Ultrasound #2
It had been 6 days since the first ultrasound, 6 very long days. This appointment was in the morning and Sarah and I both told our bosses that depending on how it went we might not be coming in. We sat in the waiting room for a little while and then we were called back. They did the complete ultrasound again, all the measurements, structures, etc, etc. And again, when it came to the images of the heart, the technician was very quiet and extremely thorough. After she was done she left the room for a bit to look at the images, I assume with the radiologist. She came back in and did some more, then left again. She came back in a third time, this time with the radiologist himself.
The radiologist confirmed our fear, our son had hypoplastic left heart syndrome. I don’t remember what else he said, if anything, it’s all a blur to me. The tech and the radiologist left the room and Sarah and I took a few minutes to compose ourselves before we left. Nobody likes giving bad news especially when it’s about a child. I looked at the technicians face and she too looked like she was about to cry, I put my arm around her on my way out and said thanks for you help, as if she was the one that needed a hug.
I called my boss and told him that I was not coming in. He was obviously very understanding and told me to take as much time as I needed. I was at work a few hours later, I needed the distraction desperately and preparing a boatload of samples did just the trick. I called my mom and gave her the bad news, we didn’t talk long, but I gave her a synopsis of what HLHS was. I am sure she spent much of the rest of her day reading about it too.
I didn’t go in at all the following day, instead I drove to Lansing and spent some time with friends and went to MSU to do some research at their library about HLHS. I didn’t turn up anything at MSU that I could not have found at home, but again it was a nice distraction.
What’s next from here? Well they switched us to a high risk OB, scheduled another ultrasound, an appointment with a genetic counselor, and a fetal echocardiogram.
