Bodie's due date was October 15th, the same day as Wade's third birthday!
Everything seems fine until the 5th month when we went to find out the sex of the baby. The Doctor told us that it was a boy but that he was measuring a little small. We didn't think anything of it because Wade had been a week & a half late and only weighed 6 lb 1 oz. Nevertheless, we were referred to an Ultrasound Specialist. Going in there, we were not worried, fully expecting her to say the baby was fine, just a little small. We were wrong. She said the leg bones were much shorter than they should be, indicating Down's Syndrome or Dwarfism. Shock, Fear and Heartbreak overtook us. It took a while to calm down and stop sobbing, then we agreed to an Amniocentesis, which would tell us if he had Down's Syndrome but could not test for Dwarfism. If he tested posotive for Down's, we would then need to decide if we wanted to terminate.
This horrible day happened 5 days before we were leaving to go to Myrtle Beach SC for our yearly vacation. We spent a week on a beautiful beach pretending to have fun, all the while trying to figure out if we had it in us to care for a brain damaged child (and probably adult) or if we had it in us to terminate a pregnancy in the 5th, almost 6th month. It was agony, we cried ourselves to sleep every night.
Luckily, after 2 weeks of waiting, he tested negative for Down's. She said odds were that it was Dwarfism, but there was really no way to know what kind of dwarfism. At that point we had already commited ourselves to having the baby and dealing with whatever came our way. She scheduled another appt. for the next month.
2nd appointment with the Ultrasound Specialist- We were desperatly hoping to go in there and be told everything looked normal now, no more worries! Wrong again. Although I knew something was indeed wrong because I wasn't showing much and the baby hardly ever moved, I was not expecting the news that the baby was much smaller than it should be (They call it Intrauterine Growth Retardation), probable cause was that my placenta was not giving the baby what he needed. Also my amniotic fluid was extremely low. Then we were sent upstairs to Labor and Delivery. The initial plan was to keep injecting me with steroids for a two days, hoping for a growth spurt. But in the hour it took to give me 1 steroid shot and do another ultrasound, they decided it was too risky to wait. I was prepped for C section, sick to my stomach, searching in vain for a way to escape this hell.
Bodie Mitchell was born on August 17, 2010. It was my first surgery and was just as horrible as I imagined it would be! When the baby came out, I couldn't see anything but I didn't hear any crying. I just kept repeating "Please Be Ok, Please Be Ok, Please Be Ok". Finally I heard a very tiny cry, it didn't even sound like a baby. Of course he was whisked off before I could see him. Ever heard someone say "I wish I could just crawl into a hole and hide out there for a while", well I believe that's what happened inside my head. I was just functioning moment to moment, that's what my mind had to do to avoid a total breakdown.
-Brandi
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