Back Story

(Dylan at 21 weeks)

Here is a quick back story on the life of Miss Dylan Michelle Smith. As most of you know Casey and I were married on January 5th (and 6th) of 2007 in Phoenix. Casey is in the Navy and was to be stationed in Atsugi Japan in March of 2007. He was able to return home for 30 days before leaving the country. And on March 13th 2007 Casey boarded a plane for Tokyo. 4 weeks later we learned the news that we were expecting our first child. As nervous as we were the excitement well outweighed it. The doctors set the due date to December 4th 2007, 40 weeks to the day that my dear Casey left the U.S. In April we had an Ultrasound done, and another one in June where my parents (wayne and michelle), Casey's mom (cheryl) and Meema (my grandmother) were able to attend. It was so neat to get to see the baby kick around and roll and play! The first grandbaby and great grandbaby was up on a giant screen in the doctors office, looking as healthy and as active as could be.

It was time for my second trimester Ultrasound. I had planned it so that Casey's parents could come on their way back from vacation in San Jose. So on July, 20th Mike, Cheryl and I made an early morning trip to Banner Desert Hospital for a routine Ultrasound. I laid on the chair for what seemed like forever, the Sonographer measured everything on little Dylan, from the leg to the heart, we were able to see her little feet kicking around. Dylan was fast asleep at this point. She also hadn't developed her hearing yet, so all of the fun toys that the Sonographer tried to use to get her to move didn't work. 45 minutes later the US tech left the room saying that she was needing Dylan to move. At this point my head started to kill me. Not sure if it was from laying on an uncomfortable chair for so long, or if it was mother's intuition. I had noticed that the Sonographer was very vocal in telling us what things were and then when she would start taking pictures of ABD she wouldn't say anything. Anywho, the US tech came back in and did some more measurements and then left again. I could tell something wasn't right at this point. She came back in minutes later Dr. Mills who is a perinatologist and radiologist. He came in and informed us that Dylan had a severe congenital anomaly (birth defect) known as gastroschisis. This is a abdominal wall defect in which her abdominal wall not closed all the way and her small intestines were now outside of her body. It happens in 1 out of every 10,000 births, but Dr. Mills says it has been on the rise lately. I sat there and just cried. How could this happen? How did this happen? Did something I do cause this? What about Casey? Will the baby make it? What about all of that stuff I have to do at work? Will Casey be able to make it home? How long will she be in the hospital? How am I going to tell my parents?

Dr. Mills went through the ends and outs of Gastroschisis versus an Omphalacele (genetic and chromosonal) and what caused it. Thank goodness that Mike and Cheryl (the in-laws) were with me, because I don't think I heard much after "Your baby has a birth defect". The Sonographer then asked if we wanted to know what the sex of the baby was. I answered with a stern "No". I was excited to make this a part of the pregnancy that Casey and I would get to experience together. We would both be there when the doctor exclaimed "Its a boy!" or "Its a girl!", even though I was sure it was a boy. The Sonographer put all of the US slides on a disk for me so that I could send them to Casey and my parents. She gave me strict instructions to delete slide 80 though because it would tell me if it was a boy or a girl. So with great self discipline I went home and deleted slide 80. I was sending Casey and my father pictures when I got to slide 35 and across the top of the picture it says "I'm a Girl! Girls Rule!" So there it was! Casey and I were having a girl. I can't lie, Fear struck me at first, a Girl? What do you do with a girl? I was convinced we were having a boy, so I hadn't bought any girl stuff. I felt like the worst mom in the world! But all that had to take a back seat for now. My daughter was sick. Was the best care for her in Phoenix? Was I going to go somewhere else? Plus, all of those questions that I thought of earlier still needed to be answered. What was Gastroschisis?