D-Day- A Father's Perspective

I've wanted to get Anthony's perspective on a few things in our journey on Carleigh's blog so that it will always be there. I finally asked him a couple weeks ago and after a little coaxing he agreed to it. So here is the day we received Carleigh's diagnosis in Anthony's words (he's not quite as wordy as me):


On December 15, 2008, I started my day like every other day. I got up around 7 am and got ready for work to head to Dayton to begin work. Everything was going fine. It was just another normal day and then I received a phone call from Holly. She asked me if I could get off work early because Dr. F called and said that we needed to come into the office today. Holly said that it didn't matter what time it was because there was something concerning on the ultrasound she had that day. I was wondering what could be wrong. What ran through my mind was that our baby was going to have some sort of defect that she'd have to live with the rest of her life. I never imagined what was really in store for us.

I told Holly that I needed to call my boss and see if I could leave early and I'd call her back. I called my boss and he said that I could leave. I called Holly back and told her that I was on my way.

I got to the building where Dr. F's office is and went inside where Holly and Kyndra were waiting for me. We went up to the office together and waited. It wasn't long and they took us back and got Holly's vitals and then took us to one of the exam rooms.

When Dr. F came in she told us right away what was going on and Holly started to cry. I wasn't sure what anencephaly was but I knew it wasn't good by Holly's reaction. Dr. F explained to me what it was and then went through our options. Holly said right away that she was carrying to term and I told her that I was behind her 100%. Whatever she wanted to do.

When we left Dr. F's office we went down to the radiologist's office so that we could look at the ultrasound pictures. Even though I'm not good at looking at those kinds of things, it helped to see it.

I called my mom to let her know and she thought I was joking around with her because I like to do that. I told her that I would never joke about my daughter's life like that. She didn't know what to say and she started to cry and so did I.

Looking back at that day, I know I was very sad but at the time everything seemed to go so fast. I remember thinking that I needed to be strong for Holly. I also knew that our lives would never be the same and that it would be what we did with the situation that would shape how our lives would be.

Anthony