Brocks 1 yr cardiology check up

So here we are with Brock turning 1 and very grateful for a great check up at Primary Children's Hospital. After an echo-cardiogram and an EKG, Dr Su visited with us about Brock's heart condition. He was very happy with the results, which make us very happy also. Even though it took 2 procedures, it appears Brock's heart is doing very well. It still isn't perfect--the valves are still a bit thicker than normal, and his pressure from the right ventricle to his lungs is at a 15(normally under 10)but it is so close to being normal that we don't have another check-up for a year!
Last year, if we would have known that in one year we would have been having this kind of appointment, I don't think we would have believed it. We didn't know there would be anything wrong until several hours after Brock was born. That was the start of a very challenging week. With how crazy it was, I've wondered about the question "Would it have been better to have known about his heart before giving birth?" I'm still not sure the answer; in some ways it would have been easier, like not having to life flight our baby to Primary Children's and wait 3 days for his procedure, but in some ways it would have been harder, I mean, I am already completely incapacitated during any pregnancy, so any added stress of knowing my child might not be okay may have done me in.

I think Adam was the blogger during most of the "Crisis Year" we had last year, but I just wanted to add a few things I remember about Brock's birth and some of the things we learned. We had actually hoped to have Brock in Hawaii while Adam was attending BYUH, but things worked out, so we moved when I was about 5 months pregnant. I had been to the doctor and had a couple ultrasounds in Honolulu, I vaguely remember the ultrasound technician saying something about something (probly the heart) not looking quite perfect, but that it was perfectly normal that things don't look quite right and its common that things just get back to normal as the baby grows. It was nothing to worry about. So I didn't think much about it, but now when I look back, I think that this was the 1st time we could have seen that something wasn't quite right, but there was no real reason to see it, so we didn't.

Well, nothing more was ever discovered and Brock was born in the afternoon on a Monday; during the delivery, each time I had a contraction, Brock's heart rate would drop. This was really the 1st time I may have felt something might not be quite right, but the doctor assured us that nothing was too abnormal, and that a falling heart rate could be caused by so many things that it once again wasn't anything to worry about. So like the optimist I usually am, I just kept hoping things were normal.

Later, after being moved to postpartum, the nurse came in to check up on Brock. She was listening to his heart. She listened more, and then her lead came in and our nurse asked her to listen to his heart. At this point I was paying attention to them and thinking "Why are they continuing to check him?" This was the 2nd time i felt something might not be quite right. At this point the nurse confirmed to us that Brock had a heart murmur. But, like the other "problems," it was normal. Many people have heart murmurs, they usually grow out of them, and we were assured that it wasn't anything to worry about.

So later after family visited, we noticed Brock's coloring wasn't real great.(notice the feet above) This was the 3rd thing that made me feel like something wasn't quite right. Well, they told us again that it was normal for babies to take a while to change color, and that when they are born it is normal for them not to be "pink." Well, we are glad that that night we had them take him to the nursery, since we later learned that he would have quietly passed away while we slept had he remained in the room with us. We later learned that a babies PDA will slowly close after birth, which causes the color to worsen if a valve or something isn't functioning correctly. And since we would have been sleeping, and in a low light room the grayish color isn't as noticeable, his heart would have slowly failed that night. Babies aren't hooked up to anything and no alarm would have gone off if his heart would have stopped. Sometimes we think back on how close we came to waking up and finding that Brock didn't make it through that first night.

It was in the nursery that the nurse there noticed his worsening color and had him sent to the NICU. The next phone call to our room in the middle of the night confirmed my previous inklings that something wasn't quite right and started a very long next few days. A few days where I pretty much cried the entire time. A few days where I saw a much anticipated and needed relaxing postpartum rest, disappear and be replaced by fear worry and stress. A few days of a very stressed family, waiting for a procedure to see if our son's heart was fixable.

I think sometimes the thoughts we have prepare us for the things to come, even when we aren't sure what exactly is going to happen. Looking back