Update

It's been a crazy week and a half. I decided to sit down and try to bring you upto date as to where we are now. I guess the best place to start is July 7. My hockey team the Komets finished in first place and were heading to the Stanley Keg championship. The week started with both Becky and I excited of this opportunity to participate in such a big game. We were also excited to see that on July 11 we would be finding out the sex our unborn child (or as I affectionatly now call it "fetus").

Though we fully expected it to be a girl, and Becky even referred to it as a she, on July 11 our world turned around more than we could ever expect. We discovered our future little girl was a boy. Just like every Janis boy he had to be difficult. Our good news turned to terror as we watched the sonogram tech constantly looking at his heart and its placement. She finally excussed herself to go get the Doctor. Becky knew what she was seeing but did not want to confirm it to me. The Doctor came in and repeatedly looked over and over and finally showed us that the stomach was located where the heart was suppose to be and the heart was located toward the right side of the chest.

We spent some time with the Doctor as she explained what we were up against. She then said she would get with a specialist at St. Paul who could make the final ruling on what was going on and what needed to be done. By noon we had received a call from the specialist and we had an appointment for that afternoon. We showed up at St. Paul and Becky had another sonogram. The sonogram showed that the baby had a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). We then attended a genetic counseling session. The Doctor gave us an option of performing an amniocentisis, going home and accepting the facts, or termination of the pregnancy. We did the amnio as I held Becky's hand and watched the Doctor put the needle into her stomach. Not to sound strange but I was praying that the fluid did not start shooting out like a sprinkler.

Fortunately everything went well with the amnio and we left knowing that our chances of the baby surviving were 10%. We went home to accept the fact that our baby would not survive. My parents came to town as I was scheduled to leave town the next morning to go to a meeting and I was wanting Becky to have a good support network in my abscence. We had many friends who called and stopped by to offer their support.

We now played a waiting game to see what the genetic testing of the amnio would show . . . .