20 WEEKS

Kate just came over and took some pictures of the belly.  This is Eli at 20 weeks in utero.  I am in the middle of making Kate some dinner...I have become quite the house wife.  

Eli's first picture

I seriously love this blog...it's fun.  This is an ultrasound picture of Eli I scanned into the computer (this is a big accomplishment for me).  This is from the Level 2 ultrasound where the cystic hygroma and heart problem was discoverd.  The cystic hygroma is the black area around the neck.  

Elijah

Our official name for our baby boy is Elijah Althof....for now anyway.  A nice, strong, biblical name for the strong baby he is.  We will call him Eli for short. (Like Eli Manning).  We expect great things from him and the doctor even said she wants an autograph. :)  

As for the middle name, we are still thinking.  I like Tyler.  Tyler likes Judah.  Maybe Jay, or Gerard...these have been mentioned.  The good news is, they all mean something important to us.  So no matter what the  name becomes, we are always reminded of our blessing.  

Let us know what you think, or if you have any suggestions.  

Power of prayer...thanks

My friend Ashley actually set up this blog.  I am not the best with this kind of stuff, but I think it is a great way to tell our story and keep all our family and friends up to date.  During these last few weeks, I was blown away by all the support from family and friends.  Everyone we knew was praying for us and even people we didn't know prayed for our baby.  The power of prayer is awesome.  This is a way to say thank you and keep everyone in the loop with our pregnancy.  We still have a long way to go.  We go back to the doctor for a check up in 3 weeks to take another look at the heart, but we are definitely in the clear of any major complications.  

Today, we are at 20 weeks.  Half way there.  I'm going to start posting pictures of my growing belly.  It has started to pop out and I am officially wearing maternity clothes...the cute ones. :)  Stay tuned.  

We love you all!

Our Miracle

February 25th, we were scheduled for the baby's heart echo.  As the ultrasound tech was checking out our baby boy he asked me if we had been praying.  "You can tell," he said after I had answered.  When the doctor came in she had good news.  Our baby's cystic hygroma has almost completely gone down.  This is a very rare occurrence in babies with this condition.  As the doctor looked at the heart, she told us that it looked perfectly healthy, like a brand new baby.  Our miracle.  No more worst case scenario.  "This is amazing," she kept saying.  Apparently, our doctor, who receives  all the hard cases like ours in the area, said she has not been able to give good news to someone with our condition in a very long time.  I think we made their day as much as they made ours.  "This is overdue for us," she said.  A miracle.  No bad news.  We were projected to deliver at All Children's, a hospital that specializes in complicated pregnancies and births.  We no longer have to go there or change doctors.  The doctors said sometimes babies fix themselves...I say God is great and has fixed something very small.  

Test Results

The doctor called three days later with our first set of test results.  Our baby had normal chromosomes...and was a boy! God is great!  We weren't going to find out the sex, but under the circumstances, we had to.  All the other test results came back normal as well.  This was our first hurdle and the doctor now wanted to focus on the heart.  We were scheduled for a heart echo 3 weeks later.  A heart echo is basically an ultrasound that takes a really close look at the heart.  We started to share our story with all our family and friends, co-workers and students, and we knew we had many people praying for us.  I tried to mentally put the baby's heart problem out of mind until we knew more information and could prepare ourselves for what was to come.  We praised God for the first set of good news, and kept praying.  

The story of our baby

 Pregnancy is like a roller coaster.  I expected the usual.  The ups - the new mom feeling, watching the baby grow through my belly, and shopping and eating for two.  And the downs - the nausea-for the entire first three months, and the absence of Starbucks and sushi.  However, I didn't expect any complications.  We're young and healthy and were far from being considered "high risk".  

At 14 weeks, we started bleeding.  It was only a scare and after 4 hours in the hospital, a bunch of blood work, and a very long ultrasound, the baby seemed fine and we were free to go.  They did want us to do a Level 2 ultrasound and one was scheduled once we were 16 weeks.  During the ultrasound the doctor said our baby had some swelling in the neck.  This swelling is diagnosed as a cystic hygroma, basically, fluid build-up.  Along with the presence of the baby's cystic hygroma, the heart was not developed fully, but it was too early to know what was exactly wrong.  With this news, the doctors thought our baby had a chromosomal abnormality or a major heart defect that was causing this cystic hygroma.  I had an amnio done and was told to wait for the results so we would know more.  According to the doctor, our best case scenario would be heart surgery once the baby was born.  This was not the news we expected.  What do you do when there is nothing to do as a parent?  

Tyler and I both stayed positive and prayed for miracle.  We knew our baby was fighter and we had faith that God would provide a miracle if we asked him.  The next morning, I felt peace for our baby and tried to keep our mind off the waiting we faced.