Our Longest Days

   Thanks for everyone's oh-so-sweet messages on my last post about us having a son! It really meant so much.

   With online classes and summer school and vacation and getting ready for our baby, I never took the time to post the full story of the day we found out our baby is a "he" and then getting a (false) report that he had cysts on his kidneys.  It was one of those experiences that I wanted to take time to really express, ending in this bloated post.  If you make it to the bottom, you are officially more patient than I usually am.

    I once wrote a post called "The Dog that Doesn't Bark" (here) about taking the time to be thankful for when the things that you worry about don't happen, when the other shoe never drops, when the boss's cryptic e-mail is nothing, when a diagnoses is wrong.  I talked about keeping a piece of shattered window after a car accident as a reminder that I was okay, trying desperately to hold on to those feelings of gratitude that I left a totaled car with barely a scratch on me. 

    It sucks how easy it is to forget those feeling of true, unadulterated thankfulness when the stress and normalcy of life resumes.   I know it was less than a week after that accident when I was bitching about some nasty parent e-mail to Dan when I chided myself, "This is so dumb to stress about!  I'm okay!  Things could have turned out so differently on Monday!  Enough about the stupid parent!" 

    I guess despite all the "Don't sweat the small stuff" platitudes, it's easier said that done, but I sure as hell am going to try, starting with this post.

    First, SPOILER ALERT:  Everything turned out okay.  I don't want this to come off as wanting sympathy or seeming unnecessarily dramatic.  I'm sure it will read as maybe melodramatic because it was only a partial day of worrying, but it felt like so much longer.

 It's more for posterity's sake for me to remember what a gift it was to learn our boy is healthy.

   Here's how that Tuesday and Wednesday went down:

Tuesday, June 11th

* 8:30- While lathering hair, I say a little prayer that everything will be okay with our baby... and that he or she will show the goods!  No crossed legs, Baby!  We want to know what you will be!

* 9:40- The technician squirts cold goo on my stomach and begins the ultrasound.  She turns the screen away so she sees everything better, measuring the limbs and heart and spine.  I make Dan go around the bed so he can see everything.  She's very quiet with concentration.  I ask, "Does everything look okay?"  She tells me the doctor will explain everything later.

* 10:20: After forty minutes of silence and working, she asks if we want to know the sex.  Dan and I hold hands and she turns the screen to us.  I feel like I've known what he has been since the first ultrasound, and it is confirmed before she even says a word!  Baby is "sitting" on area where wand is, and there is a definite something between those legs!  Dan fist pumps like the Redskins just scored, and we kiss.

Our baby won't move his hands away from his face for a photo, so the technician rapidly taps my stomach to startle him.  I cry when I see his little dinosaur hand reach out in surprise and, at the same time, feel a tiny flutter inside.  He's really there.

* 10:40:  Meet with doctor, who begins studying the long sheets of ultrasound photos.  She says, "Yep, you can start painting that nursery blue!" when she sees sex photo.

 After rattling through almost all of the photos, she pauses and then says, "There's one thing I am concerned with.  You see these white spots? Those are cysts on both of his kidneys.  Do you have a family history of polycystic kidney disorder?"

* 11:00:  After we answer "no", she is very calm and says that we just need more information before discussing the severity of this.  When we ask what can be done for a baby with polycystic disorder, she evades the question and tells us she wants us to see a specialist for in-utero diagnoses the next morning at nine.  She is eerily calm except for the comment, "Before we doom this baby, let's get more information."  Those were her exact words.  Still, because she was so matter-of-fact, no panic set in yet.  I remember being thankful that the issue was "just" with the kidneys and not the heart or brain.

Cysts on kidneys could disappear, right?

    I worry out loud about getting off of work because it's the last week of school.  She tells me, "They will understand.  You are going to want to make this appointment." 

* 11:30:  Dan and I leave the office and are both quiet and beginning to worry a bit. Dan reasons, "We just need more information, which we will get tomorrow, so what is there to do now?"   He suggests going out to lunch to toast our son.

* 11:45:  When we arrive at the restaurant, I call my dad and tell him everything looked good on the ultrasound, except that the doctor saw cysts on his kidneys.  "We don't have a history of polycystic kidney disorder in our family, do we, Dad?"

My dad is quiet for a long time and then says, "I mean, my father died of kidney failure in his 40's." 

* 12:20:  Panic. I never met my grandfather so when the doctor asked about a family history, his battle with kidney failure wasn't even on my radar (the dialysis, the multiple visits to Boston for treatment, the transplant, his death).  Now that we have a family history of this, everything seems real.

Our boy is sick.  His life hasn't even begun, and he's sick.
  
12:40:  I am on my iPhone during lunch, Googling "cysts on kidneys" and reading about when this develops on fetuses.  Most stories start with cysts, then the kidneys enlarge, and stop working.  Stillborns.  Babies who die three days after birth because their kidneys stop working and there is nothing a doctor can do.  You can't do a transplant on an infant.  The luckier kids make it to toddlerhood and after years of dialysis, some are able to have successful kidney transplants.  None of the stories mention both kidneys not working.  There are no stories of successful double kidney transplants.  The doctor said there were cysts in both kidneys.  Dan gets on his phone too.


