My pregnancy was super easy at the beginning. Then at week 27 I was told my baby was too small and might not survive.

• During a routine ultrasound, I was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction.
• I was only 27 weeks pregnant, and up until that point, had no complications with the pregnancy.

We were sitting in a cold, dark ultrasound room, and the technician was taking forever. "What do you think is going on?" I asked my husband. Two hours later, the technician returned, followed by a perinatologist — a high-risk OB/GYN.

"We found some abnormalities in your ultrasound," the perinatologist said. I started to sweat. "The baby may die inside the womb before birth." My husband and I sat in silence. How could this be happening? I had had, up to that point, a healthy, textbook pregnancy. My baby bump was small, but there hadn't been a cause for concern. This was supposed to be a routine check-up that suddenly turned into a possible death sentence for my daughter.

My pregnancy suddenly was high risk

I was diagnosed with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), also known as fetal growth restriction (FGR), a term used to describe fetuses with fetal weight below the 10th percentile. My stress-free pregnancy suddenly became high-risk.

I was ordered to bed rest and had to stop all forms of physical activity. The only time I could leave home was for hospital appointments three to five times a week; rigorous assessments, including non-stress tests to analyze the baby's heart rate, physical movements, and amniotic fluid, and Doppler tests to check fetal blood flow in the umbilical cord, brain, heart, and other organs.

IUGR affects 10% of pregnancies

I did what any expectant mother confined to bedrest, and this diagnosis would do. I turned to the internet for answers. The Cleveland Clinic estimates IUGR affects about 10% of all pregnancies, yet I wondered why so many people, including myself, my family, and friends, had never heard of it before.

Instead of happy endings, I was flooded with nightmare stories about stillborn babies, three-to-six-month-olds needing feeding tubes and life support due to their "failure to thrive," and toddlers missing developmental milestones.

Not only did my dreams of having a vaginal birth at home in a warm water bath evaporate instantly, but I was crushed to learn that we would have a guaranteed stint at the neonatal intensive care unit if we were fortunate enough to keep our baby alive.

I blamed myself

Wracked with guilt, I felt myself spiraling. I blamed myself for all those exercise classes and the handful of flights and business trips, including one at 14,000 feet elevation in Lake Tahoe. Why on earth did my husband and I think driving up Mt. Haleakalā was a good idea for our babymoon? Why didn't I just pass on that one beer or cocktail? I hated myself, even though my doctors reassured me this was not my fault.

Dr. Ahmet Baschat, Director of the Center for Fetal Therapy at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, explained FGR "implies the baby is small, and there is an underlying issue that's making this baby small." It could be an infection, chromosomal issues, the placenta not working properly, or possibly the mother is taking drugs, he said.

I didn't learn what the issue was until I gave birth via a scheduled C-section at 37 weeks. A biopsy confirmed I had placental dysfunction due to inflammation. My daughter weighed 3.5 pounds even at full term, and we spent 13 long days in the NICU so she could get regular feedings through a tube.

It broke my heart to see my child spend her first days of life in an incubator, but it helped her thrive. And she was finally gaining weight. To keep myself from getting depressed, I would remind myself that this "tiny but mighty" baby had an Apgar score of nine out of 10.

"Most babies do well, in spite of the diagnosis," Dr. Kelli Burroughs, Department Chairman of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Memorial Hermann in Houston, said. "Anytime we give unexpected news regarding the development of a baby, that's always scary for patients. But with this particular diagnosis, usually, the outcome is positive."

For best practice, Dr. Baschat suggests counting fetal movements and delivering at a hospital where there is a neonatal team that can look after premature infants in the event an FGR baby must be delivered preterm. He said, "If you have any concerns about fetal activity, don't wait for your appointment, just call."

Our daughter is flourishing at 7 years old and continues to light up our lives.