Week 20- Not What We Expected

We confirmed our suspicions on the ultrasound that this baby is a boy (after all, that is all we know as Getz's).

We found out a couple areas where the baby has abnormalities.  The first is his heart.  Where most babies have all four chambers and the different valves working, our baby has what appears to be a canal connecting all of the chambers.  This is allowing the oxygenated blood to freely mix with the unoxygenated blood.  The second area has to do with his stomach, he has a "double bubble" where the stomach has an indentation in the middle.  The third area has to do with the baby's arms.  He is missing the ulna bone on his left arm as well as his left thumb.  Both arms are also around 20% shorter and are curved significantly.  Lastly his hands seem to come off the wrist at almost a 90 degree angle.

We had the doctors draw amiotic fluid from the womb and are running hundreds of tests to determine if the cause is genetic.  Initial results will come in the next couple of days.  The detailed report will show up in a few weeks. 

The doctors have told us that we need to run more tests and ultimately we wont know if the baby is even viable outside of the womb until he is born.  We are fortunate to live in Phoenix where we can meet with expert doctors to see what they can do for our baby.  It looks like the baby might have VACTERL association.  (We wont know until the tests come back.)
 
We have had many people reach out to us and let us know that they are praying for us.  That has been a huge blessing to us.  We have already seen God work in unusual ways. 

First, we had planned to do a gender reveal party with our extended family so that we could all find out the gender together.  We went ahead with the party even though we had this news about the baby.  We spent the time celebrating the fact that we had this opportunity with this child no matter the outcome and we spent some time in prayer.  I know that we were a positive influence on everyone there in spite of our circumstances.

Second, God allowed several opportunities for me to explain my faith in Christ.  I explained to them that the news is very disheartening but we serve an awesome God who put this child in our lives for a reason.  I hope that we have additional opportunities to share the goodness of God during this time.