April 28, 2010

A few housekeeping issues first:

1) Why the title "Knowin Owen?" First of all because I only thought of "Growin Owen" after the the blog was already published, but also because we really want anyone who cares about Owen to have a way to see his progress.   We realize that it isn't possible for everyone that knows us to visit us in Cincy, so this is the best way to follow us along the way.  Tyler and I want to be as transparent as possible about our thoughts, feelings, fears and celebrations as we start along Owen's journey, and so we want to be the first ones to say we often feel like kids trying to raise a kid. Any words of encouragement or prayers for Owen are always appreciated and encouraged as they help strengthen the faith of our family. We can't wait to show Owen in a few years just how many people cared  and loved him enough to also experience his journey with him.  That is what  "Knowin Owen"  is all about!

2) Since not everyone knows our story, we figured we would go back and start on April 28, the day we found out something was wrong with Owen. The next few posts will also focus on the past to help get everyone caught up to where we are now.  Tyler had  her 20 week ultrasound appointment, and the baby looked very similar to one seen in the picture (17 weeks).  If you look at the 17 week U/S picture of Owen, you may notice the round black circle  near his bottom.  We didn't know it at the time, but this was indicative that there was some type of malfunction in Owen's urinary system. The black color seen in  the circle represents fluid (in Owen's case urine or pee), and there was some type of abnormal dilation (expansion) of either Owen's bladder or one of his kidneys. In case you were wondering, this wasn't diagnosed when this picture was taken because the ultrasound was at a day spa to determine the sex of the baby (which was a BOY :) ), and unfortuantely the U/S techs there are only trained to tell you one of two things: boy or girl. I also haven't seen enough ultrasounds in my medical training to interpret radiographs, so I simply thought his bladder was full.

To my estimation, there are only about three dozen or so unfading memories that last a lifetime (maybe even less). I'm not just speaking on memories, but personal events that leave such an imprint in your mind that no detail is ever lost. Through the years your mind will always hold on to what you were doing, saying, thinking, wearing during that particular event.  Getting married is one such moment, as is seeing the birth of your child, or a catastrophic event like 9/11.   Finding out with Tyler that something was wrong with out unborn baby, I knew this would be day we would look back on for the rest of our lives.  For better or for worse, our lives were going to be changed. How? We didn't know then and we really still don't, but we knew the effects would be felt forever. Precious few moments in our lives have such the impact as that. It was just like you would see in a movie: the ultrasound tech (again, different one than from the day spa), saw the abnormality on the screen and tried to flee the room the room as quickly as possible (and also just as quietly, as if trying to escape without us noticing)  to grab Tyler's OB (doctor for women) to bring into the room.  As this point, Tyler and I are left in the room by ourselves to contemplate what just happened.  No explanation was given as to why the U/S tech suddenly bailed out of the room.  Did she see something wrong?  Did she have an emergent personal phone call? Was her lunch suddenly not agreeing with her?  Our minds raced, but we ultimately knew when Tyler's OB showed up something was wrong. 

Owen at 17 weeks

The radiograph proved to show that Owen's left kidney was extremely dialated.  It appeared at that point to be taking up a large portion of his abdomen area, even overtaking the size of his bladder.  30 mins later we were sent home with a referral to a high risk OB.  All we had was a working diagnosis of "Posterior Urethral Valve Syndrome causing Lower Urinary Track Obstruction" (which I will get into with the next post).  We had no ideas about interventions or long term consequences of PUVs, but we were getting ready to become experts in the subject by the end of the following month.  April 28 may have proved to be the beginning, but May was by far the hardest month we have had to face up to this point...