On April 16, 2013 my husband met me at the hospital for our 18wk ultrasound.  We had already peeked and found out we were having a girl!  So as I was lying there while the technician scanned my belly, I laughed and made jokes.  It seemed like it was taking her a long time but she had already told us that she measures everything twice.  Next thing I know, while she is still scanning the doctor comes in and starts asking me all these questions.  "Did we notice that her arms and legs were measuring shorter?"  Honestly, I have already forgotten what they were but I do remember him saying the word dwarfism.  All I could think about was "a midget"?  So finally, I had to ask him - I said, I am sorry do you mean a midget?  Even though I am a nurse, I was having trouble following him.  He said, "Yes."  I thought to myself, "Ok, we can deal with that.  How do you buy clothes, what kind of difficulties will she have? It will be ok"  Then he preceded to say they were also seeing some other things and were going to take a closer look.  A lot is blur after that but I do know that we were there for over 2.5hrs.  We waited for the high risk OB doctor to come in who scanned us again and confirmed it, "We think your daughter has a lethal condition that is incompatible with life.  It is called thanatophoric (meaning death bearing)  dysplasia."  After he completed all the measurements, he confirmed that her condition was lethal and she would only live maybe 1 hr after birth.  She has short arms and legs.  Her fingers are curved and legs are bowed.  Her nose is smaller than usual.  She has platyspondylic, which is spine deformity.  Another common development is that of an enlarged skull and large forehead most often requiring a c-section due to the large head.  The reason the condition is lethal is because her ribs and chest wall are too small to allow her lungs to fully develop so that when she is born she will be unable to breathe on her own because of hypoplastic lungs.  I was in absolute shock!  I started sobbing uncontrollably and he stopped talking and placed his arm on my leg and just waited.  Brian was sitting next to me sobbing as well. Once I calmed down, I asked where do we go from here?  He told me he had to offer me the right to terminate the pregnancy OR I could carry her as long as I could.  A decision that would not be made lightly.
We left the hospital still in shock, eyes swollen and blood shot from tears.  Brian was going to call his family and give them the news and I called my dad to tell him.  I could hardly get the words out - all I remember saying is, "She's not going to live."  I couldn't talk anymore, I couldn't give details.  I told him not to call back and tell my mom and sisters.  I would call when I was ready.  Everything seemed so unreal after that.  Brian and I sat down and talked about it. We decided I was going to carry her for as long as God would allow.  We had always said if we had a girl we would name her Mabry (after my grandmother) and Rose (after Brian's grandmother). So, thus became the story of MABRY ROSE.