Part 1        Part 2        Part 3        Part 4        Part 5        Part 6 Conclusion

Doctor Hurst (to the best of my recollection), “I’m not sure exactly what is wrong here.  I do know that the baby’s head is measuring about four weeks larger than it should.  That can indicate some form of Hydrocephalus which is fluid built up on the brain.  But, I just can’t be sure.  They can sometimes treat Hydrocephalus by placing a shunt to drain the fluid.  There are some other oddities.  I would like to send you over to the hospital for some more tests.

The rest of my memories come in bits and pieces.  Many years later after Dr. Hurst had delivered all four of my now grown children, four girls, I sat at the same doctor’s office, different office, same doctor and two of the same nurses, Ann and Rita, that had apparently worked for him for thirty years now.  I was at his office again.  But, I sat in a chair next to my youngest daughter Jory.  Jory was seventeen.  Jory was pregnant.  Jory was having her first ultrasound.  Did we want to know what the sex of the baby was?  Yes, a girl, another girl in the family.  Both of us seem nervous.  Both of us keep asking questions.  “Does everything look okay?”  Jory wants to know.  “I’m sorry”,  I say, “I was in your office a very long time ago.  There was something wrong with my baby.  I was seventeen.  Doctor Hurst was the doctor and it was during my first ultrasound that he discovered something was wrong.  We are both just a little nervous”.  The nurse, Ann, looks stunned, “That was you?  I remember that…  I was the nurse.  I remember that so well because that was my first situation where something was seriously wrong.  I was the one that called the hospital.  It was late in the afternoon, about 4:30 pm right?  I called the hospital to get you in.  They weren’t going to take you that afternoon because it was so late and I told them, ‘You have to take her.  She is so young.  She needs some answers.  We can’t leave her like this.'”  Our eyes are both watering up.  I thank her.  We both express gratitude for being able to share the experience and she gets back into the moment with Jory and my first granddaughter in the oven!

It’s been thirty-five years now since Ann walked with me across the street to the hospital for more tests.  There was more wrong with my son Joseph Courtney.

The next test Doctor Hurst wanted performed was an amniocentesis, which currently was only performed down at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  An amniocentesis is a medical procedure used in the diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities.  During that procedure I remember lying on the table surrounded by people with lab coats.  After a local anesthetic, and with the aid of an ultrasound, a large needle was inserted through my abdominal wall, then through the uterine wall, which is thicker and you could tell they had to use more force,  I felt it, and finally through the amniotic sac.  Amniotic fluid is then extracted and fetal cells are separated.  I was told the fetal cells would need to be grown in a culture and then they would be able to examine them for chromosomal abnormalities.   This would show exactly what was wrong.

I went back to the University a few weeks later for the results of the amniocentesis.  Again, it’s hard to say if Jay was there.  I’m sure he was.  But, my memory is so focused on the doctor, his office and his WORDS that anything peripheral in my mind became non-existent.  As I remember, his said something like this, “The results of the amniocentesis are not good.  The baby’s chromosomes are entirely messed up.  If I could, I would tell you that absolutely there is a 100% chance this baby will not survive.  But, legally I cannot tell you that.  So, I will tell you that there is 99.9% chance that your baby will die before you reach full term.  If for some unknown reason the baby did survive until you were full term, there is no way that you would ever be able to care for the baby.  It would need to live in an institution for as long as it survived…  Blah, Blah, Blah…  We could go in and drain the water on the baby’s brain, which would terminate the baby’s life.  You do not need to make any such decision today.  You can safely go until 32 week of pregnancy (about 7 1/2 months along).  The baby will either die on his own before that time or at that time YOU WILL HAVE TO MAKE THE DECISION.

(Read Part 3)