Life isn’t always sunshine and roses. As tempting as it is to paint life that way on this blog, that wouldn’t be true to you or to my own memories (although who really wants to remember the bad days?). Yesterday was one of those days that I wouldn’t mind forgetting about, but it’s a part of this life and this pregnancy, so I’m going to document it.
I had a routine doctor’s appointment for my 20W check-up in the morning. Everything was going great; step on the scale: check, blood pressure: check, telling me I had to drink the lovely orange sugary drink for GD at my next appt: check, pee in a cup: check, have a seat and wait for the doctor: check. My doctor came in and all was still fine. We talked briefly about our last appointment a couple weeks ago where we had the “big” ultrasound and found out the gender. (The doctor isn’t there for that appointment – just the ultrasound tech.) She scanned over the results, exclaimed “oh! We’re having a girl!” then proceeded to say everything looked great, right on track and they found a small cyst and some fluid in the kidneys, and now let’s listen to baby girl’s heartbeat. Ok great, (swoosh swoosh swoosh swoosh)…. wait…. WHAT? My doctor had glossed so quickly over the last bit of findings that I almost didn’t even catch it. Back up a second, a cyst? Fluid where? What does that mean? “Oh they’re just really soft markers, really not anything to worry about, we’ll just watch ‘em on ultrasound and they should hopefully go away on their own.” Umm… soft markers for what? What do you mean they should go away on their own? “Well, they are really soft markers for the possibility of a chromosome abnormality, but they typically go away by the third trimester so we’ll just keep an eye on them. Oh, we just got the flu shot in too, I’d like to get you one while you’re here, let me go write up an order for that. Be right back.” Oh, okay. I sat there feeling totally fine, got my flu shot and was on my way out the door.
It wasn’t until I was in my car on the way home that my thoughts started to catch up with me. “Wait, where did she say the cyst was? How big was it? How much fluid was in the kidney? Which kidney was it? What if they don’t go away? When will I get another U/S to know if they went away? What did I do wrong to cause this? How can I make it go away? Surely there’s something I can eat or drink or take to make them go away? And OH, why is my arm hurting so bad? Something about a flu shot?
I got home and called the doctor back to get the specifics that I failed to catch while I was actually in the office. They explained that they found a “small” CPC (Choroid Plexus Cyst) – which is a big term for a cyst in the Choroid Plexus area of the brain, and that they also saw some unilateral (in just one) fluid in a kidney that was on the “upper limit of normal” at 7mm. They told me both of these are very common to pop up in second trimester ultrasounds and that they typically resolve themselves in utero by the third trimester. And that was about all they had to say.
Needless to say I spent most of my afternoon and evening googling (feel free to google for yourself) both of these terms to find a lot of other people out there with the same “diagnosis” where their doctors, too, were completely calm and almost glossed over the terms. I guess that should bring me some comfort. They really were common and my doctor wasn’t the only doctor who didn’t seem to realize the weight behind what she was saying to a expectant mother.
So now we wait. And pray. And last night, while I was up not feeling so great from my day of emotions and flu shot, I was about to get up to go to bed and thought “Lord, let me just feel a little kick, okay, a big kick, to know that Hadley is ok in there and everything will be fine.” Nothing. I sat in the silence and heard “Get up. Trust ME, my child.” So what did I do? I waited. “c’mon, one kick.” Nothing. After a couple minutes I got up and immediately felt a huge kick underneath my belly button. “Ok God… I get it. You’re in control here, not me.” So I’ll find comfort in the fact that God isn’t surprised by any of this and I’ll wait. And pray.
