Little Man's Baby Shower!

My mom threw us the best baby shower ever!  She really outdid herself.

A special thank you to my Aunt Theresa for helping my mom and to my friend Katy for putting together all of the games!

And a big thank you to all that came to shower our little man in love.  He is spoiled already!

 

Welcome!

2016 will be the start of a great adventure for Jamie and I.  

We are now at the start of our third trimester and in a couple short months we will get to meet our son! Time has flown by since the day we found out that we were expecting. The first trimester was easy peasy! I was lucky enough to not have any morning sickness, our families were overjoyed, and Jamie and I were already so in love with our little nugget. 

The second trimester, however, brought some hurdles. At our 20 week ultrasound our perinatologist discovered a ventricular septal defect (VSD) which was a large hole between the two ventricles of his heart. My heart literally sank during that appointment. I didn't even hear half of what the doctor told us after he broke the news, but we had a follow up appointment a week later with a pediatric cardiologist to learn more. During that week, Jamie and I learned all we could about possible outcomes of having a child born with this type of congenital heart defect, and we prepared ourselves as best we could. But the range of outcomes was so large depending on how the heart continued to develop, it could mean surgery, or it could close on its own. We didn't have a lot of answers, but we had a lot of hope. 

But at our follow up appointment the pediatric cardiologist spent a silent hour on the ultrasound and at the end gave us even more bad news. She confirmed the VSD but also added a diagnosis of Transposition of the Great Arteries. This essentially means that the two major arteries of the heart, the aorta and the pulmonary artery, are switched. This defect causes there to be two separate loops of blood flowing through the body with little to no mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood once born and breathing. The only fix is an open heart surgery called an Arterial Switch Procedure performed a few days after birth. The good news is that these defects do not, and will not, effect him at all in utero.  

This diagnosis has now led us to team up with Children's Hospital Los Angeles for his prenatal check ups, surgery and recovery. We will continue to have very regular ultrasounds and echocardiograms (ultrasound specifically for the heart) throughout the rest of my pregnancy. Once born, our little guy will be transported to Children's Hospital almost immediately after birth. A couple steps will be taken to allow natural mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood within his heart. He will be given a medication, prostaglandins, to keep the Ductus Arteriosus open after birth, this is a duct that exists in a fetal heart that's allows blood to flow through the body while in utero. It closes naturally just hours after birth, but he will need his to stay open and the medication will allow for that. Depending on how the blood is mixing and his oxygen levels, he may have a catheterization/balloon procedure that will keep an atrial hole present in utero from closing as well. Barring any additional complications, the plan will be for him to have his open heart surgery at about 3 days old. We will be hopefully taking him home from the hospital two to three weeks after surgery. 

Jamie and I have high hopes, with the high success rates of these procedures, that our little guy will have a great life after his rough start. Children's Hospital and all of the doctors, surgeons and staff we have met there, are the best of the best and we are lucky that he will be in such good hands.

It has been a rough couple of months, at the start of this journey I could even talk about it with anyone without sobbing my eyes out.  I had a lot of personal guilt about my baby suffering while I continued to have an easy pregnancy. The more we learned, the more doctors, we met and the more support we received from our families, the better both  Jamie and I feel about the situation that we face. And although we know a month full of surgery, wires, machines, and hospital living are ahead of us, we are extremely grateful that we are able to know of these issues now so that we can prepare and plan for the road ahead.

This blog will be our link to all of our family and friends during this trying time.  As you can imagine, once our baby comes into this world, we will have a lot going on and we thought that updating a blog was a quick and easy way to not only document our journey, but to keep family and friends updated on his progress.  

To all of our families and friends, we ask you for nothing but your continued love, support, and good thoughts.  We cannot wait to finally meet and introduce our little heart warrior to the world!