My husband & I had wanted to have a family more than anything. We had tried for several years, went through test after test; only to find out that both of my tubes were completely blocked. We checked into InVetro, adoption, and becoming foster parents. After 3 years of trying and being told that it wasn't possible, we found out that we were expecting our first child!!! The excitement we felt was beyond words...this was the child that we had wished for, hoped for, prayed for...this was our miracle baby!
We were due to have an ultrasound at 20 weeks to determine the sex of the baby...but I am an impatient person and couldn't wait that long! So I scheduled a 4D ultrasound to find out (and see my baby) at 16 weeks. It was a big family event, at 16 weeks pregnant, on October 22, 2011 we went to our appointment. We did find out that we were having a baby girl, which was the only good thing that came out of the ultrasound. The lady stopped the ultrasound and told us that some things with our baby girl didn't "look normal" and that we needed to see our doctor. We watched her heart beating while the lady was trying to get our little girl to wake up and move around so she could get a better look at her. We left there thinking that we may be having a special needs child, which we were ok with. But I had felt her move several times, so I was convinced that she would be fine. Never did I expect what I was about to hear a couple days later.
On October 24, 2011 we went to our doctor....she did an ultrasound and immediately sent us on to a high risk doctor. She told us that our daughter was in distress and that she had a lot of fluid on her body. She told us that the high risk doctor would be able to tell us more. Although we were both terrified in the truck on the way to the next doctor, I still never thought that our baby wouldn't still be with me today. We got to the office and they did another ultrasound....about 20 minutes into the ultrasound, we heard the most heart wrenching thing we had ever heard on our lives. Our little girl, whom we had named Brinley Faith, had a anencephaly which is a condition that is "incompatible with life". Although, at first it was hard for me to believe as I watched her heart beating and her kicking on the monitor. I don't remember much about what the doctor said after that other than we needed to decide how long we wanted to wait before they induced labor. He thought that with her other complications that "nature would take it's course" within a week or so.
We couldn't make any decisions without educating ourselves on anencephaly, we had never even heard of it. After many hours of research, we had to face reality....our miracle child was going to be born an angel. I was her life support and from what the doctors had told us, she was suffering. We had to make the hardest decision of our lives. With everything the doctors had told us, everything we had read, and many hours of prayer ... we chose to induce early. It wasn't a choice that was easy on us, we took a lot of things into consideration as we made our choices. We didn't want our little girl to suffer but we didn't want to say good bye to her either. Our decision to deliver preterm was based on what we felt was best for our daughter.
<3 Melissa <3
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