Half-full and hopeful: How a doctors news about our baby is changing my life for the better

What would you do if your doctor sat you down and told you that your baby may have Down Syndrome?

I’ve not known exactly how to share this publicly for fear of sounding too dramatic or, at the other extreme, too flippant. But now that my emotions have had two weeks to level out a little, I feel ready. After all, so many of you have become genuine friends… and I want you to know about this season I’ve landed in.

{Two weeks ago.}

Sitting in the waiting room at my doctor’s office I sat nervously while trying to keep Levi entertained and semi-quiet. I’d had an uneasy feeling about my pregnancy for some time – like something was not quite right – but I continued to push those “negative” thoughts out of my mind and dismiss them as nothing. But that morning as I was preparing to leave the house I told Ryan that I wished he didn’t have important work commitments that day so that he could come along. I just had a feeling…

But no, surely it was nothing.

Dr. Kerry called me in and asked how I was doing. “I just want to hear the baby’s heartbeat and hear you tell me that everything is okay,” I immediately replied. “I’ve felt really different with this pregnancy…” my voice trailed off.

She looked at me with her head cocked to the side and smiled warmly.

I was a little embarrassed, not wanting her to think I’m one of “those” moms who worries and obsesses over everything. Because generally, I’m not. Naturally my outlook on things like this is a postive, optomistic one.

It’s just that this time had felt different in a way that I couldn’t even quite pinpoint, much less put into words.

After listening to the baby’s heartbeat (which thankfully was normal) we sat back down near her desk and she gently pushed a piece of paper in front of me. It took me a few moments to realize that she wanted me to read it myself. I quickly skimmed through it, head swimming in medical terminology that meant nothing to me, and then I read it… chromosomal anomaly.

I knew what that meant and for a moment it took my breath away.

“Can you explain this to me please?” I finally asked.

She proceeded to tell me that they had found abnormalities on baby’s heart, brain, and kidneys suggesting the possibility for something such as Down Syndrome or another chromosomal deviation. Apparently one of these markers is something to note, but often disappears by birth, whereas three of them together could very well indicate something more daunting.

My heart sunk as thoughts raced through my mind: This can’t be happening to me. Where is Ryan? Is this why I have been feeling so uneasy for the past few months? Is this my mother’s intuition or have I made the whole thing up in my head?

My lovely doctor took as much time with me as I needed. She let me cry. She answered my questions. She reassured me. She patiently waited for me as I tried to entertain Levi while at the same time trying to wrap my brain around the bombshell that had just been delivered.

She also called a specialist while I was still there in her office, read the report to him over the phone, and got me on his “urgent” list.

Thankfully this specialist is based at our home hospital – the very one where I had Levi and will have this sweet baby. He is the only specialist of his kind within a 17-hour drive and he knows his stuff. He would see me, re-do the scans, and advise us from there.

I left the doctors office and drove straight to Ryan’s work and told him what happened. I think he was even more stunned than I was, but he responded with a quiet calm as my tears saturated his shirt.

I spent the next two days in a blur. I researched a little, I cried a little, but overall I just felt like what was going on around me wasn’t actually a part of me yet. Perhaps the shock of it all kept me feeling a little numb.

And then on the second night while I lay in bed speaking to God in the darkness and comfort of my own room I began to sob – deep, gut-wrenching, earth-moving sobs. I cried for God to have mercy on my son. I cried for God to have mercy on my family. I cried so hard that my sinuses completely blocked and I had to go lean over the toilet so that I could vomit when I could no longer breath.

I’ve never cried like that in my life.

Ryan held me and helped me into a steaming hot shower where the vapors opened up my airways and I stopped shaking, started breathing, and let the tears wash down the drain.

It felt good to cry. It’s probably never felt better to cry than in those moments. (There’s something so cleansing about a heart-felt cry that comes from the very depths of your soul.)

I went to bed that night exhausted but knowing that I was moving forward. I was embracing the reality of my circumstances as well as my own response to them.

The next two days were still very difficult. I was teary and unmotivated and depressed – not the “I’m so sad” type of depression, but the “I just want to sleep it all away” kind.

I have to say here that from the very first moment when my doctor slid that paper across her desk I felt a peace. I felt shocked, uncertain, concerned, and scared… but I also felt peace.

It’s hard to describe this kind of peace unless you are a spiritual person. My mind reeled with questions and confusion and anxious thoughts… but it was a peace that ran deeper than my mind. I can only describe it as a peace that was buried within the depths of my spirit.

It was a peace that stemmed from the fact I knew that I knew that this baby was meant to be no matter what test results were presented to us. No test results or diagnosis could change the value of this precious little soul growing in my belly.

But having peace didn’t mean that I had it easy. I still had feelings of fear and hopelessness and sadness and despair.

The fact that I had feelings of something being “not quite right” for the past few months made it harder for me to cope. I felt as if my fears and concerns were all legitimate… and those are not feelings you ever want to have validated. Although the results shocked me, there was a part of me that wasn’t shocked… because a part of me knew.

But honestly, that didn’t make it any easier. If anything it made it harder because all of a sudden my darkest suspicions were given a name and an identity.

Initially I had not wanted to send anyone into a panic and had not wanted to be appear over-dramatic about the whole thing. We only told our parents and two or three others, and at the time that felt right. But by day five I knew it was time to get more support. I needed it.

I emailed some friends to tell them what was going on. Pouring my heart out I asked them to pray – pray for the baby, pray for me, and pray for our family as we waited.

Even my non-praying friends prayed. (I know because they’ve told me so.)

The next morning I woke up a different person.

I woke up hopeful. Yes, I had been at peace… but peace without hope is still hopelessness – not a pretty place to find yourself in.

But that morning I woke up with hope in my heart.

There is no other way for me to describe it apart from the supernatural. The only thing that changed from the time I went to bed to the time I woke up is that there were suddenly around twenty friends praying.

Those prayers infused me with hope. They must have. There is just no other explanation.

A few days later Ryan and I returned to see my doctor. More than anything it was just a mental health visit for me. There was nothing she could do to change our test results, and nothing she could do to give us a better indication of how serious the findings were.

But she could listen and offer support.

She took me through it all again – this time with Ryan by my side – and personalized it. She told me how she felt about it as a doctor and how she would feel about it as a mother if she was in my shoes. She assured me that I was responding well and alleviated some of our worst fears (that baby could have Trisomy 13 or 18) pointing out that there were no obvious deformities in the body size, limbs, and head shape (which would be unmistakeable indicators).

Just hearing those words spill from her lips helped to fill us with even more hope.

Leaving her office both Ryan and I felt encouraged. We’re well aware that baby could have Down Syndrome, and that would be extremely difficult to process and deal with, and yet we were both so relieved that we weren’t staring down one of the more devastating outcomes. (At least to us Tris 13 or 18 seem much more devastating than DS.) As strange as it may sound, Down Syndrome sounds do-able to me, whereas the thought of giving birth to a baby who could die shortly after made me feel like the earth would cave in and swallow me up along with it.

So what now?

The specialist we need to see is in high demand since he is the only one within a 17-hour drive and patients travel from all over the state to consult with him. Our appointment to see him is next Thursday.

I’m no longer fearful. I’m no longer hopeless. I’m no longer anxious.

We don’t know what our time with him will bring. We could leave his office feeling greatly reassured and encouraged, or we could leave his office with more grief and bad news to cope with. Either way, we’ll face that moment when it comes.

In the meantime we celebrate the fact that we’re able to have children at all. We celebrate the fact that God has given us not one, but two precious little children to love and care for and nurture for as long as they’re ours. We celebrate the fact that praying friends, words of encouragement, and a genuine faith in God really do make a difference when life dishes out the unexpected.

I have learned first-hand in the last two weeks how a threat to life-as-you-know-it can actually be a beautiful thing if you’re open to it.

There is nothing like a threat of this nature to bring life into sharp focus and priorities into rapid alignment… and that, my friends, is always a good thing.

I’ve been hugging my baby a little tighter and looking at my husband a little more intently these days. I’ve been praying a little longer, breathing a little deeper, and listening a little harder.

No matter what the outcome is in this situation, I feel confident and sure that life is good and Grace will sufficiently meet us wherever we find ourselves in the days to come.

Dear friends, I know this was a very long post – a total blogging no-no. I’m not even sure if anyone will attempt reading it (the least of my concerns), but I needed to write it, to spill it all out. To get my thoughts on paper has been therapeutic and comforting. I hope that despite our circumstances I will be able to one day look back on this post and realize how much I’ve learned and grown since this moment. I hope I will be—and become—a woman who faces adversity with peace, hope, humility, and grace. Life can be unkind but it can also be very sweet. We all need to ask ourselves, “Is my glass half-empty… or half-full?”

Mine’s half-full,
Adriel

P.S. Ironically (or perhaps not-so-ironically?) I recently wrote a post called Do you know about the magic? about this very thing — Down Syndrome and the possibilty that every parent faces.

Above photo: 21/21 weeks pregnant with baby boy number two.