Jabulani Jonny

So I've been out of touch again for the last week.  There's an explanation.  As you may or may not know, we're expecting our first child in August.  We're about 20 weeks along right now.  This pregnancy has not been easy.  It has been an emotional rollercoaster from day 1.  Without getting into it, it's taken us a long time to get to this point.  Sunette and I have been married for close to 7 years and our endeavor to have a child has taken the last 4 years.  So now we're here, but it hasn't been easy.

Sunette was on bed rest for three of the last 4 weeks and she's been on administrative duty only at work.  Even before bed rest there were some scary times.  

Fast forward to last Monday.  Our primary doctor had referred Sunette to a antepartum (pre-natal) specialist, for what we thought was just clearing her from bedrest.  Well, she was cleared from bedrest, but they discovered that there are some major issues with the baby's heart.  They couldn't really tell us anything other than that the baby's heart had two chambers instead of four, it could be related to Downs Syndrome and it might cause other complications.  That was all we got.  So needless to say, we were wiped out.  

They scheduled an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Borkat, which we met with last Thursday.  This guy was phenomenal.  They studied the ultrasound of the baby's heart for probably 10 minutes, looking at the structure and formation.  We could hear what our other specialist, Dr. Stauffer, was saying, but we couldn't hear what Dr. Borkat was saying.  Well, we were holding our breath when he came back in to tell us what he saw.  

The first words out of his mouth were, "It's fixable".  Wow.  I don't know that I've ever felt relief like that.  Once we heard that, he could've said anything and we would have handled it.  So what did he see?

It looks like the baby has what's called an Endocardial Cushion Defect with a small left ventricle.  What this means is that the wall between the left and right ventricle (the lower chambers) isn't formed.  This doesn't really affect the baby while it's in the womb, but it does cause complications after birth.  So that means the baby will need heart surgery right after birth and possible several surgeries depending on how extensive the issues are.  

So we've been a little tied up, a little preoccupied around the house lately.  We thank God for the wisdom of our doctors and the fact that it looks like everything can be repaired.  There are still very scary steps that have to take place and we have a long road in front of us.  However, we are confident that God will continue the good work He started and we will come through this with a beautiful child.  Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.