September 23rd was a beautiful Monday. We woke and started calling Marky for his birthday. He was turning the big 4! I love that little kid so much. He is hilarious and can always brighten my day. There was going to be cake and ice cream later but unfortunately I wouldn't be able to attend. The kids and Jason went though.

Jason had the day off so he went with me to the second ultrasound. One good thing about "advanced maternal age" is the amount of ultrasounds. I've seen Baby Brother so many times I can't even keep count! Luckily we didn't have to wait long and the ultrasound tech called us back. This was the longest ultrasound I have ever had to sit through. As fun as it was to see the little guy you can only lay there for so long before you are completely uncomfortable. Especially with all the poking trying to get just the right picture. Not to mention Baby Brother is still very comfortable being a mover and shaker. I can't tell you how many times the tech said "I wish he would just sit still". We laughed. That's our boy :) This ultrasound last 2 hours. Yes! 2 HOURS! Like I said, longest ultrasound of my life! The tech kept saying she couldn't get him to sit still long enough to measure his aorta in his heart. I didn't even know they measured the aorta! I knew they measured the femur and the skull and things like that but seriously, they even measure the aorta?? Talk about millimeters! Finally she decided to give up and just said she would go get the doctor to come talk to us. This didn't alert us in any way because that's what happened with this first scan. The doctor came in, told us everything was measuring normally, tried once again to get me to agree to the genetic testing (which I, again, declined) and told me not to gain too much weight since I'm already a big girl. So, when she said she was going to get the doctor we didn't flinch.

Dr. Acuna from Regional Obstetrics Consultants (the ROC) came in and started going through all the pictures. This looks good, that looks good, good measurement here, measuring good there, and then she came to the pictures of the his heart. She got very quite and went through the pictures without saying anything. The look on her face let me know something was not quite right. She stared at the pictures and then began to talk. There was a problem with the heart. She wasn't really sure of the exact problem but they could see blood flowing through the right side, top and bottom, but the left lower chamber seemed to not have blood flowing correctly. She said a lot of words I didn't really understand and I just cried and held Jason's hand. She wanted me to go to a Pediatric Cardiologist to let them take a look and make the final diagnosis. Could I really be hearing this right? My baby might have a heart issue? How is this even possible? I immediately asked leaned into Jason and whispered "let's keep this between us for now". I don't know why. It just felt like the right thing to do and I'm glad we made that pact. As I was trying to check out a nurse called me into the office so we could make the appointment together. On a sticky note I saw "mitral valve and aortic stenosis" written on it with the name of the Cardiologist. I asked if she would write that down on the paper she wrote my appointment but she didn't. She said she would then I guess forgot, but one doesn't forget a possible heart problem of their unborn child. The appointment was scheduled for Thursday, September 26th and as a parting request she asked that we not "google" stenosis but that if we absolutely had to, to please stick to collegiate websites. Anyone can create a website and put anything on it but the collegiate sites will have the backing of science and experience to back them up. They will give us real and true information.

The ride home was weird. Jason and I spoke but it was almost as if we were in a daze. Confused about everything. I cried. Jason was strong. He reminded me of our little stinker not letting them get accurate measurements and told me to remain open minded until we knew exactly what was happening. He said it was probably nothing and the appointment on Thursday would confirm it. All of his supportive words and common sense still didn't make me feel any better. You see, I've had so many dreams (nightmares!) about miscarriage. I must have dreamed no less than 5 times that I miscarried this little guy. I even had an appointment with my regular OB where they couldn't find his heartbeat. They had to stick me on the ultrasound machine. Luckily he was just hanging out low and they were trying to find him higher. What a relief it was to make it past the 1st trimester. To know he was still there. But that sinking feeling only seemed to subside for a bit. So, as you can imagine, this almost felt like an Ah ha moment. But not in the good way.

That night the kids and Jason went to my parents for Marky's birthday party. Like I said, I couldn't go so I stayed home. Jason hated leaving me after the news we received but he took the kids because it was important they be there. He texted me basically the entire time. I'm sure he seemed like a horrible party guest but hey, his wife comes first. And that is OK by me. I was thankful for his texting and checking in. Now we just had to wait until Thursday.