Have you seen those VW television commercials where two people are driving along, having a normal conversation, and you think the commercial is going to be about something in the conversation? Then WHAM! Another car slams into the VW. It's a moment, an instant, where the world changes dramatically. Chests slam against seat-belts. Airbags deploy. Everything stops. The old conversation is completely forgotten.
At 12 weeks pregnant they tell you your risk of pregnancy loss is very very low. The first trimester is over, and all those very important physical systems have formed in the fetus. I was paranoid about this, because I had had a miscarriage before. (We were lucky enough, once, to get pregnant naturally, and found out on our wedding anniversary. But the beta levels were low -- 14 at 16DPO (days past ovulation) and 29 at 18 DPO. The nurse said to be cautiously optimistic. I only heard the word optimistic and was devastated when we miscarried at six weeks pregnant.)
So at 12 weeks pregnant, when the risk of miscarriage falls to something like 2 percent, I was elated. After such a long wait on what seemed like an endless roller coaster of emotional lows and highs, our prayers were finally about to be answered.
For David's 40th birthday I wanted to give him something different, so I planned a trip to San Deigo for the weekend for the two of us towards the end of June. It was a wonderful trip. I booked us a room at the Marriott on a high floor so we had views of downtown from our balcony. We had dinners at sidewalk cafes. We went to the Air museum (aircraft) and the zoo. I was almost 18 weeks pregnant.
We made the long drive back home on Monday, and within an hour of getting home we got the call at around 7 pm. It was the results of the amniocentesis. It occurred to me as David handed me the phone that the genetic counselor had said that if the results were bad, they would call in the evening.
It was the genetic counselor calling that evening. She said she was sorry. She was surprised by the results. I suppose that's because she's used to telling people that their babies have Down Syndrome or Trisomy 21. She told us that our baby had Trisomy 18. I did not know what that meant, but it didn't sound good. I asked if it was a boy or girl and she asked me if I really wanted to know. I told her I did and she told me it was a boy. It is hard to remember what happened next. I think I hung up so I could look up more information on the Internet.
In all the information available on the Internet you'd think you could find something slightly positive about everything. But not about this. It is fatal. Of babies who are born, 50 percent die in the first week. 90 percent die in the first year. I think I found a place that said there are 20 teenagers alive in the world today who have this condition.
The perinatalogist's office that performed the amniocentesis and Level II ultrasound (the level II showed no problems at all, by the way), offered us the option of trying to take the baby to term or of terminating the pregnancy.
I don't know if I can express the emotions. We wanted a baby so badly. We waited for years, and did the most advanced medical procedure available just to get pregnant. And now we were presented with this choice. I knew that God hated me.
We decided that for William's sake -- that was the name we had chosen years ago for our boy -- we would disconnect the life support. We scheduled a D&E for that Friday. I cannot write anymore about it right now. It profoundly breaks my heart to this day. I miss my baby. And not only did I lose my baby that day. I lost my hope.
