Our story begins with a pregnancy. A run-of-the-mill, perfect pregnancy. My husband and I are parents to five healthy children, and this baby would be our sixth. I was due after Pesach, and let’s just say life was good, if hectic. I would go to my teaching job daily and come home to care for my family, cook and serve dinner, and clean up. There was no indication that our world would be turned completely upside down very soon.
Everything changed on Monday, December 7. The date is seared in our memory. I went to my OB-GYN for my 20-week sonogram. The sonographer asked me for my age before she began the scan and asked if I was opting for any genetic testing as I am in my high thirties (36, to be exact).
I declined and she started the scan, schmoozing as she did so. The conversation then petered out, and she gazed at the screen with a furrowed brow.
After 30 or 40 minutes, she turned to me and said, “We need to get my supervisor in here.”
I paused and asked, “How scared do I need to be?”
She said she saw a few things that were cause for concern, including short feet—perhaps broken or bent—and a small chest.
She also said there was something interesting about the nose or chin but she wasn’t sure, which is why she wanted the supervisor to come take a look.
The supervisor came in and recommended that I go elsewhere for a more detailed sonogram, as well as genetic testing. I called my husband, and he came to the office immediately.
Due to COVID he had not been allowed in for my appointment, but they let him come in at this point, and we went in to speak to the doctor together. Dr. Klinger said he wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but from what he could see on the sonogram, we were definitely dealing with something complex.
He also said we needed to go for genetic testing to figure out what disorder the baby might have. We left the office with our hearts pounding, not sure how to digest the news we had just received.
To read more, subscribe to Ami
