A Small Scare and Sigh of Relief

Nelson Baby Girl: Taken Mid-Yawn

Usually with blogs you write about the really happy moments that are happening in your life, and thus I have hesitated writing about this, especially when it concerns my soon-to-be-daughter. However, at the risk of sharing too much information, I have decided to write about this experience since most of my readers are family or friends who I would tell anyway, and because I use my blog for documentation purposes.

As you can see, I didn't write much about my ultrasound yesterday, because I felt like before I wrote something I needed to know what was going on. Yesterday, Taylor, the kids and I enjoyed having an ultrasound at my Ob's office in Prescott. Everything seemed to be fine, so after the technician finished I sent Taylor back to work figuring there was no need in him sticking around for them to weigh me, take my blood pressure, and tell me I am fine like usual. And so, the kids and I stayed to finish the rest of my routine tasks, etc. However, after everything was said and done I was told the doctor needed to speak with me and they took me to a room. The kids were great while we waited, and I still had no idea anything was wrong.

When the doctor came in, she very nicely explained to me that in my ultrasound they had found some sort of abnormality in my placenta. She said it looked like some sort of hematoma, but there was blood that ran through it. In her years of practice she had never seen anything like it. She felt that it was necessary for me to be sent down to Phoenix for an emergency appointment tomorrow with a specialist that handles high-risk pregnancies. She assured me that the doctor was one of the best in Arizona and that if anyone could diagnose this, he could. She told me not to worry yet, because in all honesty this may not affect the baby at all. Her measurements and observations the baby seemed completely normal and healthy.

A little in shock, I drove from the doctors to Taylor's office to tell him the news. As I began telling him, I started crying in front of everyone. Luckily, the office staff is completely wonderful and handed me tissues while Taylor comforted me. After about 3 or 4 minutes of a small breakdown I realized how silly it is to get worked up about this. There was really no point in worrying until we find out what is happening. From that point on I was fine. I drove down to Phoenix an hour later that to stay with my parents.

This morning I had my appointment with the specialist in Scottsdale. The facility was elaborately and expensively decorated (we are talking...art, sculptures, brand new computers, etc) which made me know this meant business. I signed some document saying that any pertinent information from my case could be used to help the doctor with his on-going fetal research.

They took me in at about 9:30am to an ultrasound room specifically built for ultrasounds. There was a big TV on the wall where I could watch them do my 2D and 3D ultrasounds, which was obviously new and very high tech. The technician proceeded to do the ultrasound, first looking at my abnormality (the first 1/2 hour) and then the baby (45 minutes). I think she measured every body part that poor little thing has. The baby was confirmed again to be a girl.

After the technician finished, the doctor came in to look at me via the ultrasound for another half an hour. This is what he told me....

The baby looks healthy, and strong. As far as he can tell she is a 100% normal growing baby. Unfortunately, they are unsure as to exactly what is growing on my placenta. It is not a hematoma due to the blood flow going in and out of it, but is most likely a chorioangioma, or a "tumor" growing on my placenta. However, it is not like most placenta tumors because these types of tumors grow only where the cord meets the placenta. Mine is far away from this area. If it is one of these tumors, they happen in about 1 to 30,000-50,000 pregnancies, but mine would be even more rare since it does not lie in the proper location. So pretty much he was even baffled.

The doctor (who I later found out was the director of the entire facility) then proceeded to pull out a textbook on fetal abnormalities that can be found in ultrasound. Yes, he wrote it and it was about 1000 or more pages long. (I told you he was good.) Anyway, he told me that since the baby seems fine, he thinks everything will continue that way. They need to monitor me with ultrasounds every so often to make sure the "tumor" doesn't grow to a size where it starts stealing blood from the baby and taking over. In that case, which is the worst case scenario, they would probably just take the baby early and she would live a normal life afterward. Best case scenario is that my pregnancy proceeds normally, the baby is unaffected, and the tumor will come out with the placenta after the birth leaving everyone tumor free. Everything will be fine either way. That was great news.

So after all this, I am left 237 ultrasound photos and a 2 hour video detailing every part of my baby (and the tumor.) And if that is not enough, I have a promise that I will get a lot more photos in the months to come. That beats my one or two pics I had with Abby and Parker.

Its also pretty obvious that the doctor will want my freak-of- nature placenta when I give birth. Taylor thinks we should get the rights to our special placenta so he has to pay us for it. :)

After the ultrasound I decided that I was going to pig out and eat a huge lunch in celebration of the good news. I decided I could justify this by the fact I am now feeding 3, not just 2. Ha!

Here are just a few of my 237 images of our perfectly healthy little baby girl. (I thought I would spare you the tumor shots.) Enjoy!

Baby with Arm across her face

She was really tired from all the testing: Another yawn.