That Nagging Feeling

You know that nagging feeling you get when something is just not right?  Well, I was experiencing it A LOT!  I chalked it up to the loss we had just suffered of losing one of our twins.  Tried as I may, I just couldn't shake it.  If you know me at all, you know that I can worry about things to death (not extremely proud of that...just being completely honest).  As hard as I try to not let things get to me, I just end up fretting about things...both insignificant (that's what it is most of the time) and true dilemmas.  If you'll let me, I'll talk about a subject over and over until I've beat the poor subject to death at least five times.  I know some of you are smiling right now, because you have been the person on the other end of a "talk" with me...bless your heart!

In this case, though, I was pretty closed mouth about my concerns.  I think deep down I thought that if I didn't give my worries about this sweet baby a voice, then maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out just fine.  That is until one Wednesday night at church during choir practice....

It was the Wednesday night before we were to find out the gender of our baby on Monday.  This particular choir rehearsal started out like any other. We began taking prayer requests at the beginning, but then God took over.  I'm not sure we sang one note the entire time.  People began to share things that were on their hearts.  After each person spoke their story or request, we would pray specifically for each situation.  Person after person spoke up.  Prayer after prayer was lifted. 

Then and there in that choir practice, the nagging feeling welled up with a vengeance.  For the first time out loud, I shared my concerns that something was just "not right" with my precious unborn baby.  With more tears than I had shed in quite a while, I spoke all my heartfelt fears.  A special prayer was said over me, and I believe with all my heart that that choir practice was orchestrated just for me. 

I would like to say that all my fears and concern went away, but they didn't.  However, I knew God was in this with me, right by my side.  Let me say a big "thank goodness"!

On that next Monday in the middle of September (September 12, to be exact), we went to my next appointment to find out our baby's sex.  I was so excited and nervous at the same time.  We did not have to wait long and were called back for the ultrasound.  This was the first time to see our baby in a few months, so the first glimpse was awesome.  There SHE was...our little baby GIRL.  Tears welled up and began flowing down my face.  It seemed as if all my dreams were coming true and it felt good...for just a couple of minutes.  The ultrasound technician took a good look at all of little girl and measured everything she could measure.  As we (Jason and I) were celebrating the thought of having a girl, things started to go way wrong.  The technician didn't say anything was wrong, but it was the look I saw on her face that I will absolutely NEVER forget.  Something WAS wrong.  I could tell.

She gave us sweet pictures of our baby girl and told us what room to go in to wait on the doctor...all the routine stuff.  Jason and I are used to waiting on doctors to join us in a room (after all, we'd spent many hours in doctor's offices over the years), but this wait was different.  It took Dr. Stone a long time to come in to see us.  The nagging feeling was there stronger than ever.  Jason and I tried really hard to talk about the joy of finding out we were having a girl, but there was a HUGE elephant in the room.  Something was just not right.

After what seemed like ages, Dr. Stone came in.  He told us all of the good things they saw in the ultrasound.  Then, he said it.  He told us that the ultrasound tech had measured the skin on the back of our baby's neck, and it was measuring 1mm more than it should (one MILLIMETER).  He assured us that, as far as they knew, everything else looked fine.  Just to be sure, he was referring us a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor for an in depth ultrasound.  He told us that he was pretty sure it would turn out to be nothing, but there was about a 10% chance that something could be wrong.  He said all the right things to try to calm our nerves about it, but the nagging feeling was there shouting as loudly as ever.

As tradition has it, after we find out the sex of our babies, we go to Babies R Us to buy our first pink or blue.  (I'm not sure you could call this a tradition since this was only our second baby, but...)  After making an appointment to have our complete ultrasound at the Maternal Fetal Medicine for Wednesday afternoon, we drove over to Babies R Us.  What should have been a fun time of celebration was pretty somber.  We tried to be upbeat about all the pink we looked at, but agreed we both just felt like leaving (without any pink). 

As it turned out, forty-eight hours later, we experienced a parent's WORST nightmare.....