The waiting game continues

We finally met with the surgeon at Primary Children's on Thursday, but I'm afraid we left a little MORE confused about what to expect than we were before. He basically said we really won't know about a plan of action until they can actually do imaging and a biopsy on our baby when he comes.

Since this kind of tumor can turn from malignant to benign spontaneously, they may postpone the removal until they are sure it is metastasizing. He said sometimes the surgery can be more harmful/dangerous than the neuroblastoma. He said Mike and I may have to make that decision once we have all the information (sounds fun huh?).

The good news: He may not have to undergo major surgery for the tumor removal immediately after his birth.

The bad news: We may not have a quick resolution. We may be in wait, watch, & decide mode for years to come.

The really bad news: When there is a decision to be made it is possible that the wrong one will be made. (If I didn't have a knowledge of the gospel and a testimony of personal revelation I'd lie down, curl up in a little ball. and never get back up at the thought of this.)

Now, I'll be honest, I don't know what to think about all of this. I'm comfortable with a surgeon deciding how he's going to get something OUT, but I'm not super comfortable with a surgeon deciding to leave something cancerous IN. Especially since I'm pretty sure, yet again, that the surgeon has not dealt with a neuroblastoma found in a fetus.

So now I'm on a mission to find a pediatric oncologist who can look at this whole picture and help us figure it out. I pray (literally) that such a person exists, and that we can find him/her.

Don't worry, we're still strong in our faith that everything will work out and that we are in the Lord's hands.... but good golly WHAT A MESS!

Official Diagnosis

I'll be honest, It feels surreal to even be writing this. They have given us an official diagnosis on our baby's tumor. They've decided that it is a neuroblastoma (ie cancer). It is attached to the adrenal gland, and wraps around the baby's aorta.

We've known about the tumor for over three weeks now, and it has not grown significantly. If it remains the same size and does not metastasize (and the baby stays healthy) we will likely be able to carry the baby full term, and solve the problem with surgery alone. We don't know yet what the chances of this best case scenario are.

Even if chemo is necessary we've read that baby's handle it ok (whatever that means) and that overall the survival rate of a prenatal neuroblastoma is around 90%. In short, there is definitely hope.

We'll be meeting with a surgeon at Primary Children's next Thursday, and we are really hoping they can give us some more information on what to expect. As of now, we have yet to meet with a doctor or specialist that has even seen something like this in the past decade.

I am currently 28 weeks along - so we have a long road ahead of us - but we also have a lot of faith, hope, and support from friends and family to sustain us. Please keep us in your prayers.

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE HELPED US SO MUCH! I don't know how we would have made it through these past weeks without the babysitting, meals, kind gestures, and the shoveling of our driveway and walks.

Thank you so much!

Mike and I want to thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and fasting. We have felt the support and the increase of faith and peace in our hearts. We feel blessed to have so many who love us.

The miracles have already started coming and we expect many many more. We are focusing on and praying for the tumor to stop growing (and even to start dissolving), and we believe that this can and will happen. Thank you for your continued faith and prayers for that specific result.

We won't have any more information until the end of February, so we'll let you know more when we know more...

Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are making a difference to us.

Love, Us.

Asking....

Well things have taken a turn for the worse here in the Lomax household. It turns out that the ultrasound we had last week didn't go well at all (I guess ultrasound tecs take classes in acting, either that or ours just has a gift for it. )

We met with a specialist early this morning and our little guy has a pretty significant tumor in his abdomen. We are asking those who love us (or just like us, or just feel sorry for us :)) to include our baby in their prayers and upcoming fast (if applicable.)

The details:

We do not know what it is yet. It is a very dense (shows up the same color as the bones, not the organs) large mass (about an inch in diameter - he is only about 12 inches from head to toe), it is located on top of the left kidney and below his adrenal gland.) If it is attached to his kidney it is likely non-cancerous, if it attached to his adrenal glad it is likely cancerous. The doctor's best guess is that it is attached to the kidney because there doesn't appear to be blood flow to it or pockets of fluid in it. There are no signs that it is impeding the baby's development at this point - he's doing great on all other measurements.

Where we go from here:

We will have an MRI as soon as possible to try to get more information. Mostly we will just "wait, watch, and worry" as the specialist put it. We'll be having a ton of doctors appointments until the baby comes to try to get an accurate diagnosis.

Likely outcome:

If the baby starts to have trouble we could be looking at an early delivery. If he is doing well they'll have us go full-term. Either way we'll probably deliver at the UofU and the baby will immediately go to Primary Children's for surgery/biopsy. These type of tumors are rare but have a good prognosis. The specialist is "cautiously optimistic" and wants us to be the same. One of the first things he said to us was "I think your baby is going to be alright." He basically said that this is serious and must be dealt with, but when it is over the baby should be perfectly fine and normal for the rest of his life.

How we are feeling:

Well you can imagine how difficult this is for us. However we are being blessed with peace (enough to out way our panic 94.7% of the time). We feel very certain that their are miracles available to us, and that through our faith and the faith of others that our family will be blessed. We too think that "our baby is going to be alright" it is just a matter of how difficult the road will be for us and our baby before we get there.

I hope you don't mind the complete spillage of info and guts, but I figure it will be easier if people just know the details from the source from the start.

Thank you for your love and support. Please pray for my baby, Melinda

Camera Shy?

My cute unborn son wasnt' thrilled about getting his picture taken yesterday. He had one leg up by his face, and one leg pointing down the whole time. It was pretty funny, and it did help to aleviate all doubts as to his gender.

He did move his hand for a second, and we got this little peek at him. Mylee is pretty excited that we think his nose looks like hers. He is about 1 1/2 pounds right now. Official due date is May 12, 2009.

Do we have to do this?

Over the weekend we started potty training Mylee (starting Thursday afternoon).

By Saturday morning we were at the car show in South Jordan and doing lunch at the Mayan. We had so much fun together and Mylee is still talking about the divers.

For those of you thinking "that was fast." You're right.... it was fast of us to GIVE UP! By the time Saturday morning came around I was pretty darn sick of potty training. When Mylee woke up I asked her is she wanted to put on underwear or a diaper. She chose the diaper, and we went on a spontanious day of family fun.

She learned a lot, and we'll try again soon -
but I've never been more content to change her diaper!

Some fun pics

She looks so innocent in this picture - it makes me laugh!
This is more like it! She loves to put on her old dresses, wear my high heels (she walks better in them than I do) and wear her princess crown upside-down. The new kitchen her grandparents gave her for Christmas is her favorite thing to play with.

Finger painting with pudding. She thought that was pretty cool!