Hospital-22 weeks

My first appointment at the hospital was a full 12+ hour day from start to finish. I had a full body scan of my baby, EKG, MRI and CT. I met with a geneticist and multiple doctors and nurses throughout the day to find out what was wrong with my baby. By the end of this exhausting day we finally met with an OB to get some answers. She explained to us that on the MRI, they found some old blood staining in the baby’s brain from 12 weeks. At this point, they ruled out genetics and infection. The only explanation they could give us, was that she had a brain bleed in utero. They didn’t really have any idea how it happened but that maybe she pulled on her cord and flipped herself causing a capillary in her head to burst. The bleed caused a clot in the base of her skull where the cerebral fluid should drain naturally from the head. Since the baby’s was blocked by the clot, the fluid had nowhere to go and was slowly filling her head. My husband and I were absolutely devastated. I never in a million years thought I would have any serious issues during my pregnancy. Up until this point, I had horrible nausea that had literally started to subside about a week prior, and I thought that was the worst of it. I was told to continue my care at the hospital until my baby was born. I would be getting monthly ultrasounds to measure her ventricles and then weekly once it got closer to delivery. Part of the issue with the enlarged ventricles is that it causes the baby’s head to also enlarge and doctors were concerned her head might get too big for her to even be delivered. We were handed a stack of papers on mild ventriculomegaly and hydrocephalus, what they believed my baby had. Talk about overwhelming. I didn’t even know where to start as far as trying to read all of these documents. I still hadn’t processed what we were just told.