointing, “There she is – wow, look how big she’s gotten!”

Heartbeat. There was a heartbeat. For a split second, disappointment washed over me.  But as we watched her move and her little heart beat on the monitor before us, I couldn’t help but start to cry in awe and wonderment at this precious little life who was continuing to defy all odds by her simple existence.

For a little longer, the journey would continue.

The doctor came in and looked the information over. The fluid around her head had again grown, over doubling in size, and this time she was showing initial signs of a heart defect. She was measuring small for what she should have been at, and yet he was quite surprised by her growth and how strong she seemed to be.

Again it was a crazy mix of extreme emotions for me, and a small little voice questioned if perhaps… just perhaps… the blood work results could have been wrong. Maybe she just had a heart defect causing the fluid. Maybe they could perform heart surgery after she was born and save her… Maybe she really had Turner Syndrome and not Trisomy 18, and if we could get her to term and through birth, she would have a chance to live. Of course medical results don’t lie… but I just couldn’t help but wonder…

The doctor left the exam room again so they could get everything ready for the procedure. Nurses were in and out with trays full of medical supplies and it was soon spread out over the counter along the wall. At one point, my husband and I were alone in the quiet room and I looked over at the cluttered counter of sterile supplies and I was filled with an intense anger and awareness. This baby had not even been born yet, was not even outside the womb, nowhere close to being able to make her own conscious choice to willfully sin or not sin… and yet she had already been greeted by its ugliness. The only reason she was the way she was – was because she was created within a fallen, sinful world.

I pictured Eve handing Adam the ripe, red apple from the tree of good and evil in the garden, the sun shining warm upon them as they chose to take and bite... to eat. At that moment I cursed Eve for eating that damn apple. That very act all these years later was a direct cause for this innocent, not even fully formed baby’s early demise.

A death sentence signed already at chromosome split number eighteen. Damn Eve. Damn that serpent and his evil wiles.

I laid there gripping my husband’s hand with my eyes shut, tears quietly dripping into my ears, as the multi-person team of nurses and doctors carefully plunged the largest needle I had ever seen to gather the required fluids to perform one more set of tests to confirm our initial blood work test results. There was physical pain mixed with deep emotional and spiritual pain, something I was becoming far to accustomed to over the last month.

I breathed in deeply somehow willing myself to remain calm and strong...

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