Our little Brigham has Anencephaly

Worst day of my life-
     Well, today was by far the hardest day of my life. We went into our normal 20 week appointment to see little Brigham and I was really anxious all morning. When she started the ultrasound I told her, "I am a nurse and mother of 2, but I am really anxious and would like to see his brain." That was a weird thing for me to say, but the tech went on to show us everything from the toes up. This baby looked so perfect in every way, except when they went down to where we thought he was just nestled up in, there was no top to his head. Literally his cerebellum portion of his brain was missing. She was a little worried while looking and then said she needed to go get the dr. At that moment I knew exactly what it was. I told Adam that it wasn't good and that I learned about it in nursing school and they do not live after birth.  Dr Melendez came in and confirmed my inside diagnosis and it was as if our floor beneath us shattered. The girls were watching a show on the couch and all I could hear was Adam crying to my left and then I fell to the floor in complete despair. A flood of feelings came to me, How could this be?? This is so rare?? I did everything right??? Why me???
     I asked the doctor isn't this like 2% chance, and he responded no it's less. Turns out it is actually 0.0002%, He goes on to say it is somewhat genetic, but in my case having 2 healthy children this was pure bad luck. Then he mentioned it was the nurses/doctors curse.  But deep inside I knew that he came to us for a reason and it wasn't bad luck.  We then left his office and had an appointment with the perinatologist, who confirmed everything that happened and did another ultrasound. This was like pouring salt over the wound....but this doctor gave us more details of what to expect and options. She said if it were her she would be induced in the fact that she could not emotionally handle being pregnant another 5 months of pregnancy knowing he will not survive. She did mention that there is the normal risk of pregnancy, but if he did die in the womb it could become an emergency and dangerous for me. I found out later that 95% of people induce or abort the baby due to this diagnosis. We also learned that a little later in pregnancy the mom could get "polyhydramnios", which is an abnormal amount of amniotic fluid and this is due to the fact that Brigham will not be able to swallow the fluid as well as another baby.  We asked her more questions that involved knowing a little more about what he feels.  Adam broke down asking when he is born if he feels pain and if there are comfort measures that could be done to assist his suffering.  Luckily with this defect he does not feel pain because that portion of the brain is not fully developed.  She went on to tell us that he will come out struggling to breathe though and that it might be hard watching his little body work hard to live for the last few hours of his life.  She also mentioned he will most likely open his eyes, cry or make sounds, move around just like any other baby.  He may or may not be able to hear us and will not be able to eat.  
     She went on to tell us that she sees the entire utah state of high risk pregnancies and she maybe sees 2 a year of these situations.  She said a lot of them die in the hospital within hours after being born, but that she has seen 2 cases where the family was able to take them home and he died there with them a couple days later.
     Adam and i got home and continued the day with deep discussions on our plan. We came to the conclusion that this was Brigham's life and we need to honor that. He came to us for a reason, we don't know the reason yet, but we need to cherish everyday we get to have him with us. And if he is only with us in the womb than that is the time we will cherish having him. We decided to make a bucket list for him.  Things and places that we can take him too and document his life. This is not just a rare 0.0002% statistic, this is our boy and we will love and support him through his entire life.  He has had this all along and it does not change who he is or how much we love him, in fact it only makes us love him more.  Our little Brigham is a mover and loves to move around in my belly. He loves to put his hands and fingers up to his face. He definitely has the strong welch legs and they are constantly kicking up at the ultrasound when it is on my belly:) He has a sweet personality already and I know he is comforted inside me. We are hoping he will make it full term and we will be able to cherish him alive for as long as we get. Little Briggs is a fighter and we are lucky to be parents to such a sweet little boy!!
     We have seen multiple tender mercies by the girls. Today Olivia just burst into song at the kitchen counter, she started singing "families can be together forever", she didn't even look at Adam and I , she was just in her own little world.