The best news we have gotten yet! :)

Greetings! First off, those who know me/the Axe side of our family know that we are notorious for trying to play April Fool’s jokes on each other. So being that today is April 1st, I want to be clear that no part of this email is a joke. Though it was tempting to tell you we found out we were actually having twins or something today at our Fetal Echocardiogram (echo), I am going to refrain from such teasing and just give you the news that you and we have been anxiously awaiting…

I know that I originally thought I might not be able to give you this update today, as our appointment was originally scheduled for later this afternoon. However, our perinatal cardiologist called us yesterday to explain that she would not be in the office this afternoon and really wanted to see us and hopefully be the one to deliver the good news to us that our baby’s heart looked just fine. So she asked if there was any way we could come in first thing this morning instead. We really wanted to see her again too, after all we went through with her with Molly last year. So though the first of the month is a very busy day for Bob at work, especially in the morning, he was able to go in a bit later, so we could go for the echo this morning!

It with much joy that I get to share that everything on our baby’s echo today looked very good and normal! It’s heart rate was regular, measured 165 bpm, it’s heart and stomach were on the correct side of it’s body, it’s heart had four chambers, two ventricles and two valves. There were many other details that our doctor shared that were good things about how our baby’s heart looked, but I don’t remember every detail and didn’t feel like I should ask her to slow down when she was talking so that I could write it all down, as I got the gist that our baby’s heart looks as it should and healthy!

It was very surreal to be back in the office where we went for the echos all those times for Molly. We had the same awesome echocardiographer that did most of Molly’s echos. She was and continues to be so sweet and she was as excited to see us as we were to see her, especially under such better circumstances. We were even in the same room we had been in the past for Molly’s echos. It was bittersweet as I lied on the examing table to see the butterfly painted on the ceiling above that first led me to feel such a affection for and connection to butterflies when I see them now.

When our doctor arrived and first saw us she gave me a very big and very long hug! She said that she was so happy to see us and so happy for us! She was so glad that we decided to come in the morning after all so she would get to see us and us her. As she was hugging me she told us how much she cared about us. She told us that we were a “once in a lifetime family” for her and she said “you make what I do worthwhile!” We can only imagine how sad her job must be much of the time having to tell parents that their children, often unborn babies, have serious heart defects and might die. So we understand that for her getting to see patients/families that she has been through the worst with return later on in life when they are experiencing what appears to be a healthy and normal pregnancy must be an awesome feeling!

Based on what our doctor observed today she doesn’t feel the need to see us again until we are 25 weeks gestation. As we already knew, most congenital heart defects (CHD) don’t typically present, or at least aren’t discovered, until much later in pregnancies. So there is still a very small chance that our baby could have a CHD, but it is highly unlikely. We continue to get that there are no guarantees in life, but at this point we choose to be cautiously optimistic.

We are leaning towards telling Sean about the baby sometime this weekend. We will let you know after we do so, share how it went and that point our news will no longer be a secret. We are so grateful for your support, encouragement, thoughts and prayers. As I have shared with many of you before, being pregnant after losing our baby girl last year, has been the second hardest experience of my life. However, I hope and pray that in the end it will all be so worth it. Bob and I are so pleased to have learned the news that we did today, that our baby’s heart appears to be normal! We hope this finds you and your loved ones in good spirits! We will be in touch. Take care and God bless.