And I thought my heartburn was bad.. *Graphic Pic*

I'm 21 weeks pregnant. I get several those weekly emails that update me on the "normal" side effects of pregnancy at my exact stage of this adventure and what developmental hurdle Baby Durb is tackling this week. Somehow, while reading up on my child's progression inside my tum-tum, I ran across the story behind this picture. A surgery done on a fetus the same age as mine is now. ::Sigh::

I think I remember seeing this in an email years ago. It's a fairly shocking image. One that I assumed wasn't real. But it is.



The photograph was taken during a pioneering surgical procedure performed on August 19, 1999 to fix the spina bifida lesion of a 21-week-old fetus in the womb. The operation was performed by a surgical team at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The team, Dr. Joseph Bruner and Dr. Noel Tulipan, had been developing a technique for correcting certain fetal problems in mid-pregnancy. Their procedure involved temporarily opening the uterus, draining the amniotic fluid, partially extracting and performing surgery on the tiny fetus, then restoring the fetus to the uterus back inside the mother.

I researched it. Real picture. Real surgery. I think people exaggerate and say the baby reached out and grabbed the doctor's hand and that is untrue. He was under anesthesia. But if he were awake, he certainly could've. Anyway, I was just so sympathetic to this baby's parents. How terrible and frightening!!

I am so very blessed to have a healthy and imaginative 5 year-old little man and an active baby boy inside me that is seemingly perfect thus far. I should complain less.