Baby number 3?! It is
finally becoming less of a dream and more of a reality. My belly is growing by the day and it has
been fun feeling baby flutters, kicks and movements all around. Leading up to our 20 week ultrasound has been
quite similar as to my first two pregnancies.
I’m one on the lucky few that everyone hates but doesn’t seem to get
sick. I had a good few weeks of waking
up not feeling great, but just needing to keep food on my stomach
consistently. It’s gotten slightly worse
with each pregnancy but I have never thrown up once, because of being
pregnant. *I know, I need to have nine
children because of that :)
From day one of telling William that there was a baby
growing inside of me he said it was a girl.
Never once did he ever wish for a brother, think it was a boy, or call
it a “him”. Because of this my mind
usually had “girl” on it because of his inclination.
The night before our appointment I talked to Ben, briefly,
about the next day. I mentioned that
anything could be wrong, and he said “Nah, it’s so unlikely.” One of my friends recently told me she hit
the “back luck jackpot twice” after she had two babies with complications
before/after birth. I told this line to
Ben and he just laughed, yet in the back of my mind I was always thinking about
it and Lucy’s diagnosis.
The morning of the ultrasound was not what I had
pictured. I was hoping to get a few
pictures of the kids with the gender reveal pumpkins before the appointment
since we had until 9 a.m. Before I knew
it, it was 8:40 and neither Ben nor I was dressed and the kids hadn’t taken
their photo. I hurried and snapped a
girl version of the baby announcement and hurried the kids out the door to the
neighbor’s. We finally both made it to
the appointment and eventually got called back as the first appointment of the
day. I mentioned a few things about Lucy
and how her disorder isn’t supposed to be genetic and we moved on with the
ultrasound. The baby was REALLY low,
right by my cervix and facing up toward us.
The tech got a few different views and measurements early on and about
5-10 minutes in came to the groin area and I noticed there wasn’t really
anything there. Sure enough, she
confirmed to us that she was a girl as we got a really good shot of her legs
wide open. I was thrilled and William
was indeed right! I had secretly thought that it would be SO fun for Lucy to
have a sister so close in age, only 25 months apart. The tech continued to look at all her
features and said everything was looking good. She kept coming back to her
heart a few times, but mentioned that all four ventricles were there and the
heart seemed to be flowing correctly with a good heartbeat. At the end of the ultrasound she turned on
the lights and said “Everything looks good with your baby BUT I did see there
is some fluid around her heart. I’m
going to get the doctor to take a look at it and will be right back.” Tears start welling up in my eyes as that is
the last thing I expected at the end of a seemingly successful ultrasound. Ben told me to not worry and wait for the
doctor to explain. The doctor came in
and asked about Lucy and then mentioned that was a lot of fluid around the
heart that isn’t supposed to be there. I
try to stay calm and brave but by the end of her explanation I was crying and
trying not to sob out loud. They
mentioned that they don’t see it a lot, maybe once a month, and that I need to
go to the Maternal Fetal Medicine for a more detailed ultrasound and look at
the fluid. We set up an appointment and
left with the term “pericardial effusion” aka fluid around the heart.
We called and told my mom the news. The fact that we’re having a girl was very
overshadowed by the glooming news of needing another ultrasound and to be
monitored closely. Ben almost forgot to tell
her about the “it’s a girl” news! I tried keeping it together all morning and
stopped crying about it intermittently around noon. The afternoon was busy and my sweet neighbor
dropped off flowers and chocolates. That
was just so thoughtful and made things a little bit better.
