Ahhh, good ol’ scanxiety. The word to describe the anxiety one feels before a scan. Maya has had so many echos in her three years of life…way more than most people have in a lifetime! I have been by her side for every single one. And every single one produces anxiety.
Scans have changed the trajectory of our life, more than one time!
Here is a recap of Maya’s life changing scans:
The first scan, the 20 week/routine anatomy scan, is where our journey changed for the first time. The moment the ultrasound technician called the doctor in, hovered the probe over Maya’s heart, and the doctor putting her hand on my leg, has been burned into my memory. The rest is a blur.
The 3D echo the day before her first surgery so the team would have the most accurate 
and up to date measurements to work with for her surgery the following day.
The portable echo in her recovery room where I could plainly see the massive and torrential leak in her mitral valve after she already endured two surgeries. The scan that meant we had to ask our baby, and her surgical team, to undergo and preform another 8+ hour open heart surgery.
The discharge echo! The one that made sure she would be able to come home! This is the one where when the doctor told me “it is unchanged. She is stable” and I started SOBBING!!!!! I was crying so hard that he stopped what he was doing and said, “Josie-that’s a good thing!” and I knew it was. It just felt surreal that we were really going to be able to leave!
After her last echo in 2020, I told our cardiologist that it was the first time I didn’t pack an emergency over night bag. The PTST of having our life change with these scans is real!
And now?
We are gearing up for her “routine” echo to make sure everything is hopefully unchanged but I am still nervous…so nervous that I had to put the word routine in quotation marks so I don’t mess with karma!
So if you want to follow along with us to her appointment, follow us on Facebook or Instagram! And of course, if you’d like to purchase a bracelet to help a family feel connected during one of their many scans, click here.
