Heart break

We had some very hard and sad news on Friday 15th February. I wrote an email to some of our friends and it's the easiest way to journal it here too...

Dear Friends,

It’s with a heavy heart we send this email to you; unfortunately it does not bring good news about our little bambino. We went for a routine scan (at 21 weeks) on Friday (15^th Feb) at Whyalla Hospital. It became clear quite quickly that things were not going well for bambino. They found a few things they were concerned with. There was extra fluid on the brain, some issues with the spine and they thought there might be a cleft lip/pallet. They made an appointment for us immediately in Adelaide for Monday morning. So this past weekend was pretty crap as we waited thinking about what could be happening for our little bambino and to hear a second opinion. We had done a little bit of research with the small amount of information we had and we thought that maybe they were concerned that bambino had spina bifida.

We had our appointment yesterday (Monday 18^th Feb) and after 3 hours of ultra sound and meeting with the Doctors and Midwife it is all bad news. They think that bambino has a genetic condition known as Trisomy 13 or 18. It’s on the extreme end of genetic disorders with the baby having a number of different problems. There are some deformities of the hands and feet, a cleft face and pallet; scoliosis and extreme brain formation problems. There is a possibility that I will have a miscarriage but they said more likely that the baby would die during birth or shortly thereafter. This is the most likely diagnosis but we will not know for certain until we have the results of an amniocentesis that we will have done next Tuesday (and even then it’s a couple of weeks waiting for those results). We went to have that test done today but because my placenta was obstructing where they needed to extract the fluid we will come back next week. We also meet with a cardiologist for them to do an ECHO (which from what I can understand is a special heart ultrasound) on bambino on Monday.

As you can imagine we are absolutely shattered and heart broken.  If you are someone who prays we would really appreciate your prayer support. We are likely to be travelling to Adelaide (from Whyalla…which is around 4 hours each way) every 2-3 weeks for a check-up/monitor at the clinic at the Woman’s and Children’s hospital in Adelaide. At 34 weeks (mid May) I’ll come to Adelaide and wait to deliver here.  As a lot of you are aware, Tim has literally just started his work in Whyalla. The congregation have been very supportive but I am really worried for Tim with the load of travelling back and forward for appointments and doing his work. 

We were able to find out that Bambino is a little boy and will be naming him in the coming weeks so we can bond with him as much as possible.

If you do happen to text or email, Thank you and please bear with us as we get back to you, we are pretty physically and emotionally exhausted even in these first few days and we know the next weeks, months…year(s) will be pretty tough, but we appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Much love

Loz and Tim xxx

Since writing this email we have had the echo and the heart is generally fine. We were also able to have the amnio successfully and we are now waiting for the results. Every day is different but our hearts are slightly lighter now then what they were a week ago. But it is going to be a long few weeks, months....year(s)