Its important for our friends and family to know what we have gone through and what we are continuing to go through. I've tried to provide the facts, as it is impossible to express on a blog what we are going though emotionally.

Thursday February 3, 2011 we had our normal doctor's appointment for 17 weeks of pregnancy. We knew there wouldn't be a sonogram, just a simple fetal heart beat monitoring and a quad screen blood test. We didn't know yet whether we were having a boy or a girl. We had no reason to think anything was wrong. I had just started to feel the baby moving. I had just started not to feel nauseous all the time.

On Monday, February 7, I got a phone call while I was at work. The phone call was simply to report the results of the quad screen and the nurse asked me to call her back. I immediately began to be concerned that she didn't just say "everything is okay" on the message. I called back and she informed me that the blood results had not been normal. We would be scheduled for a level II ultrasound on Wednesday to see if it was a false positive or if there was something wrong.

At the ultrasound, we were informed by a radiologist that the baby had anencephaly which was "not compatible with life." Anencephaly is a neural tube defect that causes no skull to be formed over the top of the head and no brain to be formed. The baby had a brain stem only, hence the ability to kick and move, but not to live. We immediately went to our doctor's office for information on what to do next.

The doctor informed us that we had two options: carry the baby to term, knowing that the baby would not live, or schedule a delivery early. We chose to go ahead and deliver the baby. Either way the baby would not be able to live past a few minutes at best. We were scheduled to come back to the doctor's office Thursday afternoon to begin the process and Friday morning I would be admitted to the hospital for labor and delivery.

Thursday afternoon seaweed sticks were put into my cervix to attempt to "ripen" the cervix or force the cervix to begin to dialate. I was informed that this had the potential to be a very long labor, as my body in no way was rejecting the baby, and my body had no reason to believe it needed to go into labor. Also, this was my first child, and my body would not be as willing as perhaps someone who had previously given birth to progress in labor.

Friday morning I checked into the hospital with Andrew and my mother by my side and my father at home with our puppy. We checked in at 7:30 and soon enough I was given drugs to induce labor.

At 9:11 pm I delivered our baby boy. He was alive at birth and died shortly after. He was issued a birth certificate and a death certificate at the same time.

No one should EVER have to go through this. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers as we find our way.