At 20 weeks, we discovered Carson had a hole in his heart. The doctors let us know that this is “normal” in babies and everything would close on its own after birth, but we’d still like to do a fetal echo right away (loved that as a first time mom lol). We did the echo and Carson’s valves were abnormally formed, but would get back to normal by birth and they did. Although, he still has the tiniest hole, it isn’t currently causing any issues.
As time went on, Carson didn’t really grow at the speed the doctors wanted, so we were sent to high risk for extra monitoring. The doctors didn’t want us delivering past 37 weeks with all of Carson’s markers and the fact that I had mild preeclampsia.
I was induced with Carson at 37 weeks and 3 days. October 10, 2019 was the best and scariest day of my life. I held him for what felt like 5 seconds before he was sent off to the NICU for testing and monitoring.
During our 12 day NICU stay, it was recommended that we do genetic testing with all of Carson’s minor markers. We were hesitant on doing so because the results didn’t matter to us. He was here and perfect. The doctor came in and said you might want to consider it for future, so we did the heel stick and waited…
2 months later we go into a genetics counseling appointment thinking it was going to be testing for Aaron and I. Well, that was not the case. It was an appointment to notify us of Carson’s results…your son has a rare chromosome duplication, Trisomy 9p. Aaron and I were in complete shock. What does this mean for him? For us? Our future? All of the questions ran through our mind.
Fast forward to present day…Aaron and I are juggling therapy appointments, trips to Cincinnati for his specialists and forever making sure Carson is getting the best care possible.
- Katie Botner
