Nelson Baby Girl Update

I knew the moment the technician put the ultrasound tool on my belly over the placenta, this doctors appointment was not going to be as positive as before. I remember covering my eyes and throwing my head back before one word had been spoken. My untrained eye could see the tumor and knew it had grown. Of course the technician did not say anything and ran her tests as normal, but I turned to my dad and let him know that to me it looked to have doubled in size. That was yesterday.

When the specialist/medical director came in to discuss the results, he had said in the last month it had not doubled but quadrupled. The baby however, seems to still be doing fine. She is beautiful, as you can see from the pictures, and healthy, as far as they can tell. He did find one slight issue. They can see that she has a symptom called "bright bowel" in the ultrasound. It is when a baby's bowel shows abnormally bright, which could be associated with a genetic disorder like downs or CF, a fetal infection, intra-uterine bleeding, or a placental deficiency. Obviously, considering my tumor (officially diagnosed as one now) is on the placenta, a deficiency there would be the most likely cause. To rule out the possibility of a genetic disorder I will be meeting with a geneticist and the medical director of the facility for another ultrasound on Tuesday, May 12th.

So where does this leave us? Well, I have definitely been bumped up on the scale of high risk pregnancies, and the specialist pretty much prepared me to have a premature baby. At the current rate of tumor growth, he expects that the baby will need to be taken before my due date. We have set up a series of "goals" that we want to make. The first is to try and hold out until the 30 week mark. ( He also believes my due date to now be in August, putting me at 25-26 weeks.) If we can make it until then, the baby has a much higher chance of survival. Our second marker or goal is 32 weeks, and our third and final goal is to make it to 35 weeks. If I can make it until then without significant stress on the baby he might let me be induced and have it naturally as planned.

Amazingly, I still feel that everything will be okay. I am so blessed to be going to the best doctors around, and to have today's technology on my side. 50 years ago, this baby would have no chance. Today, she will most likely be perfectly fine. I rarely write on spiritual matters, but honestly I just know in my heart that everything will work out. I feel it. No matter what happens, god always provides a silver lining...even if it takes years to figure out what it was.