Grief

Today, hubby and I received the most devastating news.

I had my follow-up checkup today. Glad to announce my HG is not as severe as before. I still vomit once a while but not that often. I still feel nauseous all the time. But I felt better than I had in weeks.

I had to wait awhile to see the doctor. I felt a little woozy, wasn't used to be up so early. Usually I just lay in bed until noon.

Finally it was my turn. Did the usual chit chat, then the doctor did the scan.

I had a feeling something was wrong when the doc didn't say anything for 3 full minutes. She kept looking at the screen, trying to see something. Finally she invited me to go to another room, where a better sonogram was kept. After another 2 minutes, she finally let me know.

"Azlina, I have to tell you this. I see some abnormality with the baby. I need to refer you to another doctor in TTDI to confirm but I'm pretty sure your baby has some chromosome abnormality."

It took me a few minutes for the message to sink in. Abnormality? Chromosome? Immediately I thought Down Syndrome.

I started to cry.

I called up hubby and told him the news. He told me to wait for him as he wanted to take me to the clinic to see the specialist too.

We had to wait for an hour before we could see the doctor. But when he saw us, immediately he told me to lie down for a scan.

His sonogram was one of the most sophisticated ones I had ever seen. It was in color and the baby looked so big and real. And alive. The doctor took a few pictures then told us to have a seat.

He didn't beat around the bush. Alobar Holoprosencephaly. That's what our baby had. Basically the baby's brain had not formed properly.

**Alobar holoprosencephaly, in which a tiny, single-lobed, nonfunctional forebrain brain develops, along with other severe cerebral abnormalities and severe facial deformities including cyclopism, or formation of a single, nonfunctional eye where the bridge of the nose should be.

He told us that most probably our baby would either die in the womb or die right after birth. Chances of survival was basically nil. There was no treatment.

I cried so hard, my stomach hurt. Hubby was silent, trying to absorb everything rationally. The doctor said he was sorry he had to deliver such bad news but the good thing was that we detected the abnormality early in the pregnancy. Now we could concentrate in preparing ourselves for what was to come.

Even now, I still want to believe in a miracle. But I see the baby pictures and read the online internet articles and I know there's nothing I can do. I've cried as much as I can. Being nearly 13 weeks pregnant, I can already feel the baby kicking. I just feel that after going through HG, I deserve a healthy baby. I made my bargain with God; I would go through another month of HG if only my baby could be born healthy.

Tomorrow we have another appointment with my gynea to figure out our next step. Please pray for us through this difficult time.