We went to Jackson again yesterday. Our first appointment was at 12:30 and we shut the Fetal Medical Center down last night. They were turning out lights and locking doors by the time we left.
We spent the first hour with a ultrasound tech getting a full echocardiogram. She took picture after picture of Little Man's heart—the chambers, the ventricles, the blood flow. It seemed like there were 825 dopplers taken.
After the pediatric cardiologist reviewed everything, she sat us down in the consultation room:
“Your baby’s heart is perfectly normal.”
Those were her first words. Praise God!
Fifty percent of babies with Hydrops have some sort of abnormality, defect, or arrhythmia. Our baby doesn’t have any of these. His heart is still so very small right now, but there’s no danger of Hydrops causing any problems with his little heart down the road.
Next, we met with the genetic counselor. She explained strands, chromosomes, DNA, and finally said, "You probably remember all this from your high school science classes."
You should've seen our faces. We just laughed. I think she understood.
She explained that the results of the five infectious diseases they tested for last week had come back: parvovirus, toxoplasma gondii, CSV, HSV, and coxsackievirus. They’re all negative.
It’s both good news and a little disheartening. At least he doesn’t have them, but that also means we still don’t have an answer. The doctors were really leaning toward an infectious cause. However, toxoplasma gondii was the only one they could've treat with antibiotics.
The "karyotype" genetic testing came back. It’s basically an overall picture of Baby Boy's chromosomes looking for major genetic disorders. Again, good news! Everything came back normal. He has all 46, so they've ruled out major genetic disorders.
We’re still waiting on the “microarray,” which tests even deeper into the chromosomes for additions or deletions of DNA. (This is so over my head.)
Finally, we went through nearly an hour of a second anatomy ultrasound with two doctors. One of them took us from his head to his toes, looking at all his major organs and extremities.
He pointed out that all the major “landmarks” of physical normality they generally look for are there: a fully functioning brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and bladder (of which it looked like he had just emptied).
New to us this week was the fact that there’s no fluid buildup below the umbilical cord. He looks like a normal baby should look from the waist down. AND the bad fluid is around everything, but not in any organs. Good news.
Nothing else has really changed. He's not gotten any better or worse. It's something we can be grateful for as well.
We're still praying. God is in control.
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