Ultrasound...It's a....!!!!
Sunday, June 21, 2015 - Posted by Danielle at 7:17 PM
I really don't think Mark had a preference one way or another - he was genuinely good either way. Now that he knows it's a boy though, I think the excitement of having a little guy in the house is definitely getting him excited!
The appointment was a hard one. We did the ultrasound, things were great - so cool to see it all...amazing. We went to our appointment with the midwife after that and she started going over ultrasound. She mentioned something they found and that she'd come back to it. She assured us everything else looked good, and then said, "Now for the EIF."
Our little guy has something known as "Echogenic Intracardiac Focus" or "EIF". In the ultrasound they found two spots on his heart that are built up calcium. Thankfully these spots cause absolutely no harm or problems with functioning of the heart. What she told us afterwards though was that this is considered a soft indicator of Down's Syndrome. My heart sank and I just couldn't even believe what she was saying. She said that they have to inform us of the information but that it is actually a quite common thing and she had actually found out when she was pregnant with her daughter that she had it. Our options were to start exploring with genetic testing. With Adie and going into this pregnancy we knew that we didn't want to play around with that. She started telling us about the test and how it's changed over the years to try to improve accuracy but basically aside from doing an Amniocentesis there would be no way of knowing for sure. My question for her was if they did find something, is there anything we could do for the baby anyway? She responded hesitantly with "well, while it happens very rarely, some do choose to do a second trimester abortion." We of course shot that down right away. We asked her what her thoughts were and she said that with her daughter, she knew from being a midwife how common it was. She explained how technology today is a blessing and a curse- while it lets us see more, it lets us see more. We see more than we did before, when this was likely a bigger thing in the past, we just didn't know about it. She said that because she knew that she wasn't going to do an abortion and would be unwilling to go through with the amniocentesis, she elected to not find anything out. No further testing, just trust that everything was ok.
Leaving this appointment we were a bit of a wreck to put it mildly. We read through the paperwork they gave us and read through many scholarly articles online as well as forums of mom's who had been through it and did our homework while we sat in the parking lot of the hospital. What we came to find was that it truly is a common thing these days but that because it's a newer thing they are able to see through ultrasound, there is not enough cases to call it "normal". They call it a "soft indicator" for a reason - while there is a correlation, there is an extremely small percentage rate that it would be a sign if there are no other indicators present. A couple noteworthy articles we read actually said that if this is an isolated indicator (nothing else present), then it should not be considered a factor for further testing.
Bottom line though...we believe in our hearts that God has blessed us with a happy, healthy baby boy. While it's extremely scary to hear the words "Down Syndrome" and a huge let-down to come out of what should be such an exciting appointment with our heads hung low, we know God is good and that he has the best in store for us. I truly believe in my heart that this little boy is healthy and happy, with no genetic issues, no abnormalities. We chose to not pursue the testing but to put our faith in God. It's hard though because regardless of how I feel about it, there's a little cloud hovering in the corner that won't go away for the rest of this pregnancy. That's hard.
In the ultrasound it was such a blessing that we didn't even fully appreciate at the time - as she was scanning and showing us his face, he kept bringing his arms and hands up to the sides of his face and at one point even gave us a smile! We got a picture of it - so cool. But what a blessing it is that we can look back and see that we have been praying for a happy, healthy baby and God gave us a smile. While Mark and I have said that sometimes the "its a sign from God" things seem a bit far-fetched, this one was just so neat. We really felt like it was a sign from God and he was telling us "it's ok- I've got this. He's happy, see?"
Telling people we're having a boy has been really fun. People have been so genuinely excited for us! I think it's a combination of being excited that Mark will have a boy but also that it's just neat to have one of each.
When we told Adie she was in denial for about the first half a day. We would ask her what she was going to have and she kept saying "a baby sister"!! We continued to correct her though and by the end of the day and much better the next she's been great about knowing she's got a brother on the way. I think that has made it feel more real to her too - she has started some new little "games" where she'll come up and pat on my belly and take her hands and like wiggle my belly and say "baby's wigglin in there!" or she'll come up and tickle my belly and say she's tickling baby brother. So cute. I look forward to the day that she can interact and play with him!
