One more hurdle to jump

We made it to Augusta Wednesday morning for our routine visit and ultrasound.  We met with one of the doctors to go over all that happened a few weeks ago with our hospital stay before we actually met with Dr. Devoe.

Next, we were called in for ultrasound.  The usual sonographer (Natalee) has not been there these last 2 visits.  When I walked in and saw that it was Harriett again, my heart sorta sank.  She never makes me feel that great about what is going on and asks me questions that I think she should already know the answer to or doesn't need to know.  Natalee is very personable and tries to be reassuring with all that is on our plates anyway.  Not Harriett.  I had this weird feeling last time and even yesterday during ultrasound.  It's like I have become gun shy and can't even enjoy looking at this tiny baby on the screen.  It's almost like I am running from the situation or that by not looking it is somehow going to get better.  Who knows?!  I guess it is a desperate attempt at the the thought of things being normal.

In the middle of my ultrasound, she stops and goes to look at the hundreds of other images taken at previous visits.  Then she comes back and finally goes to get Dr. Devoe so he can come in and look at the screen.  Harriet starts telling him that certain numbers are passed what they consider ok and Dr. Devoe says to her "Summer and I have discussed that his head would continue to get larger and that it was what he expected to see."  The next thing he addresses the same way.  He says to her that we already knew that his umbilical cord had a special name (because it has only one artery or two or something like that) but I was never told what it could mean.  He told us that it happened in about 1% of pregnancies (YES, I SAID 1%) and that it was usually linked with cardiovascular problems and not the hydrocephalus).  My heart sank because I knew there was still a third thing he needed to look at on the ultrasound.

At my last visit, Harriet couldn't get the view of the heart she wanted because Tripp's spine was in the way and he was facing down.  She asked me last time if we were ever referred to pediatric cardiology and I said no.  Dr. Devoe had not seen a reason to send us...until TODAY!   Tripp's right side of his heart was significantly larger than his left side.  That is all he could tell from his ultrasound and wanted us to meet with the cardiologist today too.  But, before we left, Dr. Devoe sent another Dr. in (the same one that took my history earlier) to check my cervix and make sure there was no change.  She came in and checked me and said she thought I was still between 1-2 centimeters and only about 50% effaced.  Remember Dr. Smurda told us last week that he thought my cervix was thickening back up? And it was.  By now we had been here for about 2 hours 10 minutes.  The nurse came in and gave us our appointment to meet with cardiology at 1:00.  This gave John and I about an hour to eat lunch and get ready for round 2. 

After lunch, we met up with Kim (who I forgot to say was with us earlier and has been with us for previous visits) to take us to cardiology.  She is a liaison between patients and staff and her title is some sort of coordinator.  She only practices nursing in the clinic about once a week.  We made it cardiology and met Celeste who did the fetal EKG.  She scanned Tripp for about 45 minutes.  As she was finishing up, Dr. Luten and Kim came in the room.  He said that he had been watching the scan from the other room.  He and Celeste started talking in lots of foreign words and then he said I'll translate in English for you.  He said first of all, I am Dr. Luten and I am going to be your babies heart Dr. if you like me and will let me!  He tried to make us feel at ease but we were both dying to hear what was going on.  He said basically he saw 3 things.  1: the right side of the heart was enlarged, 2: the aorta was too narrow in a spot, and 3: there was an extra vein that had grown and was diverting blood the wrong way. 

After he explained what all he saw, he said he felt confident that the right side was enlarged and the left side was normal and not just too small.  He said that it was good to have one side that was at least the right size.  He called the narrowing of the aorta Aortic Coarctation.  He said that sometimes this auto corrects in babies at birth and sometimes it doesn't.  He also said that many people make it through childhood and do not get diagnosed until they are adults.  There are several causes in utero that can make this show up.  If the baby is anemic or has high bp then it will show up like it did for us and could possibly correct itself.  If not, they will monitor Tripp when he is born and see if he needs to have the one time surgery to fix it.  It may not happen immediately because his main concern is placing the shunt and draining the fluid off of Tripp's brain to prevent any possible or further damage neurologically.  Or, it could be that they give him medication to keep the aorta open and possibly have surgery later.

Because this is so hard to diagnose in utero, he is glad that Dr. Devoe and Celeste both caught this on ultrasound.  He said it often goes undetected because you have to get the perfect view and they both happened to get it.  He said about 60-70% of the time they are right about this diagnosis.  Because of how hard it is to diagnose, there is still a chance that they are wrong.  If they are not wrong then it is safe to say that Tripp has CoA (Coarctation of the Aorta) and this is a heart disease.

This has not been easy news to swallow because we thought for so long that we had one major hurdle to cross and now we have another.  I was finally at peace about having a baby with so many undetermined medical concerns and now we add more to the plate.  To top things off, we are to stay in or around Augusta until he is born.  It's hard to imagine not being able to go home for anything.  John went today and has list after list of things to get and he is bringing Kinsley back just for the weekend.  She is in school and so I hate her to miss but she is having a very hard time with us being gone.  Not to mention I am too!!!

Please keep us in your prayers as we face the many more unknowns and that Kinsley will be able to adjust to us being gone during the week.  We may be up her for the next month or more.  It's not going to be easy on any of us. 

Thanks!!!!!