Good news! Brielle has a membrane covering her brain!! This is huge and helps give her a better outcome. I’m going to consider this an answered prayer, so please keep praying. Our little girl needs those prayers and they’re helping.

Brielle was a little stinker all morning. She did not want to be monitored or seen. During the ultrasound she kept trying to hide and she spent a lot of time burrowing into my diaphragm. That is one of her favorite places to go. While I’m glad she’s found a comfy place to snuggle, I’d really like to breathe. Speaking of which, my fluid was up to 37 cm. That’s a lot. Combine that with her burrowing and I was blacking out during the scans. Too much weight on my poor lungs and diaphragm. We watched her playing with her umbilical cord. During one point she threw her arm over her face, in what I can only guess, at an attempt to hide. She also pulled her knees up to her chest and then stretched them out and crossed them like a lady. She likes keeping her hands near her face, as you can see in her 3D pictures. She’s just so cute, I can’t get enough of her.

We tried to do a stress test today and that was nearly impossible. I have so much amniotic fluid that Brielle can flip from a breech position to a head down position without me even feeling her and she can do it quickly. She’s a good swimmer! She did a couple somersaults in her attempts to thwart the monitor and punched and kicked the thing as much as possible. She really does not like that thing. We managed to capture her heart rate for maybe a whole five minutes after thirty minutes of trying. And what we captured wasn’t all that reliable either. So we’ve decided the stress tests at this point are useless and we won’t be continuing them, but will monitor her heart rate via ultrasound. We’ll also monitor my placenta via ultrasound as well, to make sure that it is staying healthy.

We talked to Dr. B today about how to deliver her in a way that would minimize head trauma. We’re hoping that I will go in without my water breaking so that he can turn her to a breech position and pull her out that way. He thinks that will be less traumatic.

David and I have to make some tough decisions now. I want to hold her and keep her with me, but if she is going to be treated at all, she needs to be taken to the NICU. It breaks my heart to have her taken from me, but if we can do anything to save her I want to do it. The problem is that we won’t know what needs to be done until she’s born. And David and I need to have plans for multiple scenarios. There’s also only so much they can do. If she develops a brain bleed there really isn’t much that can be done. The biggest treatment option we have is covering her head. And that’s something we need to talk to the neonatologist about.

What we’re asking and pushing for is not done. These babies are not treated, they are not carried to term, they are not offered anything but comfort care, sometimes not even that. We’re asking for a lot and we’re asking for very busy doctors to try and develop a new way of thinking and treating anencephaly.

To David and I, if we can just have a Christmas with her that would be enough. It would be the greatest gift we can imagine. It’s a lot to hope for, but it would mean so much. We’ll never have enough time with her, but if we could just have some time, just a little, it would mean the world.