Joshua Pray For Us

Wednesday’s appointments…  Wednesday was a very, very hard day.  I would say it was one of the hardest days on our journey with Joshua so far.

Our first appointment of the day was with Dr. Adam.  Because I was on the clock with my glucose test she jumped us in line of all the patients and we were able to see her fairly quickly, which was a nice change from our previous 2-hour waiting room experiences.  We found out that I am already starting to dilate which is concerning but Dr. Adam said she wasn’t surprised or overly worried right now.  Being that I am only 26 weeks and that I have never dilated early with either of my previous pregnancies this makes me really nervous.  Next during the ultrasound Dr. Adam expressed her concern with the size of Joshua.  Even though he has grown since last time we saw her he is still only 1.3 pounds, which isn’t great.  The wonderful part about our day was getting to see Joshua on the ultrasound and Dr. Adam even worked on getting us a picture of his beautiful face. 

She also gave us some good news that she thinks the placenta is moving away from my uterine scaring which is HUGE.  If the placenta imbeds itself in my scaring it would mean loosing my uterus during my c-section.  This is a major concern of ours and I would love for continued prayers that this never happens.  So… after getting my blood drawn we were off to our next appointment.  We arrived early for our appointment at TCH and expected to wait for our appointment time.  However as it has been the case with everything at Texas Children’s our doctor almost immediately greeted us.  The Neonatologist who is on Joshua’s case is Dr. Johnson.  As soon as she walked up to us in the waiting room I knew God had once again answered our prayers.   Not only did Nathan and I immediately notice the cross around her neck but also she is the nicest most joyful woman I think I have ever met.   The first thing Dr. Johnson did with us is reassure us that she knew everything there was to know about Joshua.  She had truly done her research on our precious son; she even knew that Joshua has two brothers.  When going over all of the things that Joshua is up against Nathan and I learned that along with his brain and heart condition he also is missing a kidney.  This was something they found on the MRI report that Dr. Adam must have thought we already knew.  Once again he could live with only one Kidney but this is just one more sign confirming the diagnosis of Trisomy 13 or 18.  Dr. Johnson talked for an extended time about the choices we have for Joshua.  It was impossible hearing what she had to say.  She told us that she would guess that because of his brain diagnosis he has a 75 % chance of never taking a breath.  And that with his heart condition he would most likely be born blue.  After that she went on to tell us exactly how his birth would look depending upon different outcomes.  Nathan and I were left with a bunch of choices to make for Joshua that just seem so hard to think about.   Questions about who we would like to be there and what choices we want the doctors to make depending on different scenarios all the way to what funeral home we will be using.  It is nice that we have time to think about all these things and we won’t be burdened with a million questions on his birthday, but it doesn’t make it an easier.  We are thankful for everyone’s continued prayers and outpouring of love and we ask that over the next few months you wear out your knees for our little boy. 

 “Remember your word to your servant, for you have given me hope.  My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.”  Psalm 119: 49-50