The Baby Formerly Known as Bryce...

March 30th, two weeks ago, I received a call from my obstetrician that would change the way we think about our baby forever. She told me that the baby we had, up to that point, known as Bryce Elliott Hunt was actually a baby girl not a baby boy as the doctor and nurses present at her birth had said. I was shocked and a bit embarrassed that we had gotten our precious baby's gender wrong. It seems like I should know the difference between a boy and a girl (and the medical staff certainly should have!). The obstetrician said that she had some swelling around the genital area that could have been mistaken for male parts. She had been dead in utero for so long that her body had changed considerably. The pathologist determined that our baby girl, hereafter to be known as Bridget Ellice Hunt, had died around 14 weeks into her life. She had a cystic hygroma on her neck, which is a fluid-filled sac that resulted from a blockage in the lymphatic system. It led to a webbing of her neck and to what is called hydrops (an excessive amount of fluid in the body). Hydrops caused her heart to fail and is the cause of death. In Bridget's case the cystic hygroma developed because she had Turner's Syndrome, a condition where one X chromosome is missing from her cells. Normally, there are 13 pairs of chromosomes in each cell. With Turner's Syndrome one of these is dropped, it is largely believed, during cell division at conception. Turner's Syndrome is not hereditary in any way and 98% of children with Turner's die in the womb. Those who are born with Turner's Syndrome experience shorter than normal growth and premature ovarian failure (often before puberty). Doctor's often prescribe growth hormones for the height and hormone replacement therapy for the ovarian failure to allow these girls to develop breasts and have menstrual cycles. Women with Turner's Syndrome have a 1% chance of having biological children, most are sterile. Most of them lead normal lives, with the exception of reproduction. Every woman has an equal chance of conceiving a Turner's baby and having one Turner's baby does not increase your chances of conceiving another. Turner's is believed to occur in 1 out of 5000 conceptions.