Pregnant Woman Goes To 20-Week Scan, Doctor Realizes Something Is Missing - Newsweek

A pregnant woman was left reeling after doctors highlighted a concerning discovery during her 20-week scan.

Vani Garcia, a Florida mom of three, told Newsweek she was expecting little more than a “regular ultrasound.” That’s how it had been with her first two pregnancies.

However, she would soon learn things would be different for her unborn son, William.

The purpose of the 20-week anatomy scan is to check the baby's major organs and body structures for signs of birth defects and assess overall development.

It helps identify issues that may require further testing, monitoring, or specialized care before or after birth, although it is a screening test and cannot detect every condition.

It’s a crucial step in any pregnancy journey but, for a small percentage, it can be a significant one. That was the case for Garcia.

During the scan, a doctor came in. Garcia can still remember the “matter of fact” way they were told “we do not see any hands in the ultrasound.”

“It was the doctor’s medical opinion that our son would be born without hands,” Garcia said. She and her husband were stunned.

“I asked if there could be some kind of mistake,” she said. “I was certain that we had seen hands in prior ultrasounds, but the doctor just told us that this was rare. I remember crying hysterically.”

The CDC estimates that limb differences affect about one in every 1,852 babies born in the U.S. In the vast majority of cases, the cause is unknown.

Garcia and her husband sought a second opinion and booked a private ultrasound. This time, the results were different: they were told William had a right hand. A follow-up appointment at the hospital later confirmed this and shed light on the cause of his limb difference.

Garcia underwent painful amniocentesis testing to determine whether the cause was genetic. “A very big needle that is inserted into my stomach to take a sample of my amniotic fluid to test and they tested 93 genetic markers to make sure that it wasn’t hereditary or anything like that,” she said.

Eventually, they learned the cause was entirely beyond their control.

“On his left arm there was an amniotic band that wrapped around what would’ve been his hand when it was forming and it stopped the blood from flowing so it didn’t allow for the growth of the hand,” Garcia said.

That didn’t stop her from feeling guilty. She worried she hadn’t taken the right prenatal vitamins or had slept in the wrong position. Garcia blamed herself for not noticing there was a problem.

“I’m a Christian,” she said. “I felt like maybe I was being punished and I was very scared because I wondered what his life would be like.”

William is now 2 and the outlook has changed.

Garcia’s son is thriving and learning how to live with and use what the family has nicknamed his “nubbins” or “Lucky Fin.”

“We took him to see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and we were told he does have a wrist bone, which is ideal for when you have this condition so he’s able to hold things and grasp things,” she said.

“His biggest trouble is you can tell that he is telling his hand to hold something the way he tells his other hand to just grab it. He’ll extend out his hand and almost expect to be able to move fingers, but nothing happens.”

The digits on William’s shorter left hand do not have bones in them. At some point, he may decide to have them removed, but that’s a decision for later in life. Right now, he’s just enjoying being a kid.

“He can do puzzles and he can play,” Garcia said. “He holds a Nerf gun with his arm against his body and pulls back to engage the bullet and then flips it around and pulls a trigger. He is very resourceful and I love watching him get the hang of a new task.”

Her only wish is that more people would ask her about William’s limb difference rather than just “staring” at him. “The stares and double takes hurt my feelings,” she said. “I understand people are curious and I would rather someone be curious and inquisitive than stay away. He’s just like any other two-year-old.”

Garcia decided to share William’s story as a message of hope to other expectant moms facing similar circumstances.

“One of the things that the doctor told me right after telling us about our son was that we could terminate because of quality of life and I just felt my whole world falling apart,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody else to ever question that or feel that way.”

Though Garcia stresses she is “pro choice” and that everyone must take their own path, she has no regrets about the one her family took. “My hope is that he goes on to engage in sports and anything that his little heart desires, and that he crushes it."