Deep Thoughts

Mine was fine. It was great. How great was it? Well, it wasn’t so much great as it was hard. How hard? Oh, really hard. One of the hardest times of my life. But also really great. It was stressful too. But also joyful. It was emotionally and psychologically exhausting but mostly in good ways. Is that an oxymoron? Am I an oxymoron? Do you like the word oxymoron?

You see, I had a baby. And before I had a baby, I moved. I moved nine days before I had my baby. And before I moved and had a baby, I had a high risk pregnancy. Well, it wasn’t actually high risk but everyone said that it was high risk so I guess that makes it high risk. It was high risk in the sense that I was told that there could be something significantly wrong with my baby. But that was for no one to know, and for me to find out.

At twelve weeks, the doctor gave me a high five and told me I had an A+ baby. At twenty weeks, the doctor cautioned me that my baby’s size was small–too small–the 14th percentile in fact. And so I would need to come back at twenty-four weeks for another scan. When I went back at twenty-four weeks, I was expecting everything to be back to normal. Didn’t I have an A+ baby? It wasn’t normal. The baby’s growth had dropped to the 6th percentile. She was diagnosed with fetal growth restriction. We were diagnosed with fetal growth restriction. I learned that the baby was growing too small for her gestational age. It was either chromosomal or placental. Only an amniocentesis could rule out chromosomal abnormalities. My heart sank to the depths of my being. My mind turned upside-down. My face crumpled with dread and sorrow. And from there, everything changed.

No longer did I have a normal pregnancy. I had a scary, confusing, mystifying, abnormal pregnancy. Why was my baby so small? Was it chromosomal? Was it placental? How could it be chromosomal? This was an IVF pregnancy with a genetically tested embryo. I was given all the green lights, the bells and whistles, the laser acupuncture before and after the transfer, the smiles and nods of success after seeing the yolk sac, and then the reassurance of the heartbeat. That beautiful, melodious heartbeat. My older daughter, my beloved two year old darling sweetheart, was going to be a big sister. It was a miracle! So what happened? How could this be? What was happening? Was my baby ok? I wasn’t ok. No one was ok.

I began seeing a maternal fetal medicine doctor. The best of the best. Did we want to be part of a novel genome research study? Did we want to test for hundreds of rare genetic syndromes that didn’t even have names or that hadn’t even been discovered yet? What if we found out the absolute worst? Would that change anything? What would we do?

The doctor couldn’t reassure me that the baby would be ok. How could she? I was going crazy inside. I needed and wanted this pregnancy but I did not know how to cope with the possibility that the baby could have something deeply, drastically, debilitatingly wrong with her. Something so wrong with her that it could cause her to live a life more challenging than I knew was possible. What would I do if she were born with something truly horrific? What would we do? How could we go through with it? What were our options? It was already week 28, week 30, week 32…Where does one go for a late term abortion? What kind of monster would think that way? How could we be thinking that way?

We didn’t do the study. And we continued with the pregnancy. I went for twice weekly ultrasounds and doppler studies. The baby’s heart rate was always perfect and everything else continued to check out normally–except for her small size.

My baby is now seven months old and thriving. She’s wonderful and amazing. She’s sweet and silly and smiley. She adores her older sister and watches her every move. She is recently sleep trained (!!). She started solids and is loving it. She sucks on her middle and ring fingers which makes her look like she’s giving the sign for “rock on with your bad self” when she self-soothes. She is still teeny tiny. But she’s growing steadily and following her own curve. Thank goodness. She is perfect. She is fine. And she is mine.