I wanted to share our daughter's story here...

We went for our 18 week u/s with the hopes of finding out the gender of the baby and unfortunately they weren't able to tell us. A couple of days later we got the phone call that there was some fluid in the abdomen. I was very sad but didn't really know what this meant and we didn't really want to rely too much on internet searches for more information.

A couple of days later we went for a follow-up u/s. We thought everything was going well during the hour long u/s where once again we did not find out the gender. We were called in to meet with the geneticst. She told us that the baby also had fluid behind the neck which was evident at the first u/s. She told us that the baby had a condition called hydrops which was the extra fluid in the body--the baby had it in the lungs, under the skin and abdomen. She said that this was very concerning and that the baby only had a 10% chance of survival. Then she said that the even more concerning diagnosis was cystic hygroma which was fluid behind the neck which carried a 0% chance of survival. She offered us the opportunity to terminate the pregnancy which we were not interested in. What a shock this news was to us--we had no idea that this was going to be this definitive.

Over the next days we tried to process all of the information. We contacted perinatal hospices, funeral homes, internet searches, etc. all in the hope of finding out something to help our little baby. I went for a 4D u/s to try and get some better pictures of the baby (we have a really cute one of her with her hands by her face). Unfortunately, our little one passed away on April 21st (I felt different and went in for a heartbeat check and there wasn't one).

After another u/s to confirm the diagnosis my dr. told me that there was a possibility that the induction would not go well b/c of a previous c-section. I spent the next 60 hours in a hospital attempting to deliver the baby with a cytotec induction. Unfortunately, it did not work :( The dr. sent me home and wanted me to have a D&E (which we were not comfortable with).

Thankfully, I found another dr. who would do the cytotec induction again--after only 2 doses of the medication I was able to give birth to our little baby. (8 ounces and 6 inches)The baby had been inside of me for at least 12 days not alive. Unfortunately, the dr. was not able to tell the gender of the baby (we feel this was due to the time that she was inside of me not alive). We decided to say that she was a girl b/c that's what we felt she was (the chromosomal study confirmed that). It was very difficult to see the baby but we enjoyed the time that we were able to spend with her. We were able to have her baptized and our family came out to meet her. A few days later we had a wonderful memorial and graveside service.

Our chromosomal study came back with no genetic or chromosomal problems but we don't know the underlying cause for the hydrops. This is such a difficult diagnosis for parents and each story is sooooooooooo different--we just pray that some kind of a treatment would become available and these little babies could be saved!