What a day....

6 months pregnant

It all started at 9am this morning with a vanilla steamed milk brought to me by my good friend (and this mornings ultrasound companion) Sweina!  We sat through about 2 hours of ultrasounds and about an hour of Dr's updates and genetic counselor visits.  Not much new was discovered at this visit, but it was brought up that McKinley's left kidney looks to be multicystic dysplastic which is not a good sign especially since they still suspect that she does not have a right kidney.  At this point I'm not sure what all of this means, most likely we'll be meeting with a urologist at Children's next.
Then it was off to Children's where thankfully, Tony was able to get off work early and accompany me. 2 hours on the ultrasound table only being able to view McKinley's heart was the longest 2 hours ever!  However, she did wiggle around a bit and show off her practice breathing and then got the hiccups, so that was entertaining. :)  After that we spent an hour with Dr. Meg Vernon (an AMAZING Dr!!! - thank you Neinabers for the recommendation!) and the genetic counselor.  What they can see is that McKinley most likely has an interrupted aortic arch and a ventricular septal defect (better know as a hole in her heart).  Every baby in utero has a hole in their heart between the right and left atriums which McKinley also has, but she has an additional hole between her right and left ventricles which is not normal.  We talked for quite some time about what this could mean for McKinley after she is born and Dr. Vernon's best guess is that she would be sent to Children's no more than 1 day after she's born and monitored there for about a week.  After that first week they would then chose to operate on her heart either by going in through her side, or the front of her chest or both.  Most likely she will spend 3-4 weeks at Children's right after birth, hopefully with no side effects so that she doesn't have to spend any more time there.  Dr. Vernon also suspects that McKinley might have a disorder called DiGeorge Syndrome.  This syndrome has a wide variety of symptoms and severities of those symptoms.  They will do a wide variety of genetic testing when McKinley is born to see if that is what she has, or if it is something else, or possibly nothing.
There are pieces of good news that I can share as well.  McKinley continues to grow and now weighs 2lbs 15oz.  Brooks has slowed a bit in growth but we're told that is normal for twins around this gestation and he weighs about 3lbs 8oz.  McKinley's amniotic fluid has increased again to a level of 5 which means she has more room to move around.  And my cervix actually lengthened a bit up to 2.1, so while still on "princess mode" I'm not on bedrest!
I feel like I ran 10 marathons today.  My mind is spinning and the questions I have are never ending.  Our faith continues to be unshaken and we are confident in God's plans for our life and our childrens lives.  We know that he heals and are still praying for the miracle that he will heal McKinley.  But we are so blessed to have these 2 little lives, for as long as we may have them.  We prayed for them for years and will continue to pray for the rest of our lives....