Some Good News, and a Plan

So Tuesday, we had two appointments. The first was at Primary Children's. We had the usual with the techs (gotta love the techs!) scanning our little guy, and than Dr. P. came in to do his own scanning. We really like him. It's fun to give him a hard time, and he is very caring. The first thing he said to us was that although he did not have the answers as to why this is happening, he did have love and he could give us that. We got a good laugh out of that. They still cannot see the aortic arch like they need to, so it remains a suspected coarctation of the aorta. He took us to the "situation room" and sat down with us and the nurse coordinator Kim. He asked what the plan was with regards to the Hydrops. We told him it is unsure, although they did place the shunt with the potential to place another on the right side. I talked to him about wanting to try what we could (within reason) to give this baby a chance to live. He agreed. He told us that we would need to deliver at the University of Utah, and than our little boy would be transferred over immediately to Primary's and have an ECHO. They would decide from there whether he would need the prostaglandins necessary to keep his PDA open if the coarc was severe. He said that while we know the risk with the Hydrops, and potentially delivering early that we do have a major plus on our side in that our son is strong and moving (they could not get him to stop wiggling for a second!) and that his heart does look great, and the function is great. I go back to them after Labor Day to check things out.

My second appointment was for St. Marks. It was with a Dr. from maternal fetal medicine, and he is partners with the two that performed the shunt placement. He said the shunt looked great, was draining well and that they probably would place another on the right side. He wanted me to follow up either up there or down where my perinatology group is. I went today (my perinatologist is still not back in town:( sad day) and saw the doctor for maybe a minute. The tech scanned the baby (we love her too, she has done a good majority of our scans) and baby looked great and his growth is right on track. The doctor again confirmed that the shunt looked great, was draining beautifully, and that her recommendation is to have another shunt placed, this time on the right side. This was right along with what I was thinking. The shunts typically last 2-12 weeks, so if we could buy our little guy some healthy growing time, that would be great. I am supposed to hear from St. Mark's this afternoon, and I am thinking that maybe Monday they will place another one. It hurts, a lot, but the ease of stress of knowing our little guy can grow and develop like he should is so worth it. So the plan is most likely to place another shunt, ease down to one perinatology appointment a week if all goes well with the shunts, have the shunts continue to work, and get the baby as far along as we can (safely) since each and week count right now. I am starting to look at maybe being able to carry him to 34 weeks, which is my long term goal for now. But I would be thrilled to just get him to 30 weeks, which is just 3 weeks and 2 days.

I have felt better the last two days than I have in a long time. It was cute to see our little boy gulping the amniotic fluid today, something he was too sick to do the last two weeks. He even had hiccups on Tuesday during the ECHO, was was pretty cute too. He moves a ton, and hates it when I accidentally lean to much on my stomach while trying to sleep. I am tired, but that's what being nearly 27 weeks along does to you, not to mention our little almost 18 month tornado. He is learning not to hit. I think the stress of everything at home mixed with having a lot of "playdates" during our appointments does have an effect on him. But we are hoping that if this shunt works as well as the first, things will calm down for a couple of weeks so we can have some quality time with him before we start having to split our time between the little brother and Collin. I think that is about it. Thank-you to everyone who has been so kind. This has been hard, and although I feel like I have a sort of reprieve, I know we are from safe. But we sure are going to enjoy the "quiet" moments.