Our Journey Begins

It took me a while to get to the point that I wanted to do a blog and I was going to start posting later, but my sister convinced me that this was a good idea. (Thanks Aga!) However I got so much support from all the heart moms and inspiration that I decided to do my own. Here it goes…

The beginning of this pregnancy was pretty uneventful. At 7 weeks we went to Maternal Fetal Medicine for an ultrasound to confirm that I was in fact pregnant and to determine the expected due date since it was not as clear as one might think with this one.  I went to all my usual doctor appointments by myself, did all the routine blood work and continued to work and function as normal. As a CPA working in public accounting and being newly promoted to manager that August, I was working crazy hours (even on my reduced work/pay schedule) and the September 15th and October 15th deadlines as well as my cute little 2 year old occupied all of my time. I even remember telling my friends at work that probably because this is my second pregnancy and busy season I have neglected to pay as much attention to the milestones and passing weeks to notice that I was already half way done by October 15th. I "celebrated" the end of busy season with my co-workers on a boat drinking cranberry juice and WATER while the rest of them were getting wasted and I had absolutely no problem with that. The next day, October 16th I was going for my 20 week ultrasound, going to find out if I was having a boy or girl and generally on cloud nine, thinking that I finally got my life back after busy season and all was to be easy from now on. I was happy to finally start preparing to bring this baby home.  

The morning of the ultrasound we got ready with Joe, got Emily ready to spend the morning with grandpa Klimek and were off to MFM for the ultrasound.  We were so excited, joking, etc. We waited a while even though we were on time. Than we got called in and the exam started as usual, we were joking around with the tech and she gave us the good news, we were going to have a little BOY she said, with utmost certainty and then went on to do the rest of the measurements. We were so happy; Joe and I were again on cloud nine.

The exam seemed to take long but we didn't care then the doctor came in to verify her findings, this is routine but then he took a much longer time than the tech and longer than I remember the doctor spending with me when I was pregnant with Emily. When he was done, he said he saw or actually DID NOT see a full image of the heart. I twisted and turned and let him do more scans but I already had tears in my eyes and knew something was wrong. He went on to say he sees a problem with the heart and wants me to see a specialist and that he will give me a referral to a pediatric cardiologist to do a fetal echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound specifically for the heart only and will be examined by someone who only specializes in the heart.  I flipped out and was crying to the point the doc had to stop talking.

I went from the happiest woman in the world to most scared, hysterical, and alone in the world.  I cried in that dark ultrasound room for what felt like eternity in pure shock until Joe calmed me down and we went to the doctor's office to get a little more information. It’s so amazing how quickly your entire world can change in a matter of minutes.

There he told us what he thought the diagnosis was, why it was important (how the "normal" heart works) and what our boy's heart is formed like. At that time I did not remember the diagnosis name or much more of what was said in that room. I just thought why ME, why MY baby, WHY WHY WHY !!!

That was Saturday, of course I try the cardiologist's office right after we leave MFM hoping we can get the echo that day, I just had to know but no such luck. I had to call the cardiologist on Monday and schedule an appointment. Dr. Cuneo only sees fetal patients on Wednesdays and at such short notice they could see me in a week and a half, the following Wednesday. I just couldn't wait, I call my OB and begged her to call the specialists office and request that I be seen that Wednesday. It worked; we had a morning appointment on Monday.