First Post

I decided to start this blog for a couple of reasons....1) to keep family and friends updated on Gianna without inundating people with e-mails and 2) to help other parents who may be going through something similar as our family.  On May 26th, Matt and I went together for the 20 week ultrasound of our baby.  We had a few moments of excitement when finding out it was a girl (!), but then quickly were crushed to learn that there was something seriously wrong with her brain development.  I will never forget the Dr. coming into the room and her first words were, "There's something terribly wrong with the baby." I felt like my heart stopped.  That day was no doubt the most difficult of my life, but since then, we've learned so much....  In a nutshell, Gianna has an occipital encephalocele and hydrocephalus.  Of course when we found that out we started Googling those terms and trying to figure out what this would mean for her.  We've met with a string of specialists since then (neurosurgeon, neonatologist, geneticist) and have been told so many things, including that she would probably not survive long, etc......but here I am at 30 weeks now and she is growing and developing, and on track to join our family sometime in Sept or Oct!  My due date is Oct 13th, but she will certainly be delivered early.  It was so difficult to find much information on the web, even looking at scientific studies, but I did come across one blog written by the mother of a little girl named Bryleigh in TX.  It meant so much to me to read about her story - the pregnancy, the birth, her first birthday....it made it seem possible that things could turn out ok for our little girl too!

We have been incredibly blessed by friends, family, co-workers, doctors and people whom we have never even met who have given us their support, warm wishes, and prayers over the past 10 weeks.  It is hard to even express the gratefulness we feel for the outpouring of kindness we have received from so many people all over the country.  THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts - we love you!