Isaac’s journey all started in May of 2002. I was pregnant! What joyous news! My OB put my due date on January 9th, 2003. A special day since it is the date of the birthdays of both my sister and grandmother. We told everybody we knew about our new little one growing within my womb. Our three children were excited at the prospect of having a new little brother or sister and we prayed daily for the life inside of me.
August came along and it was time for our ultrasound (I was 18 weeks along). We weren’t sure if we wanted to find out the sex of our new baby or if we wanted it to be a surprise. For a long time, I told my husband that I wanted to be surprised so I could experience what it felt like to be told that the baby was a boy or a girl when he or she was born. But on the day of the ultrasound, I decided I wanted to know! If the baby was a boy like God had promised, I had to plan. After all, my two other pregnancies brought forth two little girls. Little did we know that we wouldn’t even be thinking about the sex of the baby considering the news we were about to receive from the doctor concerning our new child.
The Sonographer was VERY quiet throughout the ultrasound. She didn’t want to tell us what anything was. At first we thought she just didn’t want to talk. But after she took us into a different room to wait for the doctor and didn’t give us any pictures of the ultrasound, we got a little nervous. We had no clue to what was coming. The doctor came in and said there was a problem with our little baby. They thought something was wrong with the baby’s heart and she was sending us to Swedish to have an extensive ultrasound. What heart-wrenching news! We went home and cried. It was supposed to have been a wonderful day with exciting news… not news that worried us to no end. A mother never thinks that she will have a pregnancy that is doomed. We think that nothing can go wrong with our baby. But it did with mine. It started from one small little problem.
The following week, we went to Swedish for another ultrasound. Heart problems were ruled out. But many other problems were found. The major one being that our baby’s abdomen was filled with fluid because he had a Posterior Urethral Valve (PUV) that blocked his ability to urinate. His bladder was enlarged but most of the fluid was leaking into his abdomen giving him something called Ascites and Prune Belly Syndrome (PBS). Since our baby couldn’t urinate, the Amniotic Fluid surrounding him was very low (AFI levels between 2-3). In fact, so low that the doctors said his lungs would never be formed enough to support him thus giving him Potter’s Syndrome. The baby’s arms and legs were not growing at the rate they should have been either. They were a couple of weeks behind. What agony! I didn’t even know these problems existed let alone think they could happen to my precious baby!
After the ultrasound, we met with the Genetic Counselor. He told us about the many complications that our baby had and that I could miscarry any day. Since his problems were so severe and rare, there was no hope for him. We were given a zero percent of survival for him. The Genetic Counselor also said that the problems the baby had were mostly problems that boys got, so he was pretty certain the baby was a little boy. A boy! How could this be happening to my son!?! A son that God told me He wanted to give to me!?! While in tears, we listened as the Genetic Counselor gave us our options.
Abortion was out of the question! I could never take matters into my own hands. I would carry this baby until God decided to take him away from me. Both my husband and I stood up for what we believe in. We had to be strong for this baby. After all, I didn’t want my son to get to heaven and know that I didn’t fight for him. To know that I gave up on him as soon as things got too difficult. No way! My son was going to know how much I loved him. He was going to know that I would never lose my hope, trust or faith in God.
Another ultrasound was set up for a week later to see if anything had changed for the better. At that appointment, things got worse. The doctor told us Isaac would not live. He was going to die. It was just a matter of time. They also found that he had ClubFoot at this time. Something common with PBS and low fluid levels. The Perinatal Doctor told us of a procedure we could try, but it was very risky and would most likely not even help. It wasn’t worth the risks, so we decided against it. I didn’t want to lose my baby at 19 weeks because I wanted to try something that had a huge chance of not even working and possibly harming him more. So we went home and we prayed. It was the only thing we could do.
Isaac’s name was so appropriate at this time now. We had juggled between several boy names and finally had chosen Isaac because his name meant laughter, which went along with my name, Joy. His name was picked out shortly before our first ultrasound and now it meant so much more to me. His name reminded me of the story in the Bible of Abraham and his son, Isaac (Genesis 22:1-18). Abraham had to not only say, but to prove that God was more important that his only son. So we laid our son Isaac on the altar. I handed him over to God because God was the only One who could save him. And anyway, Isaac was not truly my son to begin with. He is God’s child and was only on loan to me for a time. I decided to cherish every single day I had with my little Isaac from there on.
At 28 weeks, I had another ultrasound to see how things were going since Isaac was still hanging out in my womb unlike the doctors anticipated. This ultrasound was worse. Ugh! And we thought that because we got everybody praying, things would get better, but they didn’t. God still had His plans. So, here Isaac is at 28 weeks gestation...his belly is measuring the size of a 41 week-old fetus, the legs of a 21 week-old fetus, and the head of a 24/25 week-old fetus. There is still very little fluid surrounding him at this time as well. The doctor told me at this point that Isaac’s movement would slow down drastically (not that I felt him a whole lot at the time). He would eventually stop growing all together and then his heart would give out and I would deliver a stillborn baby. There was no medical chance for this baby. Ouch. My heart couldn’t take it anymore! But I still prayed… and got many other people to pray with me.
We met with the doctor a week later to discuss what our birth plan would be. We decided that since Isaac’s lungs wouldn’t be big enough to support him, we didn’t want to intervene to save him if he couldn’t be saved anyway. We didn’t want to put him through something that was just going to cause more pain. So we opted for the chance to hold and love on Isaac quietly without the doctors around when he was born. We wanted him to go peacefully.
Then strange things started to take place. One week, I gained three pounds. The next week, I told the doctor that Isaac was moving a lot…more than ever! She said she didn’t know how to explain that one. He should be moving less as he got bigger since he was so cramped in my womb with so little fluid. The next week, he was still moving a lot and my doctor decided she want another ultrasound to find out what was going on with him. Only she wanted it within the week and the Sonographer at her office didn’t have any appointments available until after Thanksgiving. So, my doctor sent me to Valley Hospital to have another ultrasound the day before Thanksgiving. The news we received was amazing!
When I first got to the ultrasound appointment, the Sonographer didn’t know exactly what my doctor wanted her to look at (even though my doctor was specific on the phone), so she decided they would look at everything. And oh my gosh! The fluid went up to a level 10 (it was a 2/3 previously)! Low, but not too bad for 34 weeks. His head was just the right size now. His legs were still behind and they still saw the Clubfoot. She actually saw his boy parts this time! And his face! He was sitting Indian-style in my womb and pretty much had been in the same position since 18 weeks. Poor little guy. They also found that Isaac only had a two-vessel umbilical cord rather than the normal three. Which could explain some of his growth problems. And then the big news… his belly hadn’t gotten any bigger in five weeks! And his kidneys were processing! So now, the PUV didn’t look like a complete blockage! Wow! My doctor was almost as excited as we were. She actually had hope for the very first time. Another appointment was set for December 12th at Swedish for another extensive ultrasound of the thorax area and also the possibility of an amniocentesis to check for his lung development (our birth plan was going to change if his lungs were big enough). You can’t even imagine what we felt like after this news. What an answer to prayer! We got everybody who was praying excited and praying even more after this wonderful day.............
