The 20 week ultrasound

-The 20 week ultrasound- 

All women have an ultrasound around 20 weeks called the anatomy scan. At the time I thought nothing of what should’ve been a routine scan. There on the screen was our beautiful baby!!! Most couples find out the gender at this appointment too. And sure enough we found out mama knows best and I was indeed right-our first baby was a boy! We were so excited! The ultrasound tech was pretty serious and quiet and kept saying “I can’t share much you have to wait to meet with your doctor.” But she did comment on two things- 1) Declan was a mover! He was moving all around making it hard for her to get a great read. As she put it he was being a little stinker!! 2) when she finally got a decent read, there were some concerns with the brain and heart that my doctor would go over. We were told to go back next door where my OB explained that the size of parts of Declan’s brain were not developing at the rate they should and that they were having trouble getting a good read on the chambers in the heart. The next week, we were referred to the maternal fetal medicine dept. at Danbury hospital aka the high risk doctors. They shared with us that the 4th ventricle in Declan’s brain was enlarged, the cerebellum was underdeveloped and there was a concern with the heart but they couldn’t tell much on this until birth. I ended up having an ultrasound every two weeks until Declan was born to monitor his brain and heart. We ended up also having two fetal echos at CCMC and a fetal MRI at a place in NY before Declan was born too. All three specialist doctors kept saying “this will affect his quality of life but we can’t say how it’ll affect him”. To this day those comments make me sooo mad for two reasons: 1) how could they be so vague on how these findings would affect our son yet have the nerve to imply that his quality of life would be compromised. 2) Anyone who knows Declan knows his “quality of life” is not affected. He’s an awesome kid with so much determination. No “abnormalities” are going to slow him down