Update

No, I haven't blogged in a while. At first it was because I was just too busy. Then the week from hell came along.

I'm not going too get too detailed here for the whole world to see here on cyberspace. The gist of it is, last Monday on the 10th, the day before my birthday no less, we received some startling and scary news from the doctor...a screening test showed an abnormal level of hormone in the baby, which raised our risk of certain problems from 1 in 842 (typical for a couple our age), to 1 in 23. Some birthday (actually it was my 30th so I was trying to forget it anyway). It was a kick in the gut for me, despite assurances from the doctor that there was a 95% chance that the baby is fine. We arranged for an ultrasound and a meeting with a genetics counselor a few days later, which I had hoped would give us some answers. Actually, it just raised the stakes. They looked for certain characteristics in the ultrasound. They couldn't see everything they wanted, but of what the doctor could see, our risks went even higher to 1 in 12. We opted for an amniocentesis to get some definitive results. It just seemed like anytime they told us something new, it was just more bad news. My heart had sank to it's lowest. I began to get this unavoidable sense of dread overcoming me. I literally worried myself to pure exhaustion...to the point where my stomach muscles hurt, like I'd just finished doing a hundred sit-ups. We, of course, would care for and love our baby come what may, but obviously no parent wants to see this happen.

An agonizing three days later and exactly a week from when all this began, we got the prelim results back...and the baby was fine. Such wonderful news, but even at that point, I couldn't help but just break down and sob. We'd been through the ringer, something that I could never wish a sworn enemy to go through, if I even had one.

We had a lot of people praying for us, and we are most appreciative of them. And a lot of good intuition from my mother-in-law and our friend Lee, who were like guardian angels watching over us.

I'll be asking at the next appointment about what exactly made that screening result so faulty. From what we've read, if the baby's age is off by just a day or so, it could affect the results. We may never find out the truth. But I do know the baby...my son, by the way...is healthy, and that if we're pregnant once more in the future, we will never take that test again.