January 2nd, 2014- The Echocardiogram

The doctor at MFM put in a recommendation for Ally to have a fetal echocardiogram.  She said she didn't see anything of particular concern about the heart, but since the heart is kinda an important organ it would be best to have it examined more closely by a specialist.

I left school at 2:00 for my appointment at 3:00.  After I was taken back, the sonographer had me go through the usual routine of shirt up, towel tucked, gooped, and machine on the belly.  She actually went directly to the heart on the initial contact and was able to get good pictures of what she needed.  She told me the doctor who would be examining me liked to be 'hands on' and take pictures himself but not to let that get me worried that there might be something wrong.

A few minutes later the doctor came in along with what I assumed was a resident.  He looked at the pictures the sonographer had already taken, and sure enough put the machine to my belly for himself and moved it around.  He asked me if there had been any concerns about the baby's heart.  I told him no, that the baby had been diagnosed with Dandy-Walker.  I then had to go through and explain to him and the resident what that was.  I also told him about the liver spots that had shown up on the last sonogram at MFM and how they thought it could be infection but the studies had come back showing the probability of that was very low.  The resident looked at me and said, "Wow.  That's amazing that you were able to give us all that information."  

I guess that's a new part of my life now.  I had never heard of Dandy-Walker before December 12th myself, and now my life and the life of someone I love dearly would be profoundly impacted by it.  This is what we do as parents.  It's not amazing- it's what any good parent of a child with any kind of condition should be able to do.  But it was the first acknowledgment of that ability that I now possessed.  It was a strange, yet satisfying feeling, that I was able to adequately advocate for my child.

The doctor told me the heart looked totally normal.  Again, nothing was suspected, this was merely a precautionary test, so I was not surprised (gladly).  But it was again one more hurdle jumped.  The big day would be tomorrow...the next appointment with MFM.