Monday, April 16, 2007
Doctor's Appointment Current mood: content
Whew! We can breathe now--for a bit
I am definately delivering at Baptist Women's Hospital during the week of May 20th, unless she decides to be the early bird baby.
She will definately have her heart surgery at the University of Michigan Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan whenever/if she needs it.
Today started out a little stressful because Dr. Joshi "forgot" about the appointment. They paged him twice, but in the waiting time they put me on the table and did some more 3-D & 4-D ultrasounds/pictures for free to pass the time and appease us. They finally got in touch with him and he was there within 20 minutes. Thank God he didn't try to make us re-schedule and he made no excuses for his being late. We were worried that he would try to rush our visit so that he could get back to the office faster. That wasn't the case and we are so thankful for that.
They scanned her to make sure everything looked okay, and everything still looks perfect, except for the fact that I have high levels of amniotic fluid & possibly her heart. I say "possibly" her heart because Dr. Joshi could not give us a definate diagnosis today.
She is in position for birth at this point, meaning head down and spine up. Because of this, her spine and ribs are shadowing her heart a good bit. They were able to see the 4 chambers of the heart pumping and saw the great vessels coming in to/off of the heart. Her chambers look good or "normal", but her ventricles may be mildly thickened, but that is more likely due to gestational diabetes than a heart defect and will be normal as she ages after birth. Basically it wasn't and isn't a concern. The blood flow looked good through the heart, also. The confusing part is that Dr. Joshi cannot say with 100% certainty that she even has Transposition of the Great Vessels or even the ventricular septal defect (VSD). It is really hard to see where the vessels originate because of the shadows and normal dropouts caused by the machine. From a few angles it looks like her septum is intact and in one view there might be a small hole (VSD), but it could just be a dropout spot caused by the machine and the angle of the view. I know if you are a non-medical background person that this is/can be very confusing, and it is....even to me and Steven. Basically, in a nut shell we don't even know at this point if there even is a heart defect now. It is still a very strong possibility and very likely that she does have all of the previously diagnosed heart defects and we just couldn't see them. The other alternative is that God performed a miracle on her and maybe there isn't anything wrong with her heart after all.
I do not want to sound like a pessimist when I say this or sound like I do not believe that God can perform miracles on our baby. I am extremely happy that the parts of her heart that we were able to see look perfect. However, I still think like she has the Transposition and the VSD until we are 100% sure that she does not. I cannot get my hopes up, only to find out at birth that what we thought all along was really true and go through all of those emotions again. I have already accepted that MJ is going to have open heart surgery and dealt with all of the emotions etc. that have gone along with it for the past 10 weeks. Don't get me wrong, I am still praying that this is a miracle in the works and have not given up on God performing one.
So basically this is the plan as of today. Macy Jane born via c-section just to be safe and have docs there in advance. Once she is born & taken to the NICU, Dr. Joshi will perform an echocardiogram of her heart and make a definate diagnosis based off of that. He feels that even if she has transposition, she will do just fine in the NICU at Baptist without ever having to go to LeBonheur!!! He also says depending on how she looks and does for a few days, she may not need surgery for a few months. But, he did tell us that the arterial switch operation (what she would need) WAS NOT being performed at Lebonheur at this time and she would have to go somewhere else. We chose for her to go to the hospital in Michigan rather than Vanderbilt simply because they are well known for doing her type of surgery.
If for some reason she does not do well after birth, she will be life-flighted to Michigan to have emergency surgery if necessary and Steven and some of my family will fly up there to be with her until I am discharged from the hospital and can be with her. Dr. Joshi really doesn't feel like that will be necessary though.
I am super excited that the plan for now means that after my c-section I will be in the same hospital as my Baby MJ and I will eventually be able to see her in the NICU once I get out of recovery!! And the possibility of being able to bring her home sooner than we thought, even if only temporary until she has heart surgery, is awesome!!
We were told that if she does go to Michigan, to expect her to be in the hospital for up to one month, but typically it is two weeks. We also have to take into consideration the syndrome that she has and all of the things that could be wrong with her. Needless to say the first day of her life is going to be a busy one with all of the tests etc.
I know this was a lot to take in and this blog is very long. I tend to ramble a little bit, but I hope I made it less confusing. It's hard to explain it when you are still a little baffled by it all.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers!! They are working without a doubt. Also, I get a lot of emails/messages and I am a bit behind on replying to them all, but I promise I haven't forgotten. I'm just a tad bit busy these days.....and she isn't even here yet, lol. Thanks again for everything!!!!