The waitress must have thought we were in a spat or something because she avoids our table when she sees my eyes streaming.

1:00:  I lose it in the car.  Dan is silent, hugging me.

2:00-4:00:  I text anyone I love and ask for prayers.  I Google "polycystic kidney disorder" at nauseum.  I desperately Google, "Cysts on kidneys disappear" just to see if there are any happy stories.  There aren't.  Dan is still zombie-like stoic and hasn't cried yet, just biting his lower lip and telling me to stop Googling.  This makes me feel alone because I want him to lose it right alongside of me.  I ask him what he's thinking and he just says practical stuff like, "We need to re-finance our house on 30 years so that we can afford the best medical care we can." 

 My mom calls and says she is driving the hour and a half down to be with us.

5:00:  Dan and I go to my school to leave lesson plans, him being there just for moral support. 

Mary, a teacher from across the hall, stops in and tells me how my seventh period was throwing things and making animal noises to annoy the sub and that I should write detentions for each of the culprits. I say, "I don't give a shit about that right now" and start crying.  She hugs me and two other teachers nearby wander in because they hear my sobbing.  Tell them everything. 

8:30:  My dad calls and says that he did some research.  He doesn't know the sex yet (I'm still holding on to that as a surprise for my parents later.  I just don't want to reveal the news in the same breath that I tell them about the cysts).

 In our conversations, he mentions that he discovered cysts were more common in baby boys.  He says he is coming down after his meeting and will be at our house at midnight.

10:00:  Pray and fall asleep. 

Wednesday

6:30:  It's Dan's birthday.  I wake early to pick up treats:  the annual birthday balloon that I always buy, Boston creme doughnuts, fruit, and egg white sandwiches. 

8:00:  My parents, Dan, and I have a rather somber breakfast, only laughing at Dan's gusto at blowing out the candle on his giant doughnut.  I give him my gift: a basket full of his favorite beer, an iPod arm band... and two baby themed items.  There is a baby onesie that says "It's been a hard day's night.  I should be sleeping like a log" since Dan is a Beatles fan, and chocolate "cigars" which I thought would be funny for him to hand out in the waiting room when the baby is born. I wonder if I should have taken the baby gifts out, but he seems to like them.

8:15:  My mom remarks, "There are so many good signs for today!  It's Dan's birthday, it's gorgeous weather, the doctor you are seeing is named Dr. Christmas, for goodness sake!   Those have to be good signs."   We all hold hands and say a prayer, not unlike the night when Dan and I first told them we were pregnant.

9:40:  Fast-forward through a silent drive and waiting room, Dan and I are in a different room with a technician.  She says, "I'm going to save the kidneys for last" and does a full ultrasound inspection of his heart, spine, brain, and limbs.

10:20:  Technician:  "Who told you these spots were cysts??  Those don't look like cysts."

               Dan finally cries.

10:25:  For five minutes, Dan cries happy tears and kisses my face, while I've turned into the silent one, trying to digest the amazing news that everything might be okay.  But I need to hear it from the specialist.

Which I do about ten minutes later.  Dr. Christmas has the exact personality you would expect, warm and hearty.  He confirms that the spots were "renal contusions (?)" that are less than 3 millimeters which is "in the normal range".  No cysts.

Then, I'm crying and spilling out to the waiting room. 

Then, my parents are gasping at the good news. 

Then, we are walking to the car and Dan pulls out his iPhone to play Three Dog's Night "Joy to the World." You know that catchy song?  Jeremiah was a bullfrog... 

Then, we are joyously driving to a restaurant to celebrate the news and Dan's birthday.  He Facebooks a picture of us standing outside the restaurant with the words "Already the best birthday I've ever had."  LIKE.   There's no topping this day.  ever.

Some of my colleagues were aghast when I told them the story later and chorused things like, "You need to get a new OBGYN!  How could she be so wrong about something so important??"

Maybe I'm wrong, but for now, I disagree.

She thought she saw something, but stayed calm.  She got us into see the best doctor for fetal diagnoses the next morning by 9:00 am.  She even called me the next day when she heard the news to say how surprised but "thrilled"she was that she had been mistaken.  People make mistakes, but I'd rather have a doctor who veers on the safe side if she thinks she sees something.  It just happened to be the perfect storm that we had a family history and that was what began the panic spiral.

 The only thing I fault her for is I wish she has said, "These look like they could be cysts", rather than "There are cysts on both kidneys."  The word "could" would have helped me retain some sanity when I began to gather information, but I'm letting that slip of wording go.

Because what I really want to take away from those two days doesn't have anything to do with her or with people even reading this never-ending post.

Nope, instead I'm writing this because I want to remember how everything felt so fragile.  How everything hinged on this one family member's health.   I want to remember that moment when Dan couldn't stop crying happy tears.    When I realized how much we love our son already and how much we have to be thankful for.