Isabella’s Story
O Warrior Stories
Written by: Diana Pashayan
February 20th. This was a day we would never forget. What seemed like a routine testing turned into our biggest nightmare. We were told at 12 weeks our baby had an omphalocele. Confused, scared, anxious, sad these were many thoughts that ran through our heads. We went through with a CVS and extensive genetic testing. Nothing was pointing as to why this happened. We were told this may resolve itself over time but we would wait and see. Every single doctor’s appointment made us more and more anxious. Is the omphalocele still there? How big did it get? We were sent for countless fetal echos and found our baby also has rare disorder, dextrocardia- where her heart is on the right side. After some time we realized this was not going to just go away and we prepared ourselves for what was to come. A fetal MRI was done to further assess the contents and size of the O. After meeting with the NICU and the pediatric surgeons of Cohens Children’s Medical Center, we received the news to prepare to treat this as a giant O and we would have to paint and wait. The O contained her liver and parts of gallbladder.
Fast forward to August 6th, we made it to 36 weeks despite being severe IUGR and elevated dopplers. We received our scheduled c-section date for August 14th, but our little girl had other plans. What seemed like routine monitoring on NST turned into an ambulance ride to the hospital. Baby’s heart rate dropped and was slow to come back up. A second episode occurred once in the hospital and a decision was made to proceed to the OR.
Isabella Marie was born August 6th at 36 weeks weighting 4lbs 0.9oz. Her O was covered in gauze and wrapped. Surgery evaluated her and decided this O fell right in between the small and giant scale and they would proceed with revision surgery the next day. At only 2 days of life Isabella underwent surgery to push her liver back inside and create a belly button. We are now 20 days old and getting closer to being discharged from the hospital.
