Baby B - An update and a surprise preview

It has been a long day, but all told, not nearly as stressful as it could have been. First, let's get to the fun part. After almost an hour-long diagnostic ultrasound, our technician surprised us by producing a 4D ultrasound wand, and this photo of our beautiful goober, uber-fighter, baby B:

We don't have a shot of Baby A, as she her back was to us, facing my spine.

Cute as hell, right? 

And what of her story?  We have some more chapters to include, thanks to our long meeting with the doctor today at the General.

Where to start?  Well, both babies have had a good growth week, and Baby B especially, so she is now no longer in a low weight concern category, so Mommy is pretty pleased about that!  She was also incredibly active during the ultrasound, which we loved seeing too. 

She, and her twin sister, had both shifted to be in a breech, or feet down position, so that meant that all those crazy kicks were from both of them, when I actually thought it was only baby A...

And what of her condition?  Well, here's the scoop, as we understand it.

What our little goober has is called a Diaphragmatic Hernia. There are a couple things in our favour, we found out.  First, the hernia is located on the left side, which has a better outcome than if it were on the right. Second, the liver has NOT also relocated to inside the cavity, and this is also very very good, we are told. The stomach and part of the bowels are there at this time, but the above is apparently good news.  On the slightly negative side, the lung measurements were sub-par relative to the growth of the baby's head, which is not great, but then, last week, baby B was considered underweight, and this week, she'd had a growth spurt and there are no issues, so...we hope this will change.

What else?  Well, the doctor, looking at our original IPS nuchal fold measurement, combined with today's measurements, said that baby B looks great, and the chance that she has Down's is still very low.  So, rather than risk bringing on the onset of early labour by doing an amnio, he recommends against it but feels pretty positive that her chances are very good on that front.  Congenital defects like this DO tend to drive up the chance of issues like Downs, but this type of issue doesn't affect the ratio/chances all that much.  So this has helped us relax a bit too.

So what now?  Well, now we meet with CHEO surgeons, neonatal specialists, and go for appointments and ultrasounds every two weeks at The General. We also wait to see how strong baby B can get, and how well her lungs are able to develop in this small space.  But really, we wait for the delivery to see if she can breathe... From what we are told, there is about a 60-80% chance that she will be able to breathe enough to survive, that we can stablize her, and then get her into surgery to fix the problem.  But really, we won't know this for sure until after she is born.  Plain and simple.  And not so simple, emotionally, but still better to know where this all stands.

The nice bonus today?  The doctor has placed back on the table the possibility that we can try to deliver naturally, and not have to have a scheduled C-section.  If both babies are head down, he doesn't see a reason why we cannot try, and if baby A is head down, he would still consider it.  Mommy is VERY happy about that, and I am sure our doulas will be happy to know this also. If this doesn't work out, then great, but at least this is still a possibility.

So.  Yes, we have a little girl here fighting for her life, but she has a good chance.  And I just have to believe that because Mommy is strong, positive and in love with her two little miracles, that this will be enough.  Only time will tell.