Back to Kansas

There really aren't any new developments this week with respect to the new baby. I went in on Monday for an ultrasound, and the baby looked fine. The hygroma does not appear to have grown any, and there does not appear to be any fluid around the heart of lungs, which will continue to be a concern for as long as this pregnancy lasts. It was a little surreal looking at the ultrasound pictures. The baby has grown quite a bit since the last time I saw it on the ultrasound. The baby is moving and looks fairly normal to me other than the hygroma. It is a little hard to peek in at this baby that seems so normal and know that there is something terribly wrong despite how well the baby seems to be doing right now. As hard as it was to look at the pictures with tat in mind, I did actually gain some peace and a greater sense of calm and hope than I have experienced since we first learned about the baby's condition. A large part of this calm has come from being paired up with such a wonderful, compassionate midwife who has truly gone above and beyond to help me through this. LTC Franklin gave up her lunch break to talk to me and do this ultrasound on Monday. She and I talked for a long time. Her compassion is so genuine and her personality is so calming that it really helped me out a great deal. We have weekly ultrasounds scheduled now, but seeing her is almost likely having a weekly therapy session as well. She is a self-described "free spirit," which is probably about the right fir for me right now. My spirit is anything but free right now.
I have also spoken to several infant loss specialists this week and have an appointment scheduled for next week. Though we are not at the point of experiencing pregnancy or infant loss, we are definitely grieving the loss of a normal pregnancy. We have been blessed with so many people willing to help us get the resources we need to navigate all of the medical decisions we have coming up. I have another ultrasound scheduled for Monday and an ultrasound and amniocentesis scheduled for Friday. Though this testing comes with some risk, whatever the outcome, we will at least find peace in being able to have some more answers. One day at a time...

In other news, this has been a less-than-healthy week in the Decker household. I was feeling pretty bad on Thursday, so I was put on two days "quarters" (military sick leave). I really, really hated to leave work this week, especially after having been out so much lately, but I was feeling really bad and noticed that I was pretty crabby to be around. I assumed all of this was related to being pregnant, so I came home and slept all afternoon. When Timmy came home form daycare he was running a fever of 103 (YIKES!). I took y temperature and it was up as well, so I assume we both got the "crud." I have to stifle the panic and temptation to run straight to the ER with Timmy. We got his temp down a few degrees with a lukewarm bath, some Motrin and some iced apple juice. I kept him with me the next day and Tim took him to the doctor. It turns out that he had a pretty nasty ear infection. My fever got better with rest (imagine that...listen to doctor's orders and get better. What a concept).

As if that wasn't enough, our dog Chance got sick as well yesterday. This is sort of gross, so read on only if you dare. Chance got a hold of something that made his tummy upset. He threw up faster than we could clean it up, a total of 6-7 times in a few hours. While Tim was downstairs cleaning, I was upstairs with Chance. He started to get sick again, so I held out the closest container I could find, which turned out to be a bowl. Chance managed to arch the yack over the bowl I was holding and barf all over my legs, all the way from my waist down. That was almost the last straw with both Tim and I. We both vowed that Chance was more trouble than he was worth. However, after an uneventful night and a full recovery today, we have decided to welcome him back into our hearts. What can we say...we love the big lug.