Appointment

We had our consultation with the high risk doctor this morning. I guess the old saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" would apply here. The waiting room was less than impressive. I think David and I had this idea in our heads that since this was a "specialist" that it would be some fancy place. It was a little office at the end of a building of other offices and the waiting room was a small area with an uncomfortable couch (that was so light weight that I shoved it against the wall when I sat in it) and several folding chairs. My appointment was at 8:30 and I arrived promptly at 8:20. The doctor arrived at 9:15. He swiftly walked us back to his office and I could tell immediately that he wasn't a warm, friendly, comforting kind of doctor. But that was ok because what he lacked in personality, he made up for by being extremely knowledgeable! He was very detailed and he went through my pathology report line by line and explained everything...but it was also very difficult for us. He gave us a lot more info and details as to how he thought Noah died. There were blood clots around the outside of the placenta that made blood and oxygen flow difficult (causing increased blood pressure for me and lack of oxygen for Noah). It's devastating to think about your body failing your child and basically causing him to suffocate. The placenta was also very small (10^th percentile). There was a lot of “if this had been done or that had been done”, Noah might still be here. It was hard to hear all of this (even though we pretty much knew it already) but we try not to focus on the “what if’s”.

There are a few things on my report that alerted the doctor that there may be something going on with my kidneys. He is unsure if my Factor V Leiden had anything to do with Noah’s death. He has ordered 6 different lab tests including a 24-hour urine test and once he gets those results he will call us to discuss them. He is having me tested (again) for Lupus (which was negative in August) and for other auto-immune diseases. I will definitely have to take the Lovenox injections every day in any future pregnancies due to the Factor V Leiden, but he does NOT think that this was the reason (or at least not the only reason) that we lost Noah. He really feels like something may be going on with my kidneys. He was very thorough so we feel very confident in him. On another note, I asked him his opinion on a VBAC instead of another c-section next time and he said the technical answer is that there is only a 1% risk of a problem after 2 c-sections, but the practical answer is that it will be difficult to find a doctor who will be willing to deliver me. My doctor was willing to do a VBAC with Noah, so unless there are complications again, I don’t see why she wouldn’t be willing to deliver me VBAC this time. My #1 focus is to get any future child here safely.

My big question to the doctor was that if (God forbid) we ended up in the exact same scenario next time around, how would we detect that something was wrong and would he know to take the baby before something happened? He said there would be a lot of things they will be checking on regularly and that they WOULD KNOW and they WOULD take the baby early if that is what is needed. He feels there is an 80% chance of us going on to have a normal, healthy pregnancy and delivery. He was glad to know we have a healthy little boy already. It’s the other 20% he wants to focus on so that we can try to prevent future problems.

David and I stood outside the office and hugged and I just fell apart. I did very well holding it in as long as I could while the doctor was talking to us. It was definitely an emotional time....going over the report again. I look at that report and all I see is "this is how your son died". I had to go back to work after the appointment. I have some sweet ladies that I work with who were very encouraging to me today.

I will be going to a lab next week and the doctor will call me when the results come in. I’ll let you know what we find out. Thank you all so much for the prayers!