On Friday we had an appointment at the hospital to look at
baby girl’s fluid. After waiting around
for a half hour we finally had our ultrasound performed by the tech. She didn’t say much and then finally the
doctor, Helen Feltavich, came in. She is
friends with my close neighbor, Heather, who is also an OBGYN. Helen was very personal and said there seemed
to be more than just the heart fluid that was wrong with the baby. She went on to do her own ultrasound scan for
a half hour as she discussed potential problems she saw with her heart. Not only was there fluid around baby’s heart,
but also around her stomach. She thought
there might be a hole between chambers, that the blood vessels might be
inverted and that the heart was bigger than it should be. I began to get teary eyed and worried about
our baby and was originally hoping for just a diagnosis of fluid alone. Helen said that the fluid could be cause by a
few viruses, so she wanted me to get tested for those (one of them being
parvovirus b19). She also mentioned that
these problems could be from chromosomal problems, so she recommended me doing
the cell free DNA genetic testing done as well. Helen referred us to a
pediatric heart doctor, Dr. Jason Su, from the University of Utah with an
appointment on Wednesday. We left
feeling nervous and unsure about the future of baby girl.
On Saturday I had my blood drawn to test for the two viruses
potentially harming the baby. Then on
Tuesday our insurance agreed to cover the genetic testing, so I had that done
as well. Wednesday finally came and we
saw Dr. Su in Provo at the hospital. He
and his tech did a scan on baby girl only to find that he didn’t really see any
major anatomy problems with the heart.
This was sweet music to our ears and we were so surprised. He told us he was concerned primarily with
the fluid around baby’s heart and stomach and that there was one secondary,
minor problem going on with the heart.
There was just some blood going back from the left ventricle to the left
atrium (backwards) but he said this could be caused by a few different things,
one of those being the parvovirus b19.
One of the viruses came back negative, but the parvovirus was still
pending. The doctor actually found out
that the parvovirus test never went through so I had to go back Wednesday night
to take my blood sample one more time.
I was hoping for results Thursday, Friday and Saturday with
no luck. Finally Sunday morning Heather,
my OBGYN neighbor, called me with wonderful news. She told me I tested positive for the
parvovirus b19 AKA fifth disease. This
was the best case scenario considering the baby’s fluid around the heart and
stomach, also called hydrops. Heather
said this greatly decreased the chances of baby’s problems being genetically caused
and said that there are ways to help fight the virus for the baby. She mentioned, and we had read that parvovirus
can cause the baby to also be anemic.
The virus attacks the red blood cells, and that can cause the fluid and
increased heart size. She said that if
the baby is really anemic she would need a fetal blood transfusion. This would mean they would put a needle into
my stomach, into the amniotic fluid and then into the baby’s umbilical
cord. This is how they would give the
baby blood if it got that bad. Heather wanted me to go in for another
appointment the next morning, Monday, and see how everything looked.
The next morning I got a call from Maternal Fetal Medicine
at 8:30 and they wanted me to come in first thing that morning. I dropped the kids off at a neighbor’s and
Ben and I headed in to the hospital again.
The tech, Kari, did the initial scan and then a doctor we hadn’t seen
before came to do her own ultrasound, Dr. Donna Dizon-Townson. Donna looked at the middle cerebral artery
(MCA) to get a look at how anemic baby girl was. Apparently it is the best way to tell if the
baby is anemic without going into the baby’s cord itself. Normal levels are around 30-35 and our baby
girls were at 50-60. This was very
concerning to Donna as well as the fluid around the heart and stomach looked
like it had gotten worse. I had no idea
it was this bad, as the virus doesn’t affect adults, just the baby inside.
Dr. Donna was very serious and said that the baby looked very
sick and that she thought we would need to go ahead with the fetal blood
transfusion. I let her know I was going
out of town on Thursday and wondered if we would do it after I got back. She said, “Oh no, we need to do this today,
as soon as possible.” I again got teary
eyed and became panicked that this was all happening too fast and too
soon. Donna said I needed to do another
blood sample to find a perfect match for the baby and that it might be
difficult to find blood for baby girl that could be purified that quickly. She mentioned that it was a little risky to
do the procedure, especially with how young baby girl was (21 weeks 5
days). Donna said that there was a 1-2% chance
of the baby dying and that we wouldn’t do an emergency C-section because she
wouldn’t even be viable this young. Of
course I lost it as she was explaining that if we didn’t do the procedure that
we didn’t know if baby girl would get better on her own and that could risk her
dying of anemia and hydrops as well. We
decided to move forward with the blood transfusion, it was 11:00 by this time,
and she told us to be back at the hospital between 2-3 p.m. to get ready for
the operation.
I picked up the kids, we had a quick lunch and cleaned up
the house. Ben’s sister Diana came over
(we are so lucky to have family close) and watched the kids once we left around
2:30. I went upstairs to labor and
delivery and checked in at the front desk.
I never pictured coming to the hospital in this state, at 21 weeks, but
it sure felt weird and horrible. I
couldn’t help but think of all the women who have had to delivery stillborn
babies or have other complications so early on during pregnancy. Then I started feeling lucky I was coming to
help save my baby and not to deliver her too early. I got settled in room 15 and was lucky enough
to wear the typical hospital gown and everything. They asked a million questions and did a few
checks before attempting to give me an IV four different times. That was one of the worst parts of the whole
thing, and they eventually had the anesthesiologist numb the area and put it
in. Around 4:15 Dr. Donna came in and
went through what would happen in the procedure and mentioned all risks. At 4:30, Ben and I walked into a C-Section
room with ten other doctors and nurses.
The room was freezing and they had me lay on the operation table. They prepped me with different gadgets and
things and eventually started looking where baby girl was on the regular
ultrasound. I don’t remember how the
hour went by, but I remember a few things and asking the nurses and Ben
questions. Before I knew it everything
was done and Dr. Donna said that things went really well and they were happy
with how the procedure went. The baby’s hematocrit level was at 11% and normal
for her should be around 40%. After the
blood transfusion they said her hematocrit level was up to 38% and she was
responding well to the new blood. The
wheeled me back to room 15 and continued to check baby and myself for another
hour. Around 7:00 they let us leave and
brought me in a wheelchair down to the loading zone. We even made it home in time to put the kids
to sleep.
Long story short, this whole scenario has been pretty
crazy. From October 12th, I
had a routine 20 week ultrasound that then showed I had fluid around baby
girl’s heart. Ten days later baby girl got
a fetal blood transfusion. I’ve been
doing a lot of reading on parvovirus AKA fifth disease. The research says that IF a woman is infected
with parvovirus during pregnancy (which I officially was) there is a 33% chance
of passing it to the baby. As of today,
October 26th, our baby girl officially did get parvovirus passed to
her as results from her amniotic fluid came back positive for parvovirus as
well. Of the 33% chance of being passed
on only 10% of infected babies will have complications (which we did have
complications). Fetal infection with
fifth disease can lead to inflammation of the heart (all three doctors said her
heart looked bigger than it should be), and damaging the building of red blood
cells leading to anemia (which she definitely had). The research also said if anemia gets severe,
hydrops (fluid around 2 places in the baby’s body) can happen and may lead to
fetal death. The doctors have already
seen a stillborn death related to parvovirus this year. We have been really blessed overall with all
that has been happening. Dr. Donna said
that baby girl is a real fighter and that I must have good genes that produce
strong girls. Looking back I feel like
we could have already lost baby girl. As
I read how serious hydrops is and with how low our baby girl’s hematocrit and
how severely anemic she had become in one week, we have been extremely blessed
and watched over. Everything is not
perfect yet, but the fact that we caught the hydrops somewhat early on and have
done a procedure to try and fix it we are feeling hopeful and positive. In fact, our baby girl might even need
another fetal blood transfusion sometime soon (bring on the hospital
bills). I can’t complain that my
hospital appointments are four minutes away and I have so many friends and
family willing to help with William and Lucy.
We will keep on fighting with baby girl until March 1st if we
can!
Since the surgery/procedure I’ve had three more checkup
ultrasounds and the fluid around baby’s stomach is basically gone. There is still fluid around the heart as of
Halloween but Dr. Donna said it even looks better than before. Baby girl’s MCA levels are back down to
regular, 30-35, and the Dr. said it all greatly decreases my chances of needing
another blood transfusion at this point.
We are beyond excited for no more hydrops and our baby girl (seeming to be) healing
herself now! We are very grateful for
blessings and answered prayers.
