{Big Puffy Heart Day}

Today for our prenatal heart specialist consult, I met with Dr. C, a Pediatric Cardiologist.  I learned at the end of our meeting that he was the one who hired the current pediatric cardiology staff at Children’s Hospital, so I felt that much more confident with his findings. We’re extremely blessed to be local to the hospital and I know from several other moms, the staff at Children’s Hospital is amazing.

So onto Aria’s heart- we have wonderful news:

Aria Joy has a perimembranous ventricular septal defect!!!

What parent gets excited about hearing their child has a heart defect? Well for one: we already knew she has the defect, but to have it confirmed with the heart specialist and to have questions answered, gave me peace and reassurance. But I’m drawing this out too long because we actually do have more wonderful news:

• Dr. C said the hole is a moderate-size at 4.7mm and would either remain the same size at birth OR could begin to close on its own.
• He said he felt confident that the heart defect won’t affect labor, delivery, nor would we see any issues from the defect itself at birth!!!
• And even if the hole doesn’t begin to close on its own, it could potentially not ever affect her health, or worst-case scenario we would see issues manifest later when she’s around 4-6 weeks old.

So while Dr. C can’t rule out surgery completely, he strongly advised that we need to just “wait and see” after birth. We won’t even think about a surgical consult yet since he’s not convinced that there’s a need for surgery. I did ask about a catheter procedure versus open-heart and he advised that due to the location, a cath procedure wouldn’t be an option. 

Thank you God!

We’re still praying hard that the hole will close and that no other issues manifest after birth, but this was blessed news.

{Wisdom}

Ninety years…that’s how many years Maw, Scott’s maternal grandmother, has lived on this earth. And with those nine decades, comes a treasure trove of life lessons, reflection, and golden nuggets of wisdom.

Maw is the youngest of 10 children by her mother and father. Her mom passed away when she was a young adult, and many years later her father decided to remarry. He was long retired by this point, and no doubt expected for life to wind down. 

But God had other plans. 

They had a very unexpected arrival of Baby Melinda, who also very unexpectedly happened to have Down syndrome. Because of Maw’s father’s age and circumstances (retiree and disabled), he was able to be more hands-on with parenting Melinda. Maw said he absolutely adored and treasured Melinda, she was the light of his life. Melinda lived to be in her 60s and passed away in November (?) 2016. Today, Maw is the sole survivor of all her siblings.

When I shared the news of Aria’s diagnosis, Maw explained more about Melinda’s competency, her excellent memory, her warm smile, the joy she brought to their family. Then there was something she made sure to tell me, and I will hold this in my heart forever:

“I'm so happy your family will understand what it's like to love this deeply.”