Thor Update - Good News, New Fears, and a New Name?

The news on the Thor-front keeps getting better and better!

We've had several appointments now where I request Sarah (Our Favorite Ultrasound Tech) so that we get consistent measurements of Thor's tumor. She keeps coming up with the same CVR (which, just a reminder, is the ratio between the size of the baby and the size of the tumor) of about 1.9. It feels so great to see that number stay the same. All evidence points toward that number starting to go down soon!

Last Thursday, Dr. Silver (Our Favorite Doctor--also the chair of the department) checked out Thor for the first time in several weeks. He had nothing but good news, and even pointed out healthy lung tissue on the left side AND the right side! The tumor is contained within the right side but juts out toward the left, squishing the left lung some. When we were first diagnosed, they could see basically no healthy lung tissue on the right, so I was so relieved to see how much has grown up around the tumor!

Sarah also said that the longitudinal measurement of the tumor in centimeters is actually smaller than a few days ago!

Now that things are going well in utero and the possibility of pre-birth surgery is pretty much safely behind us, I'm beginning to get seriously worried about the after birth surgery. We're still not sure if he'll need it right away or in a few months, but either way I am terrified. Scared. Really scared. Part of that fear is due to my lack of information about it. We are meeting with the pediatric surgeon the first week of December, so we'll get lots of questions answered then. All I know know is that the surgery after birth is hugely preferable to the in utero surgery. The absolute best survival rate anyone could come with for the in utero surgery was 75%. I have no idea if I need to be worried about a survival rate for the surgery after birth. I guess we'll find out soon.

I'm glad I had written this post about taking charge of my own health care, because between going public with my intentions and having encouraging prompting from my mom, husband, and commenters, I was primed to stand up for myself with Dr. Silver. I told him what I told you--that I was tired of the doctors poking around my uterus when they didn't really need to and that I wanted to get in and out of there faster if possible. He understood and suggested that we have a doc pop in on Thursdays only, rather than every time. Perfect! I hope he also expressed my wishes to the other docs not to make it a personal goal to get a good doppler! We'll see how the next appointment goes.

Today, Monday, I only saw Sarah and it was fantastic! From the time we pulled in to the parking lot to the time we pulled out was only 45 minutes! So much better.

In other Thor news, Zach and I both admitted that we are not 100% sure about his real name. We have a first and middle combo for sure, but we're not sure which one we want to be first and which one we want to be middle. We decided we'd switch up what we're calling him in the privacy of our own home for now and see if we like the other way better. It feels weird to be suddenly calling him by another name, but now is the time to experiment, I guess! Part of me wants to tell people the names and get their opinions, but ultimately I know their opinions won't be the deciding factor anyway. I asked Isaac to say the new name the other day, and he said it perfectly! It was pretty cute, but was it a sign?