Uncertainty

So Annette shared a few days ago that we found out via ultrasound that our next addition to the family is a boy! I can’t lie… Now that we know, I was really hoping for this. In fact, the Sunday before we found out Annette was pregnant, I was walking through our kitchen when I had a random rush of thought run through my head, and I just blurted out to God, “I would really like to have a son.” Go figure.

Our baby man is scheduled to arrive somewhere around January 31. He looked pretty good and is measuring on target. In fact, Annette’s post originally got pretty specific about his measurements. Fortunately we re-read it and she made a subtle change. It originally said:

But I digress.

He looked good… His heart has four chambers and they’re all thumping along at the right speed. His arms and legs are all where they should be, and he’s moving them all over the place.

But while the ultrasound tech was going through her checklist, she made that “hmm” sound that you never want a doc or nurse to make. Not a long, cataclysmic “hmmmmmm,” but a quick, “hmm” that translated to, “that’s odd.”

She explained that it appears that “Little Dude” (Annette has gotten in the habit of calling him that) only has two blood vessels in his umbilical cord. Obviously, with a two-dimensional, run-of-the-mill ultrasound it’s tough to see too much detail in there. But she checked from a few different angles, and only briefly thought she might see the third that should be there. The doctors call this “SUA,” or Single Umbilical Artery. There are some pretty serious issues that can be associated with SUA, and to be honest, the odds that there’s nothing at all out of the ordinary linked to the SUA aren’t all that encouraging. Some studies show that one in four SUA kiddos are born with birth defects, and another one in four are born prematurely or at a low birth weight. (And since both our girls were tea-tiny, this fella needs all the help he can get.)

So, today at 2:30, we will be driving across town to visit with a Perinatologist. He’ll supposedly look at Little Dude with some pretty serious ultrasound machinery to see what he can see. Personally, I feel in my gut that he’s going to fire up his big machine and pretty quickly find that third artery, or at least see that the blood flow in the one remaining artery is nice and strong letting us leave his office with nothing but serious peace of mind and some pretty cool pictures of our kid. But there’s obviously that wee bit of apprehension that makes this a pretty nerve-abusing day for us.

So if you happen to think of this as you go about your day, would you mind praying for Little Dude? Like I said, I have a pretty severe peace about the whole thing. But in the interest of full-disclosure, I’d rather my peace stem from his being 100% healthy than from being able to accept and pull through a frightening prognosis. Know what I mean?

I’m sure Annette and I will both be blogging what we find out before we hit the sack tomorrow night.

In the mean time, we sure could use some stories from those of you who have experienced this same “anomaly” only to find out everything was fine and dandy.