A little optimism...

After calling the doctor we met with in Des Moines at our initial appointment (Dr. Mandsager) with some questions, he wanted us to come back down for another ultrasound and meet with his partner, Dr. Wang.

So, last Friday morning we headed down. During our consultation with Dr. Wang, he explained that the bladder of Baby A is not that big, there is still fluid around the kidneys, the lungs look to be developing, but the amniotic fluid is still very low. It was kind of a good news/bad news thing - good news was it didn't get worse, but bad news it didn't get any better.

The first doctor we met with was so doom and gloom and left Aaron and me feeling pretty depressed and hopeless about Baby A's situation. Dr. Wang explained how rare the situation we are facing is in a singleton pregnancy and how very, very rare it is in a multiple pregnancy. What makes it ironic is that he had a patient three years ago who was also carrying twin boys and one of them had the same problem as Baby A, only much worse. That patient also chose no intervention during pregnancy, but intervention was done after birth. Today, both of those twins are healthy. We know we have a long road, but it gave us a sense of hope!

Dr. Wang reiterated the fact that he thinks we are making the wise decision by not trying any intervention during the pregnancy. He said with the multiple needle pokes that would have to be done everything would have to be so perfectly aligned and the situation would have to be just perfect for everything to work. It made us feel better that he agreed with our decision.

He said they would continue to measure the size of the kidneys throughout the rest of the pregnancy and watch for any shrinking (we are praying there isn't any). We may also have to meet with a pediatric kidney specialist as the birth gets closer.

We don't have to go down again until January 28th, which we took as a positive sign as well. Three whole weeks! The best part of the day (at least for me) was when Dr. Wang said to us point blank, "I am not writing this baby off." You can't imagine what that did for us! It gave us an even greater sense of hope.

On a lighter note, during the ultrasound the boys were so fun to watch! The gal was trying to get facial pictures and Baby A moved his little hands in front of Baby B's face right when she was ready to get a picture for us. And, everytime she'd want a specific photo of Baby B he would turn away from where she needed him to be. It was kind of cute that they are already being ornery. :)