An update

More on Baby ... I went to the Alexandria Perinatal Center on Friday for the results of the bloodwork & the amnio done on Monday. Everything is coming back negative. Everything they can find that would be causing this problem is not the cause. Which is good, but also not good. What they know is that there is a problem. They have no idea what is causing it and all the major possibilities have been ruled out for now. Not anything structurally wrong that they can see, not genetic abnormality, not chromosomal, not rh disease, not severe anemia in the baby, not viral infection.

To put it simply the baby is retaining significant amounts of fluid which typically means there is a significant infection or heart failure. There is fluid around - not in - but around the lungs so much so it has collapsed one lung. Not really as bad as it sounds at this point as the lungs are still not developed, but still horrifying. Fluid is also pushing the heart over. The heart looks structurally fine as well - no obvious issues on the on the sonogram. They problem is I am 20 weeks and there is critical lung development at 22-24 weeks so they are desperately trying to relieve the problem prior to that point in the pregnancy.

So what next.

Tomorrow in the morning I will go to a pediatric cardiologist for a special fetal heart eccocardiagram to really check out the baby's heart and make sure it is ok - my godmother who worked for over 20 years as an RN in a cardiac intensive care unit says its amazing what they can look for and determine even at this stage.

Tomorrow afternoon I will go for another sonogram to track the status of the baby. Dr. Ghidini just didn't want to go over a week without checking the baby. It will either show the baby is doing the same, better or worse.

After that hubby, the girl and I are heading to the beach. We are supposed to be at the beach right now but kind of got sidetracked by all of this unexpected stuff. We need to decompress as much as possible.

On next Tuesday, October 3, barring any major changes between now and then I will go to Alexandria Hospital L&D at 10 am for a 12 noon procedure to drain the fluid around the baby's lung. They are doing this for two reasons - 1) so they can send it away for analysis looking for infection or any indication of the cause and 2) to relieve the pressure on the baby's lung. It is not without risk to me or the baby but the alternative, doing nothing is riskier. Once the fluid is drained it could never reaccumulate (this is what we hope for) or it will just reaccumulate. It is possible what caused it is not an issue anymore and it will resolve itself. It is not a strong possibility, but it is possible.

This is all quite unbelievable to me, I can't quite get my head around it though I am considerably better now than I was last week. I did spend the weekend at my mom's on the river so that helped. Right now I know that everything that should be being done is being done. All we can do is wait. They overall prospects are not good, but it is hopeful that the main causes are being ruled out.

Here is on positive story of a good outcome.