The rest of the pregnancy remained fairly uneventful. I had the normal (used lightly) NSTs, ultrasounds, and high-risk OB visits. At one visit I was told I had too much amniotic fluid (say what!?). Isn't too much of something good? At another I was told I had the perfect amount of amniotic fluid (my thoughts at this: "is it leaking out somewhere cause last week there was too much?") With the back and forth I was again forced to visit Google and the Mayo Clinic. From what I gathered too much amniotic fluid could be a sign of gestational diabetes (negative for that), or genetic abnormalities... or it could be absolutely nothing! I think at this point my heart knew, knew that there was something else with this little boy. My brain said otherwise... often the two don't talk.
I was schedule to be induced at 39 weeks and 1 day. I know "induction" is the equivalent of the f-bomb in some circles, but in this instance it was medically necessary because of the too-much-amniotic-fluid situation. They didn't think he was "eating" and "getting rid of" the fluid the right way.
The day of the induction I felt like I was 90 years pregnant. The hospital canceled my appointment to come in... apparently the L&D ward was filled. To the max. I cried. I was tired. Tired of being pregnant, ready to meet Jeremy, tired of worrying if he was going to survive the whole process... I just wanted him out where I could hold him and know it would be okay. L&D called a few hours later and had a room available, "come in" they said!
At 8 PM the process started. I slept (kind of) the night, and hung out most of the day. About 1 PM the next day the contractions started. We had placed bets with the nursing staff when he would be born, one nurse had 2:15 PM. At about 2 PM I knew he was one his way, the nursing staff told me to wait. I may have laughed at this. At 2:13 PM he was born. I didn't get to hold him, he was taken away... they had to check his heart.
About an hour later my husband still hadn't seen or heard from the nurses and he went to find out where Jeremy went. They took him to a room where Jeremy was having an echocardiogram performed via video teleconference between the staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (our hospital) and San Antonio AFB's Wilford Hall.
The head doctor came to the room I was in and explained a few things: Jeremy's right foot was definitely clubbed, his heart defect was far more than a VSD, and they suspected he had Trisomy 21 because he had too many markers for it, that it could not be "just a coincidence."
I thought to myself, "Okay. I've got this."
What would happen now? The whole focus of the EFMP had been his clubbed foot and if he could receive care in Germany for it. The heart defect was a consideration, but was not what was driving the EFMP at that point. The military had elected to not move us, because there was care for the foot in Germany. But now? There were no pediatric cardiologists that could care for him. Worse yet, they said they didn't know what would happen when he reached one month old when the pregnancy hormones that were keeping his heart function as normal as possible would leave his tiny body.
We spent less than 48 hours in the NICU at Landstuhl, on his second day on earth this sweet child of mine racked up the largest bill for an airplane ticket I have ever seen hitching a ride on a C-17 to the US.
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