So we decided that, to have the scan and we went along I think early in the week for that, and spent quite a lot of time with the consultant after that.
How was that scan different from the dating scan? Can you describe the difference between the scan at this later stage in a pregnancy? Is it the same scan or is it the same equipment?
Mm-hm. I think it's the same - in fact I think it was probably the same room, same consultant - and [sighs] I suppose it felt upsetting because at the dating scan you're full of hope and this scan we knew wasn't going to be good, we knew it was maybe the last time we would see the baby moving around. And it's like, I really wanted to see it and I didn't, and it was... it was very mixed. As you felt that, you know, it was probably going to show lots of problems and it just wasn't what we wanted, but at the same time we needed to sort of see it and, we needed to prove it I suppose. I felt I needed proof of what was wrong before I take such a huge decision and that I couldn't do it based on what someone had written on, on the paper.
And what did you see on the second scan?
The baby was very, very small. It wasn't measuring at all the right measurements for the age - there was a heart defect, the limbs were sort of distorted, the arms were, you know - you could see that the arms were very sort of contracted, the hands were contracted.
There was an extra digit on one of the hands. Again the legs were quite twisted, they said that the baby's sternum was very short - things weren't in proportion you know - the head was quite large, the neck was very thick, there wasn't really like a neck as such... it was just things were kind of - there were lots of things that obviously the consultant could see that we weren't aware of. And she said that, you know, as the, if the baby did develop further there would probably be other problems with internal organs that weren't really that visible at that stage.
So and you could see the exomphalus, this little pouch, which was obviously just the intestines where they are. And there [sighs] was a very dark patch over one, where the eye socket was, and they didn't know it, in the Edward's babies sometimes the eyes don't develop properly, or it might have been bleeding, they weren't very sure.
So it was, there was very, very little movement from the baby because I remembered first time round by that stage, you know, that the baby was quite big and it moved around a lot at a later scan. And this baby sort of floated, and occasionally there was a slight movement, but it was very you could almost see that he was really poorly just from looking at the screen.
Did you, how did that scan make you feel?
I felt more informed, and I felt that that was what I needed in my head to see you know, that I've got to accept now that this, all these things are real on the screen and this was really my baby that's suffering all these things [sighs], but I was sad as well. Hugely upset that to think that the baby was so poorly. And I, and, I felt the weight of deciding what to do about it. And at the end of the day however much we talked about it - that it was going to be the two of us to make the decision and me to actually you know, go through it and decide that that was what was going to happen for him - and I just, I didn't want to do it.
But you know I knew we had, we had to make a decision that was right for the baby as well. And still we asked to see a paediatrician to speak about, you know, what these things meant for the baby. And we spoke to lots of different people, and I think we were, we were desperately looking for someone in the hospital who would say you know, 'there's a glimmer of hope' or 'I could do this for the baby' - and there wasn't anyone anywhere in the hospital who could offer the baby a better outcome.
And basically, we were just told that, that he was, he was dying, and that really it was my body that was just keeping him going - and I wasn't very well - and that that was possibly toxins from the baby that were in my system and they really didn't know how the pregnancy would continue if we had continued. And that it, if he was born... that most - I think they said, about 50% percent of Edward's Syndrome babies would die within the first 6 months, and the other 50% within the first 12 months - and that our baby had the, the full syndrome, so it affected all parts of his body and that his brain wasn't properly developed. So there wasn't any future for him, and that we wouldn't be able to ever take him home. So that even that sort of the option of, you know, having him at home and just caring for him wasn't going to be open to us. |
