Worry, Happiness, and Resolve
By: Debi Smith
Tags: Pregnancy, Medicine, Parenting, Journal, Writing

Chapter 3

Worry, Happiness, and Resolve

I went to my doctor’s appointment on February 27th expecting to hear the same thing I’d heard before, that everything was looking good. Suddenly I’m too large? And hard? I assumed everyone was large and hard when they were pregnant. Dr. Hartfiel didn’t say much more but scheduled me to have an ultrasound. I started to worry, and unable to get in for an ultrasound until Friday didn’t help.

The first time I had an ultrasound it went fine, other than the discomfort caused by drinking a quart of water and then having to hold it until after the ultrasound was over. But they got me in early and finished in just a few minutes.

This time was terrible, in all respects. They were late getting us in, then the procedure took over 45 minutes, and the worst part was that they wouldn’t tell us anything, wouldn’t answer any questions. They just whispered. Obviously something was wrong. Bruce and I just looked at each other.

They left to take the films to the head radiologist and told me to hold off on peeing in case he wanted to come in and look at the baby himself.

We were able to see the baby during the procedure, and we thought maybe we’d be able to tell the sex, but our untrained eyes couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. It was exciting to see Himher though, even though the knots in our stomachs were growing worse by the moment.

The only thing they told us after the head radiologist looked at the films was that Dr. Hartfiel wanted to see us right away. The knots moved up into our throats.

Once in Dr. Hartfiel’s office she explained that the ultrasound equipment wasn’t the best in Olympia, but they could see there were some intestinal problems. She thought the baby’s stomach might have developed on the outside of its body, but she wasn’t sure and was trying to get us an ultrasound appointment in Seattle for that afternoon.

I tried so hard just to remain calm upon hearing this news, but I started crying at the thought of the little child I was carrying hurting in some way.

The soonest Swedish Hospital could get us in was Monday. My emotions were up and down all weekend. One minute I was sure everything would be fine, and the next I was mentally putting away the crib and all the baby things.

The technicians who did the ultrasounds at Swedish were much more open and ready to answer as many questions about our concerns as they could. And then we asked if they would tell us the sex. Driving up the night before, we had decided that we wanted to know so we could more intimately personalize our feelings and thoughts for our baby. They were happy to tell us, and we were thrilled to hear it! It’s a boy!!

The head radiologist came in after viewing the films and looked some more, and then he was very straightforward with us. (What a concept.) No, the stomach wasn’t on the outside of the body. He told us our son had a condition known as duodenal atresia, a blockage between the duodenum and the small intestine that did not allow fluids to pass through his body. I had become so big and hard because the baby’s fluids were essentially coming back out into the amniotic sac versus being digested by him.

The radiologist quickly assured us that this condition was relatively easy to fix with surgery. But then he was quick to add that with duodenal atresia came a 30% chance our son also had Down Syndrome.

Maybe we were in shock, but this last bit of information barely fazed us. After worrying about the unknown all weekend, I think we were just relieved to hear what the problem was, and that it was correctable with surgery.

We left the radiology department and went down to the clinic for our appointment with Dr. Hickok. He was also incredibly straightforward and compassionate, attempting to answer all of our questions, even though we really hadn’t had time yet to formulate them. He told us that this particular problem only occurs about ten times a year in Washington, and that there was a doctor at Children’s who specializes in duodenal atresia surgeries.

Because our baby would require surgery immediately after birth, we would need to deliver in Seattle, at Swedish, and Dr. Hickok would become our new obstetrician.

Before we left, I had an amniocentesis so that they could do a chromosome count to test for Down’s. It would be a couple of weeks before we would learn the results.

I’m still surprised that we weren’t devastated when we left the hospital. But before Bruce and I even married, we had talked about how we’d feel if we ever had a child with Down’s or other challenges. We had agreed then that we would be up to the task, and that we would love our child no matter what the circumstances. Our feelings hadn’t changed.

Driving home to Elma, we talked at length, and when Bruce said he pictured our little boy someday sitting in a boat with Papa fishing — Down Syndrome or not — I smiled.