Our Perinatologist Experience

A preface: this next part is not easy for me to talk about publicly. I've always prided myself on being tough and never showing my weaknesses. It's very strange for me to put this out there for everyone I know to see. But, like I said, if this helps even one person going through a similar experience feel better or not so alone, I've accomplished what I set out to do. 

I called the perinatal office immediately after speaking with my doctor, and they couldn’t see me until February 13th. An entire week. It might as well have been a lifetime. I spent the rest of the week googling, reading, and alternating between promising myself it would be fine and convinced our baby was in mortal danger. Finally, the 13th arrived. After sitting in the waiting area for an interminable amount of time, we were led to a room and an ultrasound tech came in to do the preliminary ultrasound. The screen was across the room, but if I squinted I could make out the measurements. I held my breath as she measured the femur, praying this had all been in error. <1st percentile, the monitor read. I stared at Will, panicking and trying not to cry in front of this stranger. She left, and we had a few minutes to talk before the perinatal specialist came in. He began to measure all the long bones, not just the femur (typically femurs are the only long bones measured when looking at fetal anatomy). <1st percentile, 3rd percentile, <1st percentile…I closed my eyes and begged God to wake me up, that I was having a nightmare and none of this was happening.

Let me describe what it's like walking into an appointment like this. You spend the entire time before the appointment trying to prepare yourself for the worst, mentally building your defenses, trying to come to a place of acceptance and bracing yourself for bad news…but deep down, there’s still a tiny part of you thinking you’ll walk in and they’ll say, “Why are you here? This is a mistake. You’re fine. Go home and enjoy your life.” And when it doesn’t happen like that…it crushes you.

Back to the appointment. I couldn’t tell you what all was said. The doctor was very kind and reassuring, and said it could be some type of skeletal dysplasia, but he didn’t really see any other symptoms of the most common dysplasia, called achondroplasia, so it was very likely we just had a short baby. He said it was too late to do an amniocentesis, the results would take weeks and I was so close to my due date anyway. He wanted us to come back once a week until delivery, but he would only measure every two weeks. The measurements just don’t change enough to make it worth it. We walked to the parking lot and I lost it. I sobbed into Will’s shoulder, telling him I didn’t want a dwarf baby, I wanted our baby to be perfect and normal and just like everyone else (it is amazing how quickly you go from dreaming of an exceptional child to praying for an average one). And Eli, just in case this has been immortalized on the internet and you're reading this as a teenager...however tall you are is the exact perfect height. And you're everything I never knew I needed. And I ADORE you.

The next week is a blur of depression. I alternated between eating nothing and frantically loading myself up with calcium and protein, irrationally hoping I could add millimeters to the baby’s arms and legs. I sat at my desk at work zombie-like, reading medical journals and asking my best friend to decode the parts I didn’t understand. I cried in the bathroom. I cried driving to and from work. I woke up in the middle of the night and instead of going back to sleep, spent hours researching on my phone and crying, waiting until it was time to get up and suffer through another day. Even typing this out is making me cry again. The only time I have ever felt equally as helpless is when Will’s mom died. It was easily one of the worst times of my entire life. My best friend had her baby on February 15th, and I was so thrilled for her, but also felt like I had no one to turn to…I didn’t want to burden her with my problems when she was so exhausted and exhilarated and thrilled with her infant.

Finally, right before my next appointment, I broke down to her and told her how much I had been suffering. She convinced me to be honest with my OB and ask if they could induce me due to my mental state. So that Friday (February 17th), I went into our weekly OB appointment, steeling myself to be honest but also not cry while I was telling her everything. I lasted about three words before she handed me a tissue and Will took over speaking for me. He explained that I was almost nonfunctional at that point…I was essentially comatose and barely surviving normal adult life. She said she would talk to my perinatologist, and if he approved, induce me at 38 weeks. We saw him again on Monday, February 20th, and he approved. I called my OB to schedule my induction immediately.