Warrior Moms: Guest Post

Meet Katie 

Katie McCarty is a stay-at-home mom to her 3-year old son, Tim, and wife to her husband, Chris, and they live in the suburbs outside of Denver, Colorado. Katie made the big move out west, after growing up outside of Boston and living in NYC for 10 years where she worked as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx and then, educational publishing. 

This is an excerpt- the very first part- of Katie and Chris’s journey in learning about Tim’s omphalocele. It is raw, uncensored, and emotional. But as time passed and they were matched with the proper medical team, Katie notes, “my heart softened, my anger dissipated, and we found the unique, beautiful blessings of having a difficult pregnancy journey.” Tim is now a healthy, happy, and active 3-year old and the family is expecting another little boy (healthy, so far!) in July 2018.  

This mom is a WARRIOR!

  

Chapter 1: The Ultrasound

“It’s not your fault.  It’s the universe.”  Chris, and I were staring blankly at black and white blobs on a big TV for our 20-week ultrasound.  It was a 2PM appointment.  We were going to find out the exciting news about gender and then, I was going to zip back into the office for a 3:30 PM conference call.  But quickly, I realized I wasn’t going back to my office that day.

The sonogram technician kept babbling on and on to herself, “I haven’t seen this in 40 years.  Oh my gosh.  I’m so sorry.  It’s the universe.  It’s not your fault.”  We were terrified.  I squeezed Chris’s hand harder and harder.  As someone who is never at a loss for words, I was unable to speak so I just clutched his hand tighter and tighter.  Finally, I got my voice back, “What is going on?  Please, what is going on?”  My first thought was that the baby had died.  I thought my baby had died.

The sonogram technician crossed the room and grabbed a medical book.  “I need my medical book. I need to call Dr. Long.  Oh wait – she’s in L&D.  I can’t believe it.  I haven’t seen this in 40 years of all my work as a sonogram technician.  This practice has never seen this.  I need my medical book.”  She said that.  She said THAT.

Medical book?  What was going on here?  Is my baby alive?  Does my baby have a deformity that is so rare that she needs to consult with a medical book?  Where is the doctor?  Should the sonogram technician even be SPEAKING?  All of these terrifying thoughts were swirling in my brain.

Chris sat next to me on my left and he was squeezing my hand back.  But I couldn’t read any emotion on his face.  Was he hearing the same news I was hearing?  Why wasn’t he reacting?  My anxiety and terror was escalating with each second of this appointment.  Now, I didn’t think the baby was dead; I thought the baby had a major deformity that was so rare that even an experienced sonogram technician – who sees hundreds of babies in a year – has never even seen.  And the next thought that popped into my head is hard for me to even write – I hoped, at that moment, that the baby was a girl because I had wanted a boy so badly.  And I didn’t want my boy to be anything but a healthy, strapping, young boy.

But she babbled on, “Oh wait – I finally see genitals.  It’s a boy!”  In her chaos and ceaseless chatter, I believe that she meant to deliver this as GOOD news.  Instead, she created a shitstorm of terror for me and Chris.  And I felt like I just received my second kick in the gut.  My precious boy.  How can this be happening to the little boy I wanted so badly.  In the next breath, she prattled on, “It’s an omphalocele.”

“An UM-what?  What is that?  What is that?” I kept asking, my voice regaining its strength.  But Chris was on his phone.  I looked at him and said, “How the hell are you checking your email or texting right now?  STOP!”  I needed an emotional punching bag since I couldn’t move off the medical table and he became the victim of my verbal blows.  “Katie, I am taking notes.  I don’t have a notebook.  I need to take notes.”  I apologized quickly and started to weep.  First, this news and now, I’m taking out my anger and sadness on him.  It was a tidal wave of unfamiliar and scary emotions and I was drowning. 

I don’t remember when the sonogram technician explained what this “um” condition is.  It was such a long, foreign word – omphalocele – that I was fixated on trying to say it.  But somehow, in this appointment, we learned that an omphalocele is a condition in which the abdominal wall did not close and the baby’s organs grow outside of the body.  In the sonogram, it looks like my baby was blowing a giant bubble from his tummy.  Or, like a pregnant baby.

Finally, Dr. Long came in.  I was relieved.  Now, we will have a calm voice of reason and medicine in this chaotic insanity, I thought.  Dr. Long was dressed in scrubs as she was paged and taken out of L&D.  It feels like I am adding that piece of information to add to the drama of the story and to this day, I don’t know how she was taken out of L&D – maybe she was done delivering the baby or maybe someone else could take over.  But here she was with us.  This gave me great comfort as well as great alarm.

She breezed into the room, looked at the ultrasound on the big screen.  She didn’t really pause.  She said, matter of factly, “Oh yes.  That’s an omphalocele.  I haven’t seen one of these since medical school.”  Dr. Long was in her mid to late 50’s.  This was not good.  A sense of dread overcame me – I felt as though my precious baby had a death sentence.  I thought that Dr. Long would be a calming force in the room; instead, she was an obnoxious know-it-all who took our devastating news and presented it to us as though she was relaying a snippet of celebrity gossip.  She went on to the sonogram technician and asked to see the medical book that was pulled out earlier.  I was in rage, shock, devastation.  Are these two FOR REAL?  Are they looking at a fucking medical encyclopedia to deliver this news to us?  I thought this was a reputable practice, Dr. Long  went to Harvard Medical School; was this a JOKE?

Dr. Long came over to where I was lying down and gave me a big hug.  “I’m so sorry,” she said.  “I’m just so sorry.”  At this point, I was hysterical.  “What is the UM-thing?  What is it?  Will my baby live?  Will my baby boy live?”  I kept asking over and over again.

I can’t recall what her response was.  But I know that I was not reassured.  I didn’t hear any words like, “This is a treatable condition.”  Nor did I hear, “We have amazing resources to deal with this sort of thing.”  All I heard was a doctor, in her scrubs, saying over and over how sorry she was and that she knew that I would be strong.  She mentioned that we needed to see a high-risk doctor right away.  She would give the referral at the front desk for Chris and me to pick up. And she left me, sobbing in Chris’s arms.

But the appointment wasn’t over.  The sonogram technician still had more images to take!  And her endless babble didn’t cease; “I need to get pictures of his head. Oh gosh - …”  I piped up, “What?  What now?”  “He has cysts on his brain.  I’m so sorry….But well, babies at this stage sometimes have cysts on their heads…but given the omphalocele…..it’s like fluid on his brain.”  She oscillated from it being a normal fetus thing to an abnormal affiliated symptom with omphaloceles.  This went on for a solid minute – wondering to herself if the cysts were normal or not.  I didn’t pass out.  I didn’t weep or sob anymore.  At this point, it wasn’t sadness, this was rage.  I wanted to hurt this sonogram technician.  This appointment, from start to finish, was the most devastating, shattering experience Chris and I had ever experienced and she had to continue to kick us down by continuing with her unprofessional, insensitive prattle. 

“Do you want pictures of your little guy?  I mean – many families after they hear news like this don’t want the pictures?”  It was the first time I let out my true voice and my anger, “Yes, I want the fucking pictures.”  I took 5 minutes to compose myself before Chris and I left that devastating, horrible appointment.