Jack Jensen's Blog: Our jelly bean is 19 weeks

Friday, March 13, 2009

Our jelly bean is 19 weeks

Side profile

This is looking up at her butt and legs. The hand points to her girl parts.

The last 2 pics are side profiles

I had a visit with Dr. Kramer today. I wasn't supposed to go until next week but was having bad back pain, nausea & vomiting. Everything seems OK with the baby. He thinks I'm just having lots of contractions but nothing that is leading towards labor. I guess some women just have that. We discussed getting a pump implanted under my skin to continuously administer anti-nausea meds but because of insurance issues I'm going to continue with pills. At least he convinced them to let me get more then 12 at a time. That was like a 3 day supply for me! The only other issue we're following up with is a possible bladder or kidney infection for me. We should know in a day or so.

We found out today that the baby is definitely a girl! We're so excited. She is currently 9 oz and growing well despite the fact that I've been losing weight. I guess she just steals what nutrients she can get. She has a choroid plexus cyst in her brain but the doctor said he sees this from time to time and because her heart and hands are OK he's not worried about Trisomy 18. He told me not to worry and that we'll do another anatomical scan in 3 weeks and hopefully it will be gone or shrinking.

Tonight I was rubbing my belly and told Jack to say hi to the baby. He started to wave at my belly. I told him there was a baby in there and he lifted my shirt and looked a little disappointed to just find my belly. Haha.

Here are some photos from my ultrasounds today. She looks a lot like Jack in his 19 week scan (except she decided to stay in the "get your diaphragm here" line!).

3 comments:

Gina said...: She is so cute!!!!!!!! I love the pic of her little feet and the thumbs up! Hope you will be feeling better soon. I think I threw up everyday with Wyatt and it's no fun!!; March 15, 2009 at 7:16 AM
Emily said...: congrats on the "girl" news! I have lots of pink stuff to share! hopefully the cyst will go away before your next ultrasound, just like Tracey's did!; March 18, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Unknown said...: Congrats Vicki & James!! It's so awesome that you're having a girl!! I can't believe how big Jack is getting it's wonderful!! he's going to be a great big brother!!; March 20, 2009 at 8:57 PM

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Jack's Diagnosis and Recovery

At our 19 week ultrasound Jack was diagnosed with CDH. One week later James and I went to Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for more extensive analysis. We had a fetal MRI and saw that his hernia was on the left side (the most common) and at that time his liver was 'up' or in his chest. His heart was pushed to the right in his chest and he had a normal sized right lung and a very small left lung (about 1/5 the normal size). Overall his CDH was classified as severe with a Lung to Head (LHR) ratio of 0.8. His echocardiogram showed that his heart was beating strong and there was no underlying congenital heart defect. His amnio was also normal. The prognosis was 20-50% chance of survival at birth. The struggle we faced with this diagnosis was that there is little correlation between prenatal diagnostic test results and outcome at birth. Some babies with mild defects do poorly and some with severe defects pull through and do very well. All we could do was try to be optimistic and hope and pray that Jack would be a strong baby and fight hard. On August 20, 2007 John Verner Jensen "Jack" was born by C-section at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. Within hours of birth he was placed on ECMO (heart-lung bypass). He had a 10 day run on ECMO and went to his hernia repair surgery on this machine. He was missing 90% of his left diaphragm, had his entire stomach, spleen, and parts of his small and large intestines and liver in his chest and he required a gortex patch. Jack came out of surgery off ECMO but with the cannulas still in place until later that night. He had a really hard night after surgery and we nearly lost him. We were later told his blood gases should have been unsurvivable and that it was pure will and not medicine that saved him. After 81 days in hospital we brought Jack home breathing room air and needing only an NG (naso-gastric) feeding tube. After 27 days home he reherniated and we had to go back for emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins. His awesome surgeons literally patched him back up and after another 16 days in hospital he returned home on Dec 21, 2007 - just in time for his first Christmas. Since then Jack has tackled his eating issues and is NG-tube free! He does not require any medication. We are extremely grateful for his incredible medical team and all his friends and family for their support, kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Jack's CarePage chronicles his day-to-day journey from diagnosis to approximately 6 months old (before we started blogging). See the link below.