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Monday, February 13, 2006

Fetal echo looks good

The belly was examined Friday and the baby's heart was checked out -- every chamber, every valve, every artery, and vein that could be identified was examined and looks good.

Don't know why I'm not comforted by this information.

The first time around, I was convinced that everything was fine. I was so laid back and had a blissfully ignorant pregancy. Now this time around, I'm convinced that everything is wrong. Okay, so the pediatric cardiologist says the heart checks out, but then it will definitely be something else. So the genetic counselor says my expanded AFP looks good and there are likely no chromosomal defects, but it still could happen. I guess I'm just not that comforted by statistics. Sure my chances for Downs are 1 in 3,900, but that's nothing to me. Toddler in Chief's chance of ending up with his smorgasbord of defects was around 1 in 100,000, so 1 in 3,900 sounds like a pretty significant chance.

Even if Baby is handed to me and the docs say everything looks great--a perfect baby--I doubt I will ever feel that he is really okay, that I can finally stop worrying. I'm sure he'll be blind or deaf or in a couple of years, we'll find out that he has a mental disability or autism or a life-threatening peanut allergy. It just seems so unlikely that I could possibly grow a healthy baby. I've never done that before.

3 comments:

  1. yeah, what she said!!! (bethany)

    And, anyway, i know you can take whatever comes your way no matter what shape or form it comes in.

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  2. Congrats on a good fetal echo. I understand how hard it is for you to relax, given all that you've been through with TIC. Maybe allowing yourself time to worry is a good thing. Writing about your fears is definitely a good thing. I think it would be weird if you didn't have those fears.

    At least you can know that you're doing all of the right things and that nature is the factor that's unpredictable as well as uncontrollable.

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  3. I can understand how you feel. My sister was born with a physical disability and my mom had similar concerns when my brother was born. And of course, even with my own children there is that concern in the back of my mind because we were unaware of my sister's condition until she was a toddler. The good fetal echo is great news though. And you'll be in my thoughts in the coming weeks as TIC's next surgery approaches.

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