The Game Plan

We had our third echo with another cardiologist from Lurie Children's Hospital Heart Center on September 29th. Everything looks much the same. The plan is to put the baby on medication (prostaglandin) as soon as she is born, then take her to the pediatric cardiac care unit where they will do testing for the first couple days so they can see more of the heart, direction of blood flow, etc. Based on the current information, we should expect that she will need to have surgery within the first week to put in a neonatal shunt, since the blood flow to the lungs is thought not to be sufficient. She'll then have to recover and be further monitored, so we should expect her to be in the hospital for 2-3 weeks before she comes home. She will then have her complete repair open heart surgery between four and nine months. At this time they will patch the hole in her heart and replace her pulmonary valve. We are feeling very optimistic about everything and are grateful to have access to such amazing doctors and hospitals. We have a tour of the pediatric cardiac care unit scheduled for October 24th where we will meet with the Lurie Children's Hospital Cardiac Surgery Team in addition to a Social Worker, Nurse Practitioner, Child Life Specialist, Neonatologist and Cardiac Intensivist. Needless to say, they are very thorough and we will be as prepared for everything as possible. We have another echo scheduled for October 27th just to see if they are able to see anything new before the birth. The plan is for the OB to induce me on November 20th if it looks like she's ready.