We had an appointment scheduled at 22 weeks with the HR doctor (the one doctor who saw us previously was convinced we would see she still had no fluid and go ahead with the abortion.) Little did she know, our appointment wasn't scheduled with her (we weren't aware of this either). Instead, we met with the most wonderful doctor ever. Honestly, he was precious. The moment we met him, I felt a complete peace. He was very thorough, very personable, and EXTREMELY caring. He mentioned to us the same thing the previous doctor told us ... that Reagan had no fluid ... and that was obviously not a good thing. BUT THEN, he told us something that many others had straight up told us "NO" to. He said in his 27 years of being a perinate doctor, he had only seen this type of case one other time. I immediately asked how he treated the pregnancy and, what he said was music to my ears. Actually, sent chills throughout my entire body. He said they did amnio infusions. Her son was born with cerebral palsy but, other than that, is doing great! I didn't give him the chance to offer us the infusions ... I basically cut him off in the middle of a sentence (if you know me, you know that when I get excited, my mouth flies open. Yes, it's a rude thing and I am really, really trying to work on it!) and asked if we would be able to do the infusions. Dr. V said he would be willing to do them for us ... but didn't want us to make the decision right there. It's a VERY risky procedure (it's a huge needle that goes through your stomach, into your uterus, that puts fluid back into the sac ... it could send you into labor, could hit the baby the wrong way, could hit the placenta/cord, infection risks are very high, and ... not to mention, it hurts incredibly bad.) So, James and I prayed about it, talked about it, and were in agreement with going ahead with the infusions. I am terrified of needles ... but I would never have been able to live with myself knowing I hadn't given Reagan every possible chance. We scheduled an appointment for the following Thursday (2 days away) and the procedure took a little over 3 hours. I was scared to death ... sobbing through a good portion, I had James' ipod on, listning to Praise and Worship ... while James was rubbing my feet the whole time. I was scared ... of the needle, yes, a little ... but mostly of what this meant for Reagan. Dr. V informed us before we started the procedure he didn't think one of her kidneys was functioning ... it was "dysplastic" ... meaning it was full of non-functioning cysts. He wasn't sure as to her other kidney but would have more of an idea after the infusion. It was truly AMAZING watching Reagan become more active each time they put more fluid in. She was moving her legs and arms everywhere ... it was as though she was sighing a sigh of relief, finally having the room to move. They were able to infuse 500 cc's (50 syringes). We saw her hands, feet, face, toes, fingers ... well, everything. That's something we completely took for granted with both the boys. We could make out everything on their ultrasounds. That wasn't the case with Reagan. You honestly couldn't tell her head from her feet. It was the most discouraging thing being her mom and having no clue what I was looking at on the screen. To be honest, there were times the doctors and techs didn't know what they were looking at.
I was told to not lift anything for the next two weeks and to stay inside. That's pretty much impossible with two little guys but I did my best! I was guzzling water and laying on the couch or on the bed constantly. My kids are amazing ... even though we couldn't go outside, they were such troopers throughout it all. We went back to the doctor the following week to find that Reagan had about half the fluid they had infused. Her AFI right after the infusion was 15.3 and it was a little less than half that. At the end of my infusion, Dr. V infused blue dye into the sac. He said we would know if the tear had sealed over or not with this blue dye. If I hadn't leaked blue within 24-48 hours, they would consider me "sealed". If I didn't leak blue, my body would absorb it and I would pee it out. Well, I never leaked OR peed blue, so they were baffled as to what was going on. The next week we were back to absolutely no fluid. We decided, along with Dr. V, that we should go ahead with another infusion. This one went a lot faster, only about an hour and a half, and they were able to infuse 530 cc's. I was cramping really bad that night and feeling a lot of pressure (both of which are normal with infusions) ... so I took some tylenol and went to bed. I woke up at 6:00 the next morning, with our bed soaked. I stood up and fluid kept pouring out. My water had broke for the second time and I was now just 24 weeks pregnant. James had already left for work, I couldn't get ahold of my regular ob's office OR my HR doctor and I was panicking ...
