This has been several years in the making, our journey with our little girl wasn’t long enough but we learned so much from our time with her, and I think it only fitting to share it with others with the hope to help anyone else who may be going through something similar.

Early 2018 we found out we were finally pregnant with our second child…..felt like it had taken forever to finally get pregnant again, but here we were. In July it was time for our 20 week sonogram, you know the one where you get to see how big the baby is finally after months of not getting to see anything and of course find out the gender if you choose to. We were surprised with our first, but this time around, mama needed to plan! So we were going to find out but only via a gender reveal party. We told the sonogram tech that if she saw anything to not say a word, simply put it on a piece of paper and into an envelope for us. I would later give this to my mother for safe keeping and for her to be the only one who would know before the party. No pressure hahaha!

While we’re there watching all the images on the screen, with no clue what we’re actually seeing until she explains, the tech says she can’t get a good angle or something of one of the measurements they needed since baby was moving too much. She went to grab the doc to see if he could assist, so we figured nothing of it. He comes back in, takes a look and then we start to get nervous as he’s taking quite awhile as well and not saying much. Once the doc finishes he then explains he saw something abnormal with her heart. It could be nothing or it could be something……..and thus begins the WTF thoughts in our heads.

He couldn’t get a good enough look to see if there was just a small blockage or a defect. He immediately wanted to get us to see a pediatric cardiologist that could get a better look. So he called, got us in for the next day and off went the emails of us calling out of work the next day. Naturally we’re scared and nervous wreaks since we never imagined anything was wrong with the baby.

The next day we ventured to this cardiologist, my pregnant self yet again had to have a somewhat full bladder for this so I’m dying to pee the whole way there (an hour drive from where we live) and wracking our brains as to what it could be. Another sonogram later and the doc saying that he could “stare at it all day and it still would not look normal.” The baby definitely had a heart defect of some kind, her left side looked more narrow than the right from what they could see. So off went the suggestions, possibilities and where to go for care from here.

After spending the rest of the day together having lunch and walking around town, my husband and I discussed everything, including the options of hospitals we were given. Over Children’s in DC or Loudon in VA, we decided to transfer my care to Hopkins in Baltimore. That would be where our baby would be born as well in case of possible surgery, plus it was closer for me for work. From there is where our journey began for this wild ride we went on.