Addalyn Lane

I pondered changing this page given that Addy's daddy and I are no longer married 
but I just couldn't do it. This is still her story and so for now, this page shall remain unchanged.

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Nate and I started dating on my 16th birthday...we were kids!

We dated for 7 years before we got married on July 26, 2008.

 
 We waited 4 years after we got married before we decided to expand our family. 
We got pregnant really quickly and we were so thrilled!

We told our families over Labor Day weekend that we were expecting a little bundle of joy and to say they were excited is an understatement!

Our pregnancy started out prefect...no morning sickness or crazy cravings/food aversions. I felt really awesome! When we went for our routine 12 week OB appointment, our OB was unable to hear our little one's heartbeat with the doppler so she sent us for an ultrasound just to ease our worry.

 The ultrasound rocked our world. 

The ultrasound tech instantly found the heart tones and we heard our baby's little heart beating away at 164 beats per minute. We thought we were good to go, but the tech said she was going to get the OB. They both stared at the ultrasound monitor with concerned looks on their faces. Finally, our OB said that she found something that she thought was "concerning" so she wanted to send us to see a perinatologist. I bawled.  She made lots of calls and they were nice enough to get us in to see the perinatologist immediately. The perinatologist did another ultrasound and she told us that it appears that Baby V had a cystic hygroma.

We met with a genetics counselor and she explained what a hygroma was and what it could possibly mean for our baby. We faced the potential of a miscarriage, chromosome abnormality, genetic mutation, or heart defect. We had a CVS which revealed that we were having a girl and that her chromosomes were normal. We were given the option to terminate, but we wanted to give our daughter a fighting chance despite the high risk for defects or miscarriage. We were not going to give up on her precious little life.

By 18 weeks, much to the surprise of the perinatologist, the cystic hygroma had resolved and Baby V was growing and developing perfectly (with the exception of a cleft lip and palate, but that didn't scare Nate or I...it wasn't life threatening). Since the 18 week ultrasound went so well, we finally told our friends that we were expecting, we named Baby V (Addalyn Lane), and I started to plan the perfect nursery. Those were great times. 

Because a cystic hygroma is sometimes associated with heart defects, we had an ECHO at 24 weeks (12.26.2012) just to make sure all was well with her little heart.

 Her little heart was absolutely perfect!

After the ECHO, the perinatologist decided that he wanted to do his own ultrasound. He started at the top...her brain looked great, she had a cleft lip, her heart was great, but then he stopped. Her kidneys which two weeks prior had measured 4mm and 6mm were now both well over 20mm. He said he gets concerned when the kidneys exceed 10mm because they should be around 4mm so to be 20mm bilaterally was baffling to him.

The perinatologist sent me for an MRI the next day and once again, our world was rocked. The MRI revealed that Addalyn had a right sided diaphragmatic hernia which allowed her liver and intestines to invade the area which should contain the right lung (preventing her right lung from fully developing). The diaphragmatic hernia caused a mediastinal shift which resulted in inadequate development of the left lung. Both her kidneys contained cystic lesions and did not appear to be functioning, leaving me with very little amniotic fluid. 

Things were not looking good and we were so overwhelmed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we had weekly ultrasounds, met with lots of specialists, and did lots of genetic testing. Ultimately, we learned that despite every medical intervention, we could not give our baby girl a quality life.  It was a very difficult reality to face, simply heartbreaking. 

 

Together, Nate and I vowed that despite knowing that precious Addalyn's life would be limited, we wanted to do everything we could during our pregnancy to ensure that she knew how very loved and wanted she is. We talked to her all the time, read to her every night, had our friends and family send her Valentines, picked out a special outfit for her, and we even took her to the zoo. From the day we found out we were pregnant, we loved our child and we desperately wanted her to know it.  She is so loved.

At 35 weeks and 4 days, my water broke very unexpectedly.

 Addalyn Lane Voigt was born on March 19, 2013 at 7:49 am 
(Addy's Birth Announcement & Addy's birth story). 

She went to be with Jesus shortly after her birth.

While her time with us was short, she opened her eyes and saw us, held tight to Nate's finger, and Nate put his hand over her little heart just so he could feel it beating. Her time with us was so peaceful and regardless of how difficult our journey was, I would do it all over for that precious time with our very precious daughter. 

Addalyn was beautiful. 

  When the doctor laid her on my tummy, a love that we have never experienced came over us. There she was, our beautiful baby girl.   She looked so perfect…ten little fingers, ten little toes, a precious little nose and cleft lip. She had her mommy’s chin, a head full of light brown hair, chubby little cheeks, the tiniest little eyelashes, and big feet for being such a little girl. Her skin was so soft and after we gave her a bath, she smelled so good. 

While emotionally it was a difficult pregnancy and impossible to face the heartache of having to say goodbye to our baby girl, we are so blessed to be her mommy and daddy. She is our precious baby girl and while she is not physically here with us, we will forever carry her in our hearts. She is wanted and will always and forever be deeply loved. 

To the moon and back.

(You can follow our pregnancy journey with Addalyn by clicking on "BabyV1" in the "What I've Blogged Section.")