Answered Prayer

It was a little over two weeks ago that we found out Baby Jacob was on his way. The day of the sonogram we were unable to see my doctor to discuss what all was seen on the sonogram. The only things we knew for sure were that we were having a boy, he was a big little guy, and that my placenta was low again. Overall I was very happy about how it all went, just concerned a bit about the placenta. I was supposed to get a call from my doctor within a few days, but I guess his schedule was a little busy to give me a ring. A few days later I called him and left a message that I wanted his input on my placenta. He returned my call a few hours later and reconfirmed the gender, that his heart looked great, he was in fact on the larger side. He didn't have much to say about the location of the placenta except that we are all hoping it moves up...already knew that too.
He then led in to something that kind of rocked my world for a little bit:
I think his exact words went something like this "your son looks great for the most part. We did see a little something that we have to tell you about. There is a cyst in his brain, it is called a choroid plexus cyst. This is a soft marker for Down's Syndrome". Everything else was a little fuzzy for a minute then I thought I have to get every bit of information right now...FOCUS EMILY!!! He continued on with "Emily, you do not need to panic. A soft marker means that it is not very likely that your son actually has Down's Syndrome. This is actually not all that abnormal. Everything else looks great which means your chances of having a son with Down's is very unlikely. 95% of the time a cyst is seen in a sonogram the baby ends up being totally healthy and the cyst is actually gone before you give birth." He did recommend seeing a perinatologist for a better sonogram and second opinion.

My first call was to Allan. I tried to stay totally calm and focus on the 95%, but a small part of me was cycling through thoughts of life with a child that I would love no matter what but would never be completely healthy and whole. This was all within an hour of hearing about the cyst. The next thing I did was make the decision to NOT get on the Internet. I knew that would only scare the crap out of me and I really wanted to focus on the 95%.

A good friend of mine has sadly had a lot of experience with perinatologists and very eventful pregnancies, because of this she is a wealth of knowledge and a source of comfort in abnormal situations. I called her to find out who her doctor was because I was wanting to schedule an appointment ASAP. She is amazing. Within an hour she had made a call to her doctor to see see if they could work me into their schedule sooner than later, she had done a ton of research on choroid plexus cysts (CPC), and called me back with info that would carry me through the next week and a half basically stress free. The info Allan and I held to was that an isolated CPC without any other markers (i.e. stunted growth, heart problems, deformities in the hands) is more like 99% nothing to worry about. It had already been made pretty clear that none of those three things were issues for Jacob. Also, there is a lot of research out there that says these cysts are almost considered normal in development and are almost always gone by 32 weeks of pregnancy. We had made an appointment with the perinatologist for this last Wednesday and our prayer was that the cyst would already be completely gone, no sign of it whatsoever...I would be 21 weeks pregnant, no where close to 32.

The sonogram lasted about 40 minutes and the quality was fantastic. The doctor was exactly who we needed, his bedside manner was so calming and reassuring. The best news of the day the cyst was totally gone, there was NO sign of it at all!!! Our little man is healthy and whole. Our prayers were answered.

I want to say a few things now...even in the small bit of time I allowed myself to freak out when first hearing about the cyst, I NEVER, not even once considered life without this little one inside of me with or without Down's Syndrome or any other genetic or physical issue. I know that life would be hard with a child that has medical issues, it is not ideal, but if that is the life God chose for my family we would not just survive, we would flourish. I am so thankful that our prayers were answered the way we had hoped, but we would have been okay if they were not. I have a deep respect for families that have special needs children, I always have. The parents who choose life when their babies are not "perfect" are true heroes!