Confirmation

Tuesday finally dawned after the longest weekend of my life. I dont know how much I slept that night, but I know it wasn't much. I couldn't so much as look at food without feeling sick, and when I thought too much about anything at all I would have to run to the sink to dry wretch and sob.

The appointment was at lunchtime so I spent the morning in a haze. My inlaws arrived so my mother in law could come with us, and my father in law could take my son out for the day with my dad. We all sat around trying to act as normal as possible, as much for our own sanity as anything else. I tried, but I wasn't coping at all well. It was cold outside, the wind was bitter, but i kept finding excuses to go and sit in the garden away from everyone else.

Finally, after what seemed like days, it was time to go.

My mum drove us all the hour or so to the hospital. Oddly, as we headed for the motorway, my nausea lifted. We were doing something. I wasn't just sat at home staring at a wall. We were doing a something, a positive action rather than passive thought. It was amazing what a difference that made. I remember even laughing on the way there. Aside from feeling groggy with a sore throat (which I put down as the result of near constant sobbing) it was the most normal I had felt in nearly a week.

All that changed in the waiting room. The longer I sat there staring at the TV, the worse I felt. Sick. Shaky. Light headed. The minutes dragged by, and every time one of the staff came into the waiting room I jumped about a foot in the air. Several times I nearly passed out. I was sat doing nothing but thinking and thinking was not a good thing.

We knew the Doctors were running behind, but we didn't really mind. If they were running behind it probably meant that somebody had had some devastating news to deal with, and although we didn't know what was in store for us, we took some comfort in knowing that we would be looked after and given time.

Eventually, it was our turn. We filed into the scanning room with the consultant and stared at the screen. The consultant was lovely and explained what she was looking at, but she didn't need to. I saw the cleft as plain as day. She did lots of measurements and looked in detail at every part of the baby, measuring sizes and spaces and God knows what else.

Just as she finished we asked if she could tell us what we were having. A week ago we didn't want to know, but now we were desperate. We wanted to build a personality for our child, and not have them defined by what lay ahead regardless of what it was. She had a look and there was no doubt.

A boy. Another little boy.

We were delighted to know. It didn't matter to us either way but we knew and it made all the difference.

After wiping the conductive gel off my stomach (how does that stuff get EVERYWHERE?) we were shown into another room and left for a few minutes while the Doctor colated everything. She came in  with  a midwife and went through what she had found.

The diagnoses of a cleft lip was confirmed, and a cleft palate was probable although always difficult to confirm.

It was a unilateral cleft on the left hand side, and unilateral clefts are less likely to be connected to chromosome abnormalities. This coupled with the fact that all other measurements were completely normal meant that she thought that there was a less than 0.5% chance of a chromosome abnormality. The risk to the baby of a miscarriage through amniocentesis is 1%. The decision was made for us. If we were to have the amniocentesis test and it caused a miscarriage, the likelihood is we would have miscarried a healthy baby.

I must stress again here that this was our decision. I would never ever judge anyone for making a different decision. 

It was the best outcome we could have hoped for. We knew they were never going to say 100% that everything was going to be ok. We knew that they would never 100% rule out chromosomal issues, but if you had asked me that morning I would have bitten your hand off for 0.5%.

The Doctor and Midwife explained everything clearly, answered all of our questions and gave us all the time and space we needed. They fully explained that amniocentesis proceedure and, although we declined, said we could contact them if we changed our mind. They arranged for the cleft team from Birmingham Children's Hospital to make contact with us but otherwise all other antenatal care and delivery could take place at our local hospital.

We left with a numb relief and started phoning our immediate family to tell them the news.

We knew we had a long way to go, but knowing what we were facing gave us a starting point. We hadn't come to terms with it yet, not by a long way, but by knowing what we were dealing with meant we could work towards accepting it and moving forward. I was 21 + 2. What a difference a week makes.