A Mother's Loss : Fetal Ascites

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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When I found out that I was pregnant, I could not believe that I was going to be a mother. My life was about to change dramatically. My older sister had always told me about the morning sickness, and the sudden urges to raid the refrigerator. Those were the only real symptoms I never experienced. I always took things for granted, and never really stop to think that there was ever anything wrong.

On the day of my fifth month doctors appointment a sonogram was scheduled to determine the sex of my baby. Once we went into the room where the sonograms were held, it was time to see what we were waiting for. As the woman began the procedure, she let me know I was having a little boy. When she started to do the measurements she had such an awkward facial expression, as if there was something wrong.

For some reason, she thought she needed some assistance from her supervisor. After the second look had taken place we were shown to the waiting room for a few minutes. The doctor's appointment was just not turning out to be such a simple routine anymore.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, I was taken into another doctor's office to get the details of the sonogram. The doctor began to explain that there was some kind of birth defect causing an abundance amount of fluid in the abdomen of the fetus, which is called fetal ascites. He said that we needed to run more tests, labs, and also an amniocentesis to see what was causing this isolated event. Until now, I had had this image of a picture perfect pregnancy, which changed within moments.

The results were finally in from all the appointments I had attended. I was now twenty-four weeks...