eli's story: finding a miracle at the end of a luto diagnosis “There’s a major problem with your pregnancy.” Words no expecting parents anticipate hearing. Going in for our routine twenty-week ultrasound, I was so excited to find out what we were having. After about fifteen minutes of maneuvering the wand all over my modestly pregnant belly, the ultrasound technician informed us she would be getting the doctor. The doctor came in and that was when we heard the words that would forever change our lives. Everything else seemed foggy after that. I remember hearing words like, “the bladder isn’t releasing urine” and “the amniotic fluid level is dangerously low.” To be honest, I understood very little, until he sat us down in a consultation room and gave us our options. That was when the grim reality of our situation hit me. Without
60
connexions
intervention, our baby was likely to not survive the remainder of the pregnancy. Our maternal fetal specialist went on to explain our baby was suffering from a condition known as a Lower Urinary Tract Obstruction, also known as LUTO. He gave us information and warned us not to Google any of what he was about to tell us, because there would be a lot of misinformation on the internet and he didn’t want us to make a decision based on what we might find. He went on to explain that because of the obstruction in the urethra, urine was unable to be released from the bladder. The bladder was large, and the amniotic fluid levels were dangerously low because a large portion of the amniotic fluid is made up of the baby’s urine. It’s a constant cycle of ingesting the
by emily hyde
amniotic fluid, which aids in the development of the baby’s lungs and other vital organs, and then excreting the urine. When there is a hiccup in the process, the entire cycle stops. We could terminate the pregnancy or “just let nature take its course”, which would likely result in our baby passing inutero or shortly after birth. Our third option was a long shot. If our baby was a candidate, we could have fetal surgery performed.
The rest of that day was a nightmare. Friends and family were calling anxious to hear the outcome of our ultrasound and find out if we were having a boy or a girl. It was difficult to get through the phone calls, trying to explain what we were still struggling to understand ourselves. We had a million questions and went against our
