Prayers Needed.

I was sitting at the computer the other night reading through the blogs I follow…some design blogs, some mom blogs, and a few blogs written by people I love. One of the blogs that I have followed since the day I started mine is Alina’s CDH Story. It was the first website I landed on after hearing news of Georgia’s diagnosis, at 30 weeks of pregnancy. Ingrid and Alex, parents of Alina, were a couple months ahead of us in their CDH journey, having given birth to a beautiful daughter suffering from the same birth defect. She was born on December 20th, 2008, just four short months before Georgia (and she’ll be 3 in a few weeks!). When all Fred and I could do was ‘wait’ to see how our story would go, I lived for updates from Ingrid and Alex. I laughed, I cried, I worried. All for a little girl I had never met, from parents I had never met. But we would forever be bonded by our experience of supporting our child through a life threatening defect.

Alina had a more serious struggle with this defect than Georgia having needed a ventilator, a CPAP, two hernia surgeries and a bowel surgery…not to mention a long struggle with eating. But, after months of fighting, she came through and has been thriving and growing ever since! She’s a beautiful ‘almost’ 3 year old who is happy, healthy, and in great shape! As a result, the posts on their blog are few and far between…every couple of months (much like my posts have become fewer over time!). Well, this particular night, when I was surfing the blogs, I got notification that they had a new blog post. And it went like this:

Pregnant with CDH baby no.2

We just had our 20 week scan and got the devastating news that we were having a baby boy with CDH. We were always told that CDH was just a fluke but now we are convinced that it’s genetic. How could it be otherwise! 
We’re going to find out more on Tuesday but it’s so much harder this time around. We know what to expect- or not to expect, we know there are no certainties until the baby is born and we also have Alina to think about. Heartbroken!

You can also read it here. It hit me like a tonne of bricks. As you can imagine, Fred and I have been a little gun-shy on baby no. 2 for a whole host of reasons, most importantly this one. The likelihood of this happening is incredibly low, but when it happens to someone you know and have followed for over two years, it’s shocking. The diagnosis was made at 20 weeks and it’s a fairly serious hernia. In fact, they are going ahead with a tracheal balloon which can only be used on the most severe cases. It’s explained here:

While in the uterus, the fetal lung constantly makes fluid that escapes through its mouth and into the amniotic fluid. When the trachea is blocked, this fluid stays in the lungs. As it builds up, the lung fluid expands the lungs, stimulates their growth, and pushes the abdominal contents (liver, intestine) out of the chest and into the abdomen. The goal of this treatment is to have a baby born with lungs that are big enough that the child can breathe and provide itself enough oxygen to breath on its own.

The balloon will be put in on December 15th and we’re all hoping it goes well, as it did for Aline. This family has been chosen to handle two fragile lives for a reason…but they can certainly use all of the strength and energy we can spare. So, I’m asking all of you to please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers over the next few months as they fight to keep their second baby (a BOY!!) alive and well. I’ll keep you posted as we get more info on their case.

Georgia’s Mom

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