Rebecca Hernandez waited patiently for the ultrasound tech to come back in the room. She did her best to calm herself by taking deep breaths, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to receive bad news. She watched the snow fall outside the window. This was not how she was expecting to spend her Christmas Eve. When someone did open the door, it wasn’t the ultrasound tech, but the doctor. His somber expression confirmed Rebecca’s fears. “I’m afraid we can’t tell the gender of your baby,” he began, “because all of it’s abdominal organs are outside of the body.”
The words hung in the air between them, and as Rebecca got up to leave, still processing this news, the doctor said “Come back in two weeks and we’ll see if you’ll continue the pregnancy.”
The car ride home was silent as Rebecca and Omar tried to wrap their heads around these words. They found solace in tears, in each other, and by trying to find out as much as they could about their unborn baby’s condition. For the next two weeks, Rebecca kept feeling the baby kicking. She knew that terminating the pregnancy, for her, was not an option.
After the next check-up, the call came: “The tests came back normal and there are no chromosomal defects.”
Rebecca: “What does that mean?”
Doctor: “She might have a chance.”
That was the moment Rebecca learned she was having a girl, and also the moment she realized that her daughter was going to survive. She could feel by the constant kicks from inside her belly, that this little girl had a strength much more powerful than the doctors realized…
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