Hello, my name is John and my close friends from Ukraine need a help, here is their story:

 

“For more than 10 years we dreamed of becoming parents. We married when we were in university and just starting a career each in our respective field. We experienced a miscarriage at 7 weeks in 2011. The doctors told us that it's okay, that we have no health problems and this sometimes happens. In 2015 I had an ectopic pregnancy at 7 weeks. After a number of surveys and anaysis, it was deemed accidental. Psychologically, it was very difficult and scary, but we always believed that we would definitely become parents.

At the end of August of this year, when I woke up in the morning, I felt that something in my life had changed. But I couldn't understand what. After taking a pregnancy test, the results it was confirmed I'm pregnant. At first I was scared, but our inner feeling of happiness and joy overwhelmed us so much that we did not believe this was happening to us. I immediately began to take care of my child. I visited doctors regularly, took all the tests, ate right, walked by the sea and in parks, talked every day with the baby. I can’t express the emotions I felt when for the first time in my life I heard my child’s heart on an ULTRASOUND. The emotions i felt After the doctor proclaimed “Congratulations, you have a healthy girl.” Many years ago we came up with names for our children - Vasilisa; and already began to talk with her more and more, talked about what color her room would be and how we would all go to my grandmother's in the summer, how we would definitely get a dog ...

On December 21st I signed up for another ultrasound, I don’t remember how I got out of there, I only remember a new Christmas tree laid out and beautiful toys lying on the floor of the house ... my husband wanted to please me after my return.

On the ultrasound, the specialist said that he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t see the right side of the diaphragm and saw some strange shadow in the place of the right lung. I didn’t understand what she was talking about at all, and after that I was sent to a specialist at the genetic center. The next morning we went to this center, during the ultrasound we cried and could not stop.

The doctor announced that our girl had a Right-sided diaphragmatic hernia. This is a very rare physical pathology, when a defect occurs in the diaphragm and the abdominal organs rise up through this defect and block the lungs, displacing the Heart. Only 15% of all registered cases will fall to the share of the right-sided one. In our country there is not a single specialist or technical ability to help such children, and that she will die within a few minutes after birth. Without an ECMO device, which is not available in Ukraine, only intrauterine surgery and surgery after birth can help her, but this is not done in our country.

After all, we were given a referral for Artificial Termination of Pregnancy. I could not take this step, because already at that moment I felt every day how my girl was moving and beating inside me. I knew that my child was healthy and had no chromosomal and genetic pathologies. After we decided to conduct all existing in-depth studies, our girl was checked by many specialists. They did an ultrasound, an MRI of the fetus, an ultrasound of the baby’s heart, they took an amniocentesis, all this in order to exclude any pathologies, a consultation was held. In conclusion, it was indicated that the child Congenital right-sided diaphragmatic hernia, all indicators of the lungs were calculated, that in other respects the girl is healthy and that she can be saved only with the help of intrauterine surgery. Through punctures in the abdomen at the 28th week of pregnancy, a balloon is inserted into the trachea, thanks to which the lungs grow and push out extra organs from the chest, which after birth will allow the baby’s lungs to work, and the defect in the diaphragm is sutured with its own tissues, after the child’s condition stabilizes, we contacted the Sant Joan de Deu hospital, namely Eduard Gratakos, who is a leading specialist in fetal surgery. He was one of the first to carry out such operations in the world, he said that he could and knew how to help us, that he had already performed similar operations and the children survived. He would try to do everything in his power. The cost of a fetal operation and assistance to a child after birth is 170,000 euros, this amount is unbearable for our family. We are forced to seek help, now I am 23.5 weeks pregnant. Thanks to everything that has happened to us lately, we know and believe that our girl can be helped, and we will never forgive ourselves for not trying to do it. I could not terminate the pregnancy according to indications in my country, knowing that my child is healthy, because every day I feel her inside, I feel how she actively moves when I eat something sweet, when I play the piano, when I sing, she especially likes it ... we love our girl very much . We are very scared, but we hope and believe that everything will work out for us. Our strong girl will also cope with all the trials that fell on her ...