Heading Home Again

I’m typing in the car as Jason and I head back on 64W towards Harrisonburg. Yes, we are on our way home to pick up Kali and to sleep in our own beds. That was definitely one of my wishes for today and for that I am grateful. After about 4 ½ hours of appointments at UVA, both Jason and I are feeling a bit glazed over – feeling full of information, full of emotions, and continued uncertainty. For those reasons and others, this will be a short update. We are grateful to many of you for your thoughts and prayers today as we anticipated this appointment and we’ll continue to be upheld by them in the coming weeks which will no doubt hold lots more waiting, wondering, hoping, fearing, etc…

The quick rundown on today’s appointment:

We had an ultrasound in which the baby received an 8/8 on her biophysical profile in short order. The Doppler flow studies also looked fine. It was the growth measurements that had me most concerned and it was easy to see quickly that she had not grown by leaps and bounds at all. Once again her head was much closer to “normal” size but her mid-section and bones were all measuring weeks behind. I was not anticipating “good” news at all when Dr. Chisholm arrived.

He was not able to be clear about a diagnosis either but seems to be most suspicious of some type of skeletal dysplasia. He did point out a lot of things on her that he thought were good signs: no fractures in bones, good mineralization, normal shape, good chest shape, good ratio of lungs to heart in chest cavity, good rib shape, etc… (these things most likely ruling out more serious life-threatening forms of skeletal dysplasia). He didn’t see any reason, and actually felt there were a lot of reasons not to, induce labor at this point. As long as the Doppler flow and the biophysicals continue to check out okay, he recommended that we plan on an induction at UVA closer to 37 weeks.

We then met with a neonatologist and got a brief tour of the NICU. The neonatologist was equally gracious with our questions (we had many) and also was clear that many things will remain unanswerable until this baby is born and we understand more of what her particular challenges may or may not be. He did feel that the longer she can stay developing in utero, the less likely there will be a need for an extended stay in the NICU.

We were so grateful to have our good friend (and soon to be midwife at Shenandoah Women’s Healthcare), Melody, with us for the appointment today. We were glad that she didn’t need her “labor shoes” that she had worn just in case, but her physical presence and support meant a lot to us.

Melody was also with us at Kali’s birth and it was hard today as we met with various people to think about how drastically different this whole experience has been from my pregnancy and preparation for Kali’s birth. I feel like my “ideals” for childbirth and for postpartum care of a newborn are having to be thrown out the window and with that many of my hopes and dreams for what that initial time of bonding and connecting with this little person could be like. As so much of this pregnancy journey has become medicalized and monitored heavily, it has been hard to avoid feeling an increase in feelings of disconnectedness with this little person growing inside of me rather than an increase in feeling connected. It adds to my anxiety around childbirth and my ability to handle the many unknowns ahead of us.

Well, we are nearing home and I promised this would be short (I’m not sure if either Jason or I are very capable of being succinct about much of anything these days with our swirling thoughts and emotions). But home we go to continue as we have been – one day at a time, one hour at a time, one appointment at a time…

Thanks again for journeying with us, Janelle