Frogger Blog: 1st Post

Hello! Welcome to our blog on the story of our little baby that we are expecting in August. Kate and I decided to write this to bring you all up to speed on what's happening with our little one. This is going to be quite the journey and we know that many of you are praying for us. We really need that! Here's the story as of right now.

Back in November Kate started feeling kind of tired and had some headaches. After about a week of it she thought that maybe it could be a baby. We had been trying but not for very long so we were not sure. She told me she thought that she might be pregnant so we bought the test and after taking two...she was right!

It didn't quite seem real to me or to Kate for that matter until we went into Dr.Irvin's office in December and heard the little one's heartbeat. Life. What a miracle! A few weeks later we were able to get an ultrasound. All I could see was something the size of a peanut that was moving around...and you could see the heartbeat! Life! What a miracle! Our due date is August 8th.

We decided to wait until Christmas to tell our family and man were they excited. This is the first grandchild for Kate's parents and mine. If you didn't get the chance to see the video of my mom freaking out...it's worth watching:  Mom's Reaction

It was at that time that Kate's brother, Kurk, affectionately named our baby Frogger. I'm not really sure why but since Kate and I are waiting until the baby is born to find out the sex, Frogger will work.

Everything seemed to be going pretty good. We had one little scare in January that turned out to be nothing...just first time expectant parents being worried. Kate was getting bigger and we were excited for our
next ultrasound on April 4th.

We went in and to us the ultrasound looked good. They had us turn away when they looked at the baby's legs so that we wouldn't find out the sex. It was at this point that Kate felt the first kicks. Apparently Frogger didn't like that wand pushing on Kate's belly! The doctor came in and told us that the baby all in all looked healthy but she needed to let us know about something.

Then I heard the term...Sacrococcygeal Teratoma (sct). Dr. Irvin described it as a large mass at the base of the baby's spine. She told us that Camden Clark wasn't equipped to handle it so we would have to go to a high risk pregnancy hospital. She told us that Kate would have to have a C-Section and once the baby was born they would remove the growth. So to us it was disappointing that Kate would have a C-Section but it didn't seem to be too serious. We chose OSU as our hospital. They scheduled us for the next day and we took the 2 hour trip up to the medical tower just past the OSU campus.

They did a very extensive ultrasound. It was kind of funny because Frogger is very active...and like I said before is not a big fan of that ultrasound wand pushing on Kate's belly! They would stick the wand on Kate's belly and Frogger would hop to the other side or turn around in there. We got several good pictures and then we met Dr. Shellhouse who told us the news. SCT is a somewhat rare type of cancerous growth that shows up in 1 in 40,000 live births. The U.S only has 300 some cases a year. So it is rare but not uncommon. She told us that the growth is at the base of the baby's spine and looks to be about the same size as the baby's head right now. Now when I say cancer understand that this is not malignant. It is a growth.

She explained that the danger is that if this large mass continues to grow it could potentially start to take blood away from our baby and that could result in cardiac arrest for Frogger. She then dropped the bomb on us and told us that the chance for survival is 50/50. I can't quite describe how that one sentence can rock your world. This is kind of what the thing looks like:

Hopefully the tumor is mostly external and doesn't go inside the baby like the one pictured. 

There is nothing they can really do to shrink this tumor. What they can do is monitor it. Shellhouse told us that the goal is to get the baby full term and then deliver it via C-Section. Afterwards they would perform the surgery. From what I understand is that usually when they remove it, there isn't much lasting damage to the baby other than having a scar. However, any surgery on a newborn is risky. In order to make sure that the blood is still going to our baby and not to the tumor we will have to have a weekly ultrasound...1 week in Parkersburg and the next week at OSU. She also wanted us to get an MRI.

Yesterday we found out that on Thursday we will meet with a specialist and they will tell us what the real options are. Shellhouse isn't the surgeon or the specialist. We will meet this person on Thursday and they said that there is a possibility of taking the baby early if it starts to show signs of heart problems. Our first goal they said is to get to 28 weeks so that this is a more viable option. Kate is currently at 23 weeks. So we will meet the specialist on Thursday and then have the MRI at Children's Hospital on Friday to get a more in depth look at the teratoma.

That is basically what we know. What I also know is that I serve a God who is the Great Physician. I know that right now there are over 1000+ people praying for Frogger. Kate and I believe that our little baby is perfect and while we don't know what God' will is...we are going to trust him. And we are going to hope. Last night we went and registered at Baby's Our Us. We are going to have some baby showers and we are going to get the baby's room together. Faith can move mountains and we have faith that our baby will come home.

Frogger is in a win/win situation. We just pray that God will let us meet and raise this little one. We thank you for your prayers and concern for us. We thank the Belpre Church for the outpouring of love we received on Sunday...and we thank our close friends and family for being there for us too. We have a journey before us and we look to you...and to the Lord for strength and guidance. We will keep you posted. God bless!