“Life’s a journey, not a destination…”

One problem with being a music fan is that you pretty much think in that “language.”
We went to the specialist on Wednesday for Taylor to be checked out. Long story short, her growth resembles that of a 19-week-old fetus. She is 21-weeks. The specialist said that there is high resistance in the channel that supplies Taylor with nutrition; which is why she is not getting the food, hence, not growing. She was 260+ grams last week; this week, she is 290+ grams. She should be weighing about 400 grams at this point of the pregnancy (about one pound minus 20 Famous Amos cookies).

Dwarfism was ruled out at this point. That is because she is growing proportionately, just smaller than the norm. There are 2 possible causes of the low growth rate. First, the high resistance (in the placenta); second, a chromosomal disorder. It is possible that high blood pressure can make it difficult for the fetus to receive the nutrition through the placenta. If that is the case, we should try to reduce the blood pressure through rest and drugs. On the other hand, if it is a chromosomal disorder, there is really nothing we can do about it.

After the visit with the specialist, we went to our regular gynecologist. This was where the dilemma/confusion comes in. According to her, the blood pressure wasn’t exactly high enough to cause such low growth rate. Such growth rates are seen in later stages of pregnancy. She said that if Taylor’s growth continues to slow down, we may need to take her out earlier. Much earlier. The gynecologist also said that although the earlier tests for chromosomal disorders were negative, if we wanted more accurate results, we should consider an amniocentesis. There is a possibility that a fatal trisomy was not detected.

An amniocentesis will tell us if a fatal disorder is present. But will that change our behavior? We love our baby too much to let her go. We want to give her a fighting chance. But it is hard… to want to continue the pregnancy even if (you) know the baby is not going to live more than a week after birth. I don’t know what made me say it, but as we continued discussing with our doctor, I blurted out, “I know we would want to keep the baby regardless… ‘cos for us, this whole pregnancy is as much about the journey, as it is a destination.” That was paraphrasing from the Aerosmith song “Amazing.” Babymama thought about that song too when she heard me say it out. I guess it was appropriate. This has really been a journey for us. We have grown too attached to her. It is harder to let her go now.

We decided that the amniocentesis would not be the best thing for us now. We will try to lower the blood pressure through behavior modification and drugs. We will monitor the situation closely. Hopefully, when we go back to the doctor’s next week, we will see some improvement.

It was hard not to break down.