Updates!

I'm back with a few more updates. Please excuse me, this post could end up being all over the place. First things first, we had another ultrasound done on Monday (March 21st). Early mornings, boy do I hate those LOL. But it was worth it. Our scan was rather short. But atleast we got to see Sophia again. She was pretty still, which worried me. She's never that still during an ultrasound. She's usually all over the place. But then again, it was pretty early in the morning, so maybe she was resting. We were able to get a few more pictures of her. You can see just how much she has grown over the last 4 weeks. Sophia just amazes me! After the scan was complete, we met with the head doctor of high risk pregnancy. Turns out that the doctors thought she may have a problem with her stomach.This worried me a bit. I remember thinking, "Isn't her anencephaly enough for her to deal with?" Not to mention her heart defect and possibility of iniencephaly. So I spoke with the Genetic Counselor today and she said from what she hears, Sophia does have a stomach, just no fluids in there to detect it through ultrasound. Which means that Sophia is having difficulties swallowing the amniotic fluid. And there's the reason why my amniotic fluid levels are slightly high. The doc says it's nothing to worry about right now. But that it could become an issue as the pregnancy progresses.

As for Sophia's heart defect, I'm not exactly sure what we're dealing with there but on April 6th we'll be having a prenatal echo done. Hopefully that will give us a few more answers. I'd like to be educated as much as possible and kept up to date with all of Sophia's medical problems. After meeting with the doctor, we met with the social worker again. She has been so helpful! She's trying to set up a pregnancy portrait session. Hopefully everything will work out. I want to keep as many memories of Sophia as I can.

I'm still finding it very hard to cope with the situation. I don't think I'm ready to begin. It just seems so wrong. We know what the outcome will be with Sophia, but I still don't want to accept that fact. I don't want to let her go that easily. Speaking of which, we received the birthing plan through the mail today. Or should I say it's a sample birthing plan. I can tell this is going to be very difficult. I'm not looking forward to doing this. It all just seems so unfair. I guess I just have this thought in the back of my head that keeps yelling out at me saying, "The doctors are wrong! Don't fill out a birthing plan. Sophia will be just fine." I'm sure every mother who has ever been faced with a fatal prenatal diagnosis has had these same thoughts. I find myself staying home alot and away from the public eye. While at my appointment on Monday, I saw 2 couples walking into the hospital with newborn baby girls. I'm not sure if I wanted to scream, cry, run for the hills, or flip out on whoever would listen. I'm told these are all normal feelings. It's just so hard to see that knowing we'll have to let our precious Sophia go and that chances are, we won't even have a chance to bring Sophia home. It hurts so much just picturing myself walking back into my house with empty arms. How does one cope with that?

I think that's it for the updates for now. Thanks for checking back!