Day 2

I hope no one is offended if I haven’t gotten in touch directly with an update. Writing is a lot easier for me, and a blog post is a lot faster than many phone calls and texts.

Jarom had meetings this morning, so I went to see the perinatologist alone. The sonographer was really nice and tried to ease my worries when I first went in. She said there’s no specific fluid level they need at this point and a “low fluid level” diagnosis is fairly subjective. I appreciated that she explained everything she was looking at and made it easy for me to see what she was doing. As time went on, though, she said less and less. Eventually she said she wanted the specialist to come in and take a look because she had some concerns.

The specialist introduced himself and then was silent for the next 15 minutes as he looked very, very hard for any indication that the baby’s kidneys were working. After that long, though, I was pretty sure that no good news was coming. I lost it when he told me that the baby’s kidneys hadn’t developed, and that as a result, several problems ensued, primarily the lungs failing to develop.

There is nothing that we can do. Without functioning kidneys and lungs, the baby won’t survive.

As you can imagine, it’s heartbreaking news to hear. We’ve been given several options but aren’t sure yet what we want to do next. Right now, we’re trying to love our family more and more.

Please ask any questions you have. Writing and talking about this is really helpful for me, so don’t feel like you need to avoid the topic.

I can safely say, thus far in my life, this is the worst day I’ve ever had. What’s especially awful is knowing that a worse day will come soon.

:(