The sonographer seemed distracted as she was performing the scan but her machine wasn't working properly so I assumed that was the problem. When she finished our scan she said "Well, we have a problem here", and explained that she could see fluid on the baby's chest. She went to get a colleague who repeated the scan and told us (a little more sympathetically) that we had a very poorly baby but that she couldn't tell us any more. We were given an appointment to see the consultant the next day.
The consultant at Winchester confirmed what the sonographers had seen, he could't see the heart and lungs well enough to see if they were developing properly. He made us an appointment to see a specialist consultant at Princess Anne in Southampton but told us to prepare ourselves for the worst.
That weekend was the longest and most awful two days. I cried almost constantly, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep and felt as if it were all my fault, as if I'd let my baby down.
On Monday morning at 9am we met our consultant Mr Howe. We spent the morning with him, having lots of tests and talking through what our options were. He recommended that we had an amniocentesis to try and discover what was causing the build up of fluid, at the same time he removed the fluid from the baby's chest. We went home exhausted both physically and emotionally. Our next appointment would be on Friday and we'd see what effect removing the fluid had made, we were warned that in all probability it would have returned.
I went back to work on the Wednesday as I needed to keep busy and couldn't stay at home any longer. Friday arrived and our next appointment, the scan showed that the fluid hadn't returned and that the heart and lungs appeared to be developing normally. There was fluid on the baby's tummy but at present that wasn't presenting a risk.
The next week our test results came back - all normal. There was no reason that the team could find that explained what was happening.
And this was how it continued for the next 20 weeks. I had check up appointments every week after that and gradually the fluid on the tummy started to lessen until the scan we had the day before she was born where it had disappeared completely.
Thinking back to it now I can't believe how we kept going. We existed on a week to week basis, waiting for the next appointment, waiting to see how our little one was doing. It was hard to enjoy being pregnant in the same way as I had before and I feel so sad about that.
Thanks to the amazing team at Princess Anne and out little fighter we now have a beautiful little girl who has no idea what she put her Mummy & Daddy through!
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