Hyperechoic Bowel Syndrome

This past month has been crazy busy with going out of town for 2.5 weeks, my grandmother being in the hospital, my sister getting married, and then coming back home to recover from everything. Honestly, though, I could have found time to keep this blog updated. I simply haven't felt like writing much because on top of everything else, we've been dealing with Schrodinger having a potential health problem.

About a month ago, we had our anatomy scan and had left that appointment thinking everything was completely fine. A few days later I was in my OB's office to start my lovely series of injections to hopefully ensure I don't go into preterm labor like I did with Ella. I expected only to see the nurse, get shot up, and be on my way. I was surprised when my OB came into the room instead. He told me he had been looking over the images from our scan and was concerned about something he saw on the baby's intestines- that Schrodinger has something called hyperechoic (also called hyperechogenic) bowel syndrome. Basically it means on the scan, Schrodinger's intestines show up brighter than the surrounding bone- which is not how it should be.

The OB wanted me to see a specialist down in Tulsa to go for a more in-depth scan and to discuss any potential issues. I tried to stay calm and take this all in as my toddler dumped out the contents of the diaper bag on the floor around me. My head was swimming with a million questions. What exactly did this mean? How common is it? Does it mean the baby will need surgery after I give birth? Will we have to travel to Tulsa to the bigger hospital and better NICU to deliver? Is this something that will affect the rest of Schrodinger's life? And the biggest, scariest question that I hardly dared think- does this mean Schrodinger is going to die?

Unfortunately my OB couldn't give me many answers, other than it could mean absolutely nothing or a wide variety of problems. He actually had never seen a case of it, in all his years of practice and the thousands of babies he's delivered.

Of course, even though I should know better, I jumped on the computer and started consulting Dr. Google, where I came across lots of scary possibilities. Down syndrome. Cystic fibrosis. Trisomy 18. Infections. Bowel obstructions.

The best part about it all- I had to wait almost a month to get in with the perinatologist down in Tulsa. It's bad enough worrying there is something wrong with your child. But it's a thousand times worse having to wait and wait and wait with that possibility.

We finally had our appointment this past Thursday. While we didn't get bad news, we didn't get good news either. The results of the scan were inconclusive. The spot on the bowel is still there- bright enough that now that we knew what to look for, we could see it ourselves. On the plus side, Schrodinger has no other markers for any of the other big bad scary possibilities, and there is a 60-70% chance it is absolutely nothing. The chance of Down syndrome is still at only 0.5%. The perinatologist told us that while hyperechoic bowel syndrome is also associated with cystic fibrosis, usually it doesn't show up on scans this early in the pregnancy. She feels it's unlikely that Schrodinger has some sort of infection because he/she would be sick and have other symptoms.

That basically leaves us where we were a month ago- not knowing much of anything. It's beyond frustrating. They are doing genetic testing on both me and Schrodinger to rule out a lot of possibilities (they are testing me to see if I am a carrier for any recessive syndromes, and if so, then they will test Jim). The cool thing is instead of doing an amniocentesis, they can pull some of Schrodinger's DNA from my blood and analyze it that way. We should get the results of those tests sometime this week. In a few weeks we have to go back for another scan to see how the spot is doing. Hopefully it will be shrinking.

Right now I go from feeling great about everything to feeling completely despondent. Some days I'm able to focus on the good statistics and the high chance of there being absolutely nothing wrong. Other days I can't stop thinking about all the bad stuff. The good thing about having a toddler, though, is she doesn't give me a lot of down time to dwell on everything.

Hopefully later this week when we get our genetic results I'll be able to post a happier update. As consolation for making it through all of this, here is a picture of Schrodinger. I'm a little biased but I think Schrodinger is very cute already.

Only 1 lb and already giving my mom and dad grey hairs