22 Weeks

Well it sure has been a wild week! Baby Colt experienced his first earthquake and hurricane all in the same week.  He says he is ready for anything :)

Wednesday was our first doctor's appointment since we found out about his heart defect.  Unfortunately a lot of our questions were not answered, but deffered to the pediatric cardiologist.  We did learn that we would continue with normal visits to the regular obgyn, but will have an ultrasound each time to make sure he is growing at the right rate. We will see the cardiologist again at 28 weeks to see how his heart has developed since the last time. We also scheduled our 4D ultrasound for October 10th. I can't wait to see if he has his daddy's dimples. If everything goes well, we can expect to induce around 39 weeks, which will of course be Christmas Day! Still no idea where though.

My mom, step dad and sister Allie came down Friday night to help paint his room. Of course we had another visitor, Hurricane Irene who left us with no power all day Saturday. Sunday morning my other sister Leah came and us girls painted while the boys cleaned up the yard from all the trees and limbs that had fallen. Thankfully no damage to the house. We also finished painting the dresser my friend Crystal gave us, and the changing table I bought off of Craigslist. I think both turned out pretty good!

On Thursday we are headed to Austin, Texas to visit Drew's brother Tim and his fiance Kinski. We have had this planned for several months, and are really looking foward to seeing them and eating lots of great food! Keep us in your thoughts for safe travels.

21 Weeks!

First off, Drew and I want to say a huge thank you to everyone for all of your kind words of enouragement, support and love.  You all have a special place in helping us get through this. 

Friday night, Drew and I went to dinner at Tiebreakers, a local sports bar.  We both had wings and boy were they delicious!  Afterwards we came home and relaxed.  While I was being lazy on the couch I felt something in my tummy.  After a few more, I realized it was Colt moving around in there! I was so excited. I had been anxiously waiting to be able to feel him move.  Of course everytime Drew put his hand on my belly nothing happened.  But, Saturday morning he was finally able to feel him kicking around in there.  It was a very special moment for us, considering the past few weeks. 

On Saturday Drew's mom came down and helped us prime the changing table and dresser. Rain came and put a halt to us being able to put the paint on.  I was also able to clean out my closet and exchange my pre-pregnancy clothes for maternity clothes!  I'm looking forward to this coming weekend when my mom and sister come to help paint his room! We are also celebrating my mom's __ birthday. I will let her tell her age, haha.

Sunday marked 21 weeks.  According to Babycenter, Colt is as long as a carrot now, about 10.5 inches and weighs 3/4 of a pound.  Drew affectionately said "So, he's the size of a cheeseburger!" Our next doctor appointment is Wednesday.  I am looking forward to it because we will hopefully get some answers to the many questions we have regarding what comes next.  We were told that my pregnancy would be relatively normal, just a lot more ultrasounds and appointments.  Colt's birth will also be scheduled, so we are not sure if he will be born early or as close as possible to the due date (Jan 1).  We also were told that the birth and first surgery could happen here, Duke or in Philadelphia.  They have to monitor his development and discuss with the surgeons where the best place will be.  Since we are over half way there, we feel like we have a lot to do and a lot to plan for.  It becomes overwhelming at times trying to figure out how it will all work out.  Tonight after work, I was having a hard time and letting myself get down about all the details.  Thankfully my wonderful husband can always put a smile back on my face.


Will update again after our appointment on Wednesday! Keep the prayers coming :)

What's been going on...

So, the past three weeks have been pretty tough in the Moss Household.  Here is my best attempt of making a long story short. 

On July 25 we went in for our gender ultrasound. Baby Moss did not want to cooperate for a long time and the tech said she though it was a girl.  Apparently, he did not appreciate being called a girl, and finally moved just enough so that we could see he was indeed a boy!  She got all the measurements she needed, except his heart. So, they sheduled another ultrasound for the next Tuesday. 

At this appoinment we were excited to be able to see him again. He was very active this time around.  But, midway through the ultrasound we were told the left side of his heart did not look quite right. The ultrasound tech called in the doctor, and she confirmed that the left side of his heart was underdeveloped.  I immediately broke down. We never expected anything to be wrong with our child.  We then were given an immediate appoinment the next day with a pediatric cardiologist at ECU.  We went in and they did an extensive ultrasound of his heart.  We just sat there while the doctor and ultrasound tech watched the screen and talked medical jargon back and forth.  Finally, the doctor took us in his office to explain to us what they had seen.  Our baby's left ventricle was very under-developed and basically not functioning.  He also had a double outlet right ventricle.  For all of you out there like us, who are not heart specialists, we of course didn't know exactly what that meant.  Here is how it was explained to us: the left ventricle pumps blood into the body, and the right pumps blood into the lungs.  So, our baby's right ventricle is having to do both.  This doesn't pose much of a problem to him while in the womb, but once he is born, without surgery he will not survive. Therefore, Baby Moss will need immediate open heart surgery after birth, another around six months, and a third between the ages of 2 and 4.  We were also told babies with heart defects are at a higher risk for chromosomal abnormalities and were advised to have an amnio test done. The final kicker came when we were told we would outlive our child.  As you can imagine we were both devastated. 

The following Monday, we had yet another appointment.  This one was again at ECU and was a level 3 ultrasound.  They looked at Baby Moss for almost an hour, measuring everything starting at his head, and down to his toes.  Thankfully, everything else looked perfectly normal.  We waited a very long two weeks, but finally got the call today that the amnio results are normal! We are so relieved, happy, grateful, etc.

It has been an extremely long and difficult few weeks.  We have received more support from our family and close friends than we ever could have imagined. We don't know what we would have done without it. We deicided to start this blog to let our family and friends follow along with us on this journey.  We hope that you will all keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  We also would really like to know if anyone knows anyone else in the same or similar situation and their story. We feel very blessed that we were chosen to be this little boy's parents, for we know God will not give us anything more than we can handle.


P.S.  We could not agree on a name for Baby Moss before all of this was known.  After the fact, that didn't seem so important.  I told Drew we could name him whatever he wanted. So, Baby Moss' name is Colt Warner Moss (for now anyway ;p).

                                                                Normal Heart

                                                             Colt's Heart