1. Our 20-week scan(s)

I honestly thought that after you hit the 12-week mark, you’re were pretty much away laughing with a pregnancy. The highest risk of a miscarriage is in those first three months, and how much else could go wrong after that?

I was booked into the Hong Kong public health system for my prenatal care and check-ups, and they only really offer two ultrasounds in a pregnancy, the first at between 11-13 weeks to check nuchal translucency, and another between 20-22 weeks – the anomaly scan, to check everything was ticking along.

I had been having ‘baby blues’ in the few weeks before the anomaly scan. I just felt down. I’d wake up and feel like I was at the bottom of the ocean. I cried through breakfast. Everything was a bit hazy. I knew it was my hormones messing about, but I still couldn’t shake it. Then one day I just woke up and realised how excited I was. Really, really excited. I was having a baby. I was going to be a mum. Erin was going to be a dad. This was brilliant.

The 20-week scan was coming up and we couldn’t wait to see our little Junebug. The radiographer started measuring in silence (as they always do) and we just sat there in awe of this little body squirming around on the screen.

I remember thinking when I saw a bone, that it looked a bit curved—but hey, it’s a leg being measured using soundwaves in a sack of goo – so distortion makes sense, right?

The scan took a good 45 minutes, broken up by me jogging lightly in the corridor to get the baby to change position. We didn’t think anything was wrong.

At the end of the scan, the ultrasound tech added as an afterthought, “Ok well most things look good, but I am concerned because the arms and legs are very short, and the leg bones are curved, so you will need to come back next week to see the doctor for another scan.”

I just remember crying in the stairwell as we went to make a follow-up appointment. Because we didn’t know what that meant. It was just the word ‘concerned’. This was a Friday morning. The next appointment wasn’t until Wednesday. That was five days of thinking about that word, ‘concerned’.

I needed more information, so made a follow-up appointment with a private doctor at a clinic in Central to do another anomaly scan at 5pm. Erin headed back to work, both of us a little dumbstruck to say anything to each other as we parted on the street, beyond “It’ll be ok”.

The afternoon was a blur of Googling short arms and legs and curved femurs—and with anything on the internet, there were both ends of the spectrum.

At 5pm my sister came with me for another scan. This one took just as long. When the doctor finished, she nipped to her office to grab a big diagnostic textbook and opened it onto a page with a flowchart. At this point, I felt my sister starting to cry but couldn’t look at her, I just kept thinking I had to focus to make sure I understood everything the doctor was saying. “It could be this, or this, or this, but there’s no way to be sure – if it’s this, then the baby’s lungs can’t grow and so it will die when it’s born. Also, in Hong Kong, you are only legally able to get a termination up until 24 weeks, so you don’t have a lot of time.” Just like that.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for that moment. The doctor apologised she didn’t have better news and said she would send through the report the next day.

Then I don’t really remember much. I remember holding off until I got into the lift of the building, and then howling like my heart had been cut out of my chest. I remember emerging onto the street in the middle of rush hour and feeling my face hot and wet and struggling to breathe. I remember my sister telling me she loved me over and over as she held me up, and the man who asked if we were ok. I remember getting out of a car and falling into Erin’s arms and apologising over and over and over.

The next morning, I woke up at 4.30am and walked the dog into the country park while Erin slept. I wrote Junebug a song:

Grow little bones, grow.
Grow little bones, grow.
Grow little chest, grow little toes -
Grow little bones, grow.

And sung it over and over as we walked in the dark. When I got back, I sent my family a message:

 [6:33 AM, 1/27/2018] +852 9733 2314: Until Wednesday, we're not grieving. Life is precious and I have it inside me and that's amazing. We are going to love Junebug and pray for miracles and think positive thoughts. When and if there is a time to grieve, we will. But now, Junebug's heart is beating and so is mine. Would appreciate lots of love. Walked into the country park at 5am this morning. It was cold and still and quiet and so beautiful. I sang for little junebug's bones to grow and remembered what one of the dr's had said when I was 8 weeks. "You should do screenings to check for disabilities because y'know... you don't want the trouble." Well, we would be blessed by any trouble. I'll take double. Because if this little soul needs a family to love it, it couldn't have chosen a better one. Until we know. No grief. Lots of love. X

When Erin woke up, we cancelled all our plans. Lunches with friends, a meet-up I was meant to go to with other mums-to-be, our flights to New York for a trip he’d won a couple weeks earlier. We wiped our diaries clean. Then we did nothing. Or at least very little, for days. There were lots of phone calls to my family, and conversations between us at home. There was far too much time spent on the internet. The report from the doctor came through, “Cannot rule out thanataphoric dysplasia, campomelic dysplasia or achondrogenesis.” Three lethal forms of skeletal dysplasia. But we looked at the positives. Brain, heart, organs, all healthy and normal.

The littlest kick was so amazing. We started waiting.