Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Almost 1 year.......

















I can't believe it's been almost 1 year since my last post. So much has happened in this past year. I don't hardly know where to start..........

Well in August 2009 my husband got laid off from his job for 6 months. It was difficult, but we survived. We had a wonderful Christmas in 2009 and brought in the 2010 New Year with high hopes in a GREAT year!

My husband started back to work in February 2010, thank goodness! And we also became expecting parents again too! Wow what a wonderful year this was going to be! In May 2010 my brother-in-law married a wonderful girl, Caraline. In June, my husband and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. And we patiently waited for July 1st because that was the day we were finding out what our little bundle of joy was.

July 1, 2010 came and me, my husband, our son, my mother and my mother-in-law all came to the special event! I was so excited about this little baby that I couldn't sleep the night before. As soon as the ultrasound started.......I was in heaven seeing my little baby. We found out we were expecting another wonderful BOY!!! But then the worst news of all....."There are some problems with the baby". My heart ached and I was wishing that this news I just heard was wrong. The ultrasound tech said that she wanted to send us to the hospital just to be sure. So confused we drove to the hospital and did 2 1/2 hours of monitoring on the baby. We found out that he had a hole in his heart, choroid plexus cysts, clenched hands, cleft lip and a 2 vessel umbilical cord instead of 3. Which to us, it all seemed fixable with a few surgeries. Then Steve, my husband and I was taken to a room to talk to a genetic counselor. And unfortunately she gave us the WORST news anyone could ever give us.........our baby has all these characteristics because they believe that he might have Trisomy 18. "What?" Trisomy 18 is a fatal chromosome disease. There are no words to explain how my husband and I felt. We couldn't ask enough questions. We were told the risks involved and that we could do an amniocentesis. Which would tell us the results. We went home and still couldn't believe the news we were just told. There were sleepless nights and much, much crying.

Two days went by and we got the call of our FISH results. We expected good news, but got the worst. So far the results were pointing towards Trisomy 18. We waited 2 more days and got the rest of our results.......still BAD news. Our baby does have Full Trisomy 18. We couldn't believe it. We could either deliver now or wait it out. Our decision is to wait it out. We couldn't take our precious child's life away until he was ready to leave. We did get some good news with the results.....the extra chromosome was a complete fluke and that it didn't get passed from Steve nor I. THANK GOD!!!

Here it is September and I still feel like I am having a normal pregnancy. The past 2 months we have already done so much. We have named our baby boy (Alex Lee Browning) bought grave plots (which we never dreamed we'd have to do for a very long time), picked out a monument, made a baby blanket for him to be buried in and tried to explain to Austin (our first child) why his baby brother is sick and how we won't be able to keep him very long. We are exhausted with everything that is going on. And I only have 9 weeks left! I cannot wait to meet our new little guy but then again I can because I know while he is inside of me, he is safe. I am terrified about the up coming weeks we have left and how not only us but how our whole family is going to make it through this. I know I belong to a strong family and that somehow God will carry us through this and that we will be stronger than ever! I have made many posts on Facebook and I cannot believe what a wonderful community I live in. I get so many comments on my posts and pictures, so many prayers and lots of love! We are truly BLESSED to have such wonderful FAMILY and FRIENDS!!