Getting the News

We first learned of our baby's possible heart condition on a follow-up ultrasound on January 2, 2008. I was 25 weeks pregnant and was only going for this appointment to check my "low-lying" placenta (which I was more concerned about) and get better pictures/measurements of the baby's heart. At my 20 week ultrasound, the baby was in a breach position and the tech had trouble getting a good view. During the ultrasound, the tech told us my placenta had moved (yeah!) but as she started measuring the heart, the room became very quiet. Bryan and I had the boys with us, which was a good distractor of what news we were about to get. She worked at getting the views she needed for at least 20 minutes before telling us that she needed to go and get the radiologist, Dr. Brandt. Bryan and I were both very nervous at this point and knew that something was wrong, although we had no idea...just that it involved the heart. When Dr. Brandt arrived, she began conducting the ultrasound and she was talking quietly with the tech, using their medical lingo. They wouldn't give us much information, except that our baby's right ventricle was not symmetrical to the left ventricle and they suspected that there COULD be a heart defect. Dr. Brandt then went and met with my dr/midwife, Sherry Russell, who arranged an appointment at Deaconess in Spokane with a perinatologist in 13 days to do a follow-up. At this point, my mind was racing and my emotions were shot...although still trying to hold on to the hope that Moses Lake had made a mistake and when we saw a specialist, they'd say "false alarm". We left the Moses Lake Clinic that day hearing two new terms we'd never heard before. The possible heart conditions our baby may have were: Pulmonary Atresia and Right-Sided Cardiac Hypoplasia. Little did we know at this time that Moses Lake was right on with their "possible findings" and our life was going to change.
We only shared the news with our parents that evening and were leaning on the hope that there was a mistake in the findings. I stayed up most of that night researching on the internet which was helpful in some ways but most of the information was very hard to swallow. I found that Children's Hospital in Seattle treated our "possible condition" on a regular basis so I was determined that we needed to go there first. I called my Dr. the next morning and insisted that we get an appointment over in Seattle. I could not bear to wait almost 2 weeks not knowing. She got us connected with Children's Hospital and U of W Prenatal Diagnosis and Treatment Program and we had an appointment scheduled for 1/8/08, 6 days later. These 6 days were probably our hardest...not knowing what could be was very scary. We did a lot of praying and hoping that all was going to be ok.