Hospital tours and MRI results

This past Tuesday Austin and I went to Salt Lake for an MRI of Little Guy's lung tissue, as well as take a tour the Labor/Delivery Ward at University Hospital and the NICU at Primary Children's Hospital. It was great talking with the doctors and nurses, and we each felt like we (and our son!) are in the best hands possible. Everyone we interacted with was extremely loving and compassionate, and kept reiterating that they want us to have a good experience. We also learned what exactly will happen right after Little Guy is born and how Austin can be involved in the process of getting him to the NICU. Thankfully, the NICU at Primary Children's is a really short walk over a sky bridge from the Labor/Delivery Ward at University Hospital. 

There's really so much I could say about our experience on Tuesday -- it was almost a day of information overload. The most intense part of our visit was seeing all the helpless, innocent babies in the NICU... it made everything so real. Modern medicine is a truly amazing thing, and I don't even want to begin to think what would have happened to our son if he was born a generation ago, but seeing all those babies hooked up to machines and IVs and breathing masks just broke my heart. There is such a special feeling in the NICU and I'm sure there are many, many angels tending to those sweet little babies.

This morning we received a call from my doctor at Maternal-Fetal Medicine with the results from the MRI. Everything we've seen thus far on the ultrasounds gave us a lot of confidence that things would be okay and the MRI would give us positive results -- prior to the MRI, even my doctor said she expected the results to give us pretty normal lung tissue volume measurements. Well, the MRI definitely threw us a curve ball. One of the first things my doctor saw from the results is that a significant amount of liver is in our son's chest, which is not at all what we were expecting. With left-sided hernias, the liver isn't an issue since that organ develops on the right side of the body. Since the liver is also taking up space in the chest, that means the hernia is much bigger than what we've been seeing on ultrasounds... probably spanning across the entire chest cavity. The liver isn't a very "forgiving" organ (in terms of squishy-ness), so it really prevents the lung from fighting back and growing. With the liver being in the chest, that greatly affects survival rate and lung growth. That being said, the MRI wasn't able to detect any lung tissue on the right side and very little on the left side. At this stage in development, the average healthy baby has 70 cm of lung tissue total (35 cm per lung), and our son has 10 cm total on just the left side.

After surgery, once everything that shouldn't be in the chest is back in the stomach, his lungs can grow to full size. Since MRIs aren't able to detect everything, my doctor is really hoping that a small amount of lung tissue has developed on his right side, so the lung can continue growing after he's born. The real worry now is if he has enough lung tissue to make it to surgery. With all this new information, we were told his chance of survival is about 10%.

Needless to say, its been a very emotional day. During this phone call with my doctor, she reminded me that one big blessing is that fact that Little Guy's heart is just fine. Yes, his heart is pushed all the way over to the right, but it has no holes or other defects. If he had a heart defect, then everything would be much, much more complicated. She also told me that in her fifteen years working in this profession she's seen many miracles -- even though this isn't at all what we were expecting, she reminded us that we shouldn't give up hope. One definite plus of living in a highly religious area is having doctors who believe in hope, faith, and miracles. I truly do believe in miracles -- I know they happen every day, whether great or small. Austin and I are just going to keep going with the mindset that everything will be okay. I know that if I give up my hope, my emotional (and mental) sanity is the next thing to go.

Throughout this experience of uncertainty and emotional roller-coasters, we're so grateful that we already have a sweet little girl in our family. Arlee adds so much joy to our lives each and every day! She's absolutely perfect and we cannot imagine our lives without her laughter, silliness, and love. I'm so glad we have her to hug and cherish, especially on days like today. After getting off the phone with my doctor and seeing me in tears, she ran over and said, "Mommy sad!", and then gave me a great big hug. I love Arlee so much and count my lucky stars that I get to be her Mommy.

I know the Lord hears my prayers and knows exactly what I am feeling at this time. And, I'm so grateful for the faith I have in my Savior and His Atonement. No matter what happens, I know everything happens for a reason. We're so thankful for our family and friends, and all the people who've been praying for us and checking up on how things are going. We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful network of support.