Faith, Prayer and Miracles

August 2, 2011

I got up early in order to make it to the 8:30 ultrasound appointment in Idaho Falls. Unfortunately Bill was unable to make it to this appointment so I asked my good friend Nancy to come with me.

The lil' guy was looking great. He was cooperating and moving just the right way in order for Leslie (the u/s tech) to get the right shots she needed too.  Unfortunately that all crumbled to dust when we looked at his heart. He had fluid on the side of his heart.

When you have had 1 or more ultrasounds a week for 5 weeks now, you get pretty used to looking at your child. You know what you’re looking at and what you’re looking for.  When she moved over to his heart, my heart stopped. I saw the pocket of fluid before she even said anything.

She took measurements of the pocket and stepped out to call Dr. Ball with the MFM group.  When she came back in, she took more pictures and waited for Dr. Ball to call back. In the mean time I called Bill and let him know what was going on and that it looked like we would be heading to Salt Lake as soon as I got back.

Dr. Ball's instructions were exactly that, go straight to the University Hospital and see Dr. Byrne.  They also prepared me that there was a good chance we would be delivering him today and even though he was small there was still a good chance of survival with the doctors and teams at the U and at Primary’s.

So instead of spending the whole day in Idaho Falls checking items off my "to do" list, Nancy and I went to Walmart for my pills and headed home.

At this point I was a little foggy in knowing what to do or calling anyone so Bill took over and started letting people know and getting things planned out.

During the drive home, our wonderful friend Cathy came over to the house and got the boys all packed up as well as my bag all packed. Which I'm sure was a feet since looking back on the phone calls I dont know that I actually gave a straight answer as to what to pack.

When I got home we were pretty much ready to go. Bryan and Cathy so generously kept Ethan for a couple days until they headed down to Utah as well.

Bill, James and I all headed down to Utah with no idea about what was going to happen when we got there. I'm pretty sure we made record time getting down there and Bills parents met us at the University Hospital so they could take James back with them.

As things would go, we got there just after the Ultrasound Center closed and Dr. Byrne had just left.  Still knowing the situation, they checked us in and put us in a room where they could monitor the lil' guy. After a little bit they had a team of doctors come in with a portable ultrasound machine to see what was going on.

They started the ultrasound and I could not believe what I was seeing.  Where there had been a large pocket of fluid that morning was now just a sliver of fluid that you wouldn't even see unless you knew what to look for.  It almost made me second guess what we had seen that morning but I knew what I had seen and I knew the miracle that had happened.

We learned a lot about C-CAMs and C-PAM's that night. Those doctors were very knowledgeable and explained things so we understood more of what was going on.  After they got done with the ultrasound they conferred with each other and decided they didn't see any reason to keep him overnight and sent us home with appointments to come back the next day.

We were in shock, we basically went down thinking we may be having this baby today and ended up leaving the hospital that night.  The miracle we witnessed was just incredible.  Had we been able to get down before everyone went home things could have gone very differently. A testament to the power of prayer, faith and blessings.

The next couple days were a whirlwind of ultrasounds, heart echos, Dr. appointments and information.  We were able to meet Dr. Byrne, who will be the delivering Dr., and review everything with her. She shocked us both when she said her goal was to get us to 37 weeks before he would be born and that I could stay in Idaho as long as I came down to Utah every other week for an ultrasound at the U/S Center and had an ultrasound on the off weeks in Idaho Falls.

Driving home Friday was one of the best days I have had thus far. I could not believe the change in our situation from one day to the next.

We are eternally grateful for all the prayers and faith that were sent our way and to our Heavenly Father who answered those prayers and gave us miracles.