Monday, January 11, 2016

Deflated

On September 15th, I had a growth ultrasound to check on Will due to the high possibility he had down syndrome. He looked good on the screen as I got what turned out to be the last look at him before his birth less than a month later. That made a whopping 16 ultrasounds in a 36 week pregnancy!

Later that week I saw Dr. L.
     "I know you don't want me to say it, but I just don't think the baby has down syndrome," she said, walking into the room. She was right, I didn't want her to say that. I had told her two months earlier, the last time she's suggested this, that we had already accepted the diagnosis and it would be best if I just continued the pregnancy expecting Will to have Down syndrome. She based her suspicion on the fact that nothing abnormal was found on the echocardiogram and that the only soft marker, an echogenic focus on Will's heart, had already resolved.

With her renewed suspicion, I asked about the measurements of Will's femur and humorous bones. I knew from reading that these long bones are often shorter when a person has Ds. Dr. L admitted that was a good question and looked it up.

"Oh. I guess I change my mind," she stated as she realized Will's femur measured in the second percentile. And just like that, the hope that I hadn't known I had let in for those few minutes was gone. My balloon deflated.

My mom thinks it was completely irresponsible of Dr. L to share this opinion. If I had not been so accepting that Will had Down syndrome, I might have latched onto my doctor's doubt and not let go. I, however, think Dr. L just wanted so badly for the test to be wrong. I believe she hoped that after all we'd been through, this was just a false alarm.

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