Yeah… We have passed the half way point of our pregnancy..  Lizzy Jo is really starting to move around in there, and this is starting to feel real.  So much has happened in just a few weeks and life is never going to be same.

We got a second look at Lizzy’s diaphragmatic hernia.  Her heart has migrated to right side, her intestines, liver and stomach is up.  That isn’t so great…  The good side is, it seems like she isn’t going to have a congenital heart defect and her amnio came back normal.  We are just going to have to help her fight the CDH. 

We have decided on the team at at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We talked to the docs at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and were informed that most of the docs we will be dealing with at Chapel Hill have been trained and practiced at CHOP.  We are confident Lizzy Jo will get the best care possible at UNC.  We had another ultrasound at the fetal specialist Wednesday, and at twenty weeks she was 11 ounces.  We are so praying she is going to be a big girl with big lungs.. 

In the next week or two, Tony and I will be going to Chapel Hill for Lizzy’s first MRI.  Hopefully, they will be able to get some sort of idea as to how much of her lungs are developing.  We are praying for a head to lung ration of over 1 but are preparing ourselves for a low number.  We are also expecting to hear she has very low chances of survival.  I just know she is going to fight really hard and survive, so the low numbers don’t really mean much.

Tony and I are so very scared.  The strain of the worry is starting to have an effect.  We aren’t talking as much, and I feel like I am becoming very distant from everyone around me.  I am trying so hard to be strong and not let this consume me.  I feel myself really slipping into depression.  I am trying so hard to fight all the negative feelings. I am usuallly a very positive, outgoing kind of gal, but I am having the hardest time being around anyone. This is the hardest thing I have ever been through, and I have a feeling it is just going to get harder…. 

I am so fighting the negative feelings, and am trying to visualize positive things.  I can see her riding a horse for the first time, all of us in a family photo, her and baby Tony eating ice cream cones, buying her first pair of shoes, playing Barbie, or her telling me to read her favorite story for the tenth time before bed.  I know the power of positive imagery and trusting God.  I know I have to keep my head up, and try to stay positive. 

I am so hoping that something happens, and life starts looking less bleak..