Our Story

Hi,
I want to start by telling you we started this post to inform and update everyone on how our family is progressing. Married in June of 09, we found we were beginning to grow our family in August. This was exciting news although slightly stressful because I had just began nursing school. We made it through Christmas with no complaints. After Christmas, we started to realize that our world was starting to be turned upside down. A few days after Christmas we went for a routine 20 week ultrasound and were so excited to find out the sex of our little one. It turned out that Daddy was right and we were to have a little boy, but the Dr wanted us to see a specialist as he saw excess fluid on our baby's brain. We were upset and scared, but were assured it could be nothing. Two weeks later, at 22 weeks pregnant, we traveled to a maternal fetal specialist to get a level 3 ultrasound. We found out then that our precious baby boy had spina bifida. We recieved tons of information and had an amniocentesis done to check for chromosomal abnormalities such as down syndrome. It was a painful procedure and involved a needle being inserted through the stomach into the uterus to withdraw amniotic fluid. I was terrified because there is a risk of miscarriage from the procedure but was assured it was the best thing to do for the baby.

The amnio results came back normal so after much consideration we opted to try to have prenatal surgery to try and correct the fluid on the brain before birth. We were flown to the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia for three days of intense testing to check for eligibility. After the three days we were told our baby had other problems making us ineligible for surgery. We were devastated and came home feeling hopeless.

When we returned from Philidelphia we went back to the doctor around 26 weeks and were told our baby had Intrauterine growth restriction and was measuring behind in size. Our umbilical cord blood flow was also abnormal. I was put on bedrest and for the next 5 weeks monitored our little one as he got worse and our fluid level started to decline. At 31 weeks his cord blood flow became dangerous to him and his amniotic fluid level dropped to severely low levels. We were sent to Indiana University Hospital and have been here for the last three weeks. We are monitored three times a day and although things are looking good now they could change anytime causing a need for immediate delivery. Our baby who we have decided to name Lane Payton, will be born no later than April 19th and shipped to Riley Childrens Hospital to start repairing his spina bifida.

I will be updating frequently.....thanks so much for your time :)