My name is Jenn and I was 25 years old when I excitedly anticipated the birth of my first dear baby. At 20 weeks of Pregnancy my doctor drew blood for one of those standard blood tests all expectant moms have done. My Doctor told me it was really not a big deal and that the results generally didn’t mean much for someone of my age. Well as it turns out, I was the exception. My results came back extremely skewed from the norm. My doctor again blew off the importance of these irregular results but still insisted that we take all precautions and I get screened by a specialist. She even sold us on the idea of seeing the specialist with the notion that we’d find out the baby’s sex a week sooner than our original u/s date.
My husband and I ignorant and oblivious to exactly what could be looming ahead made plans to go shopping after the scan once we knew the baby’s gender. We even went so far to optimistically consider the possibility that the increased test numbers meant we were pregnant with twins. Well, we weren’t in the u/s room longer than a minute when the technician started to show signs that something wasn’t as she expected. I kept asking questions only for her to respond that I’d have to wait to see the doctor. The doctor came into the room and immediately the technician got up and left without a word. The Doctor sat down and poked and prodded. He was pushing down on my tummy with lots of pressure to get a better look and all I could do was hold my husband’s hand even tighter. Finally the doctor spoke his first real words to us by stating, ” This doesn’t look good.” He explained the condition, Amniotic Band Syndrome.
I asked him what our next step would be, assuming he’d tell us to come back more frequently to keep tabs on the progress of the condition….or even to suggest some corrective surgeries after the baby was born. Instead he responded calmly and with a sympathetic tone “well, you can do nothing and wait for your baby to die on it’s own or you can terminate.” He went on to tell us everything that was wrong with Chase and explained how shocked he was that Chase was still alive. Chase had lost an entire leg. His other leg was almost completely destroyed. All of his internal organs were on the outside and while we could see his heart beating at a healthy rate, we could not distinguish whether it was now inside his stomach or outside of his body. Only his head and arms looked completely normal. He went on to confirm what I already assumed, that our baby was most likely in extreme discomfort if not pain that only was getting worse each day. My husband and I still grieve the loss of our son to this day. It was the lowest point of my life; hopefully a low I will never feel again….the loss of a child.
The trauma of our experience contributed to our later battle with stress induced infertility. We so wanted to replace what we’d lost, not that we ever could replace one child with another. A little over 2 years later, we thank God for sending our dear daughter Lillianne. Chase is still watching over his family and I know he will forever be his little sister’s guardian angel.
As a side note I want to say that in my lowest moment in the days following my loss, I found this site. I connected with Kody’s mom through an e-mail or two and found the strength I needed to believe that I could emotionally make it through the tough times. Thank you for making this site for all of us who need to connect.
Jenn
