| Bryce's Pregnancy |
| My husband and I met at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, MO in 1990. We married in 1996. From the day we were married, and even before, we looked forward to having children. We began seriously trying have children in 2002. On March 11, 2004, we took our first positive pregnancy test. Oh, the joy we felt when we found out that we were expecting little Bryce or Leena. I cried for several minutes while Prentice just held me tight...then I looked at him and said, "Good job, honey!" We called our parents. They cried with us. We called almost everyone we knew it seemed, because we knew they would share in our joy. We got our first look at Bryce at our ultrasound on April 1, 2004. The pictures are shown below. |
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| He is the little peanut in the middle. Of course, I cried when we saw the tiny heartbeat. Prentice did too. Bryce was so very wanted and so very loved. We had taken tons of pregnancy tests that were negative and to finally have a positive one...what a blessing! |
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| At our 20 week ultrasound in June, we were excited to see our precious baby again and to hopefully find out if we would be blessed with a boy or a girl. Well, the baby wouldn't cooperate, so we still did not know if it was Bryce or Leena. The time for my appointment had been messed up that day, so I actually saw my OB prior to my ultrasound. She would review the results and call me if there were any problems. Here's how Bryce looked at 20 weeks gestation..his precious face. |
| Somewhere around 3 p.m. on June 24, 2004, I got a call at work from my OB. There was a problem with the ultrasound. The baby had a hole in his diaphragm which was allowing his stomach to protrude into his chest cavity. This defect could hinder lung development, but the overall survival rate I was given was 75%. Those were good odds in my eyes, nevertheless, much of our day was spent crying. We called our family and our pastor to tell them about the situation. On July 1, I saw that maternal fetal medicine specialist at SIU School of Medicine here in Springfield. She performed an amniocentesis in order to determine if Bryce had chromosomal abnormalities. We were not given good odds...about 1 in 135 could have trisomy 13 or 18, which would probably result in death of the child. I remember being so very scared that day. I remember thinking that if we had to lose the baby, I wished that it would be sooner, rather than later. The specialist also mentioned that Bryce was showing at only 21 weeks gestation, but that he had actually been at almost 23 weeks gestation. The results of the amnio came back with normal chromosomes and we were finally certain that we were having a boy. Our precious Bryce. He was named after his uncle who died in infancy, Robert Bryce, and his maternal grandfather, Joseph. I can't stress how relieved we were that he had no chromosomal abnormalities. We thought that gave him a pretty good chance. |
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| This is me at 24 weeks gestation. We found out that because of the surgery that Bryce's condition (Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia - CDH) would require, Bryce would have to be delivered in St. Louis and would be cared for at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Late in the month, we had a fetal EKG at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Bryce's heart looked fine, but it was uncertain, so a second procedure was scheduled for August. A fetal MRI was also scheduled to check the baby's entire system out. The same day, we met with neonatologists at Children's Hospital. Bryce's prognosis was not good because he was still not growing as he should. We needed to keep him in utero as long as possible to give him time to grow. He was only about a pound and a half and should have been about 3 pounds by then. |