Relief....(almost.)

My new favorite word: Normal. 

Yes, we finally heard late last night from my doctor and the FISH results came back normal. No Down's, no trisomy 13, 18, no spina bifida. Nothing. This was a HUGE relief and to be honest I am only having time to process it now. I got the call a few minutes before pickup at the LM's school, and after an excruciating 10 minutes on hold we got the great news (while I was locked in the director's office with the little man banging on the door.) She said the results are clear, and even though we have to wait for the final amnio results, we can cross these concerns off our list.

But (why is there always a but?)

When we went in for the amnio they did a fetal survey. Usually this is done after 18 weeks, but since we were there they took all of Gray's measurements. At the time we were told the legs measured average. Now it turns out that one (I believe) femur is measuring short. They also saw a VSD, which is a tiny hole in the heart, and is pretty common. Usually, it closes up in it's own, or surgery is needed to close it, but it is in no way a major concern. What is a concern is that they found both of these. What it means is one of three possibilities:

1. The test was done too early or there was error on the technicians part. By 18 weeks the femur could be just fine. 
2. They are two totally and separate issues, and the heart could close and the leg is something that we will have to wait and see on, or 
3. It is indicative of a bigger problem. These are, surprisingly, signs for Down's Syndrome (which makes me even more confident in the choice to get the amnio) but could also be a sign of something else unknown that no testing will uncover until birth. 

We are obviously hoping for 1, or 2, but we will also be meeting with a Geneticist to see what else we could be looking at. This whole thing has been such a roller coaster, but the bottom line is yesterday we received amazing news.

A lot of you are curious about what we were planning to do if the test came back positive. We got this question from our friends and family as well, and the fact is that I really tried not to think about that at all this week. Making that decision would have been the most difficult of my life, and I figured that there was no need to decide anything until we had all the answers, which is why we opted for the amnio. Before we had children my husband and I always had said that we would likely not have the baby, but of course after all we had been through with the infertility, feeling the baby, knowing the sex, having had a child, etc.. makes things feel much different than when you are talking about some theoretical situation. Since Friday we haven't really discussed what we would plan on doing, but rather focused all of our energy on the LM and wishing with all of our might that everything would turn out okay.

Which it pretty much has.

I appreciate all of your calls, emails, comments, and well wishes. I completely understand the questioning of what our decision would be (after all I share almost everything else here) and I'm so unbelievably happy that we don't have to make that decision. I especially want to thank those of you who have been through something similar, who emailed me their stories, and offered you hand while navigating through this. Hearing from you made me feel like I was not alone, and I promise to respond to you all soon. I cannot thank you enough for your kindness, and it just solidifies for me why I share my life on this blog, because so many of you are willing to open up and show the true kindness of strangers.

This has been the longest week ever, and hopefully soon we will have answers as to what else could be going on. I am going in for another sneak peek today, in hopes that the measurements were off, but I plan on spending the weekend reconnecting with my boys, the ones in utero and out.

It really does feel like the weight of the world has been lifted. Here I thought waiting on the bar results would  have be the longest wait of my life....