Oh Baby! Our Story..

As many of you already know, we are expecting our second baby in March. With that have came many obstacles and new challenges for our family to face. I am not a good blogger, but have decided that until the time comes for me to start our Caring Bridge page, this may be the best possible way to get the info to all of our family and friends.

When we went to our 20 week ultrasound, we found out BBK2 has what is called gastroschisis. This is a hole that is located next to the umbilical cord in the baby's adomen and the baby's intestines are growing outside through the hole. Scary, right? Just a little. Jan started explaining, and my head was spinning. Somehow the only words I managed to digest were "hole", "intestines", "Minneapolis", and "fixable". Having been through a terrible month already (several deaths, one of which was a friend's 4 year old son), the one word that stuck in my brain fortunately was "fixable".

Last weekend we headed to Minneapolis to find out just what we had ahead of us. Though the news is still scary, we got more and more reassurance and good news with each doctor we saw. I will be delivering in Minneapolis at 37 weeks, which will be the very beginning of March. I told Lee it's a good thing I'm not shy--there will be somewhere between 15-20 doctors delivering this baby. From my doctor and his team, the baby's doctor and her team, my own nurses, respiratory specialists, you name it.. I feel like we are in great hands. The baby will then be taken immediately through the underground tunnel to the Children's Hospital where the pediatric surgeon will likely be peforming surgery to fix the hole within the same day. This isn't common, but our situation is looking so good that he assured us surgery will be able to happen almost immediately.

After surgery we will begin the long road to recovery. These babies have to "be taught" to eat, since it is sometimes weeks before they get actual milk/formula. Typically something like this will require anywhere from a 6 week minimum in the NICU on up to 12 weeks or more. It's quite a process to get the baby eating and digesting food properly. If our stay ends up being a very long one, they are able to eventually fly the baby back to Bismarck to finish NICU recovery there.

Once the baby is born we will have a Caring Bridge page where I can keep everybody updated on his/her progress and what is happening. Until then I will try and update on here, as we will have LOTS of doctor appointments and LOTS of ultrasounds, which is SO COOL (I thought having a 4D ultrasound was amazing but it didn't even compare to how incredible a level 2 u/s is, which is the highest u/s technology in the world at this point)! Until next time.. <3

BBK2 in 4D--look at those cute little butt cheeks!


BBK2's profile at almost 25 weeks, taken in Minneapolis 12/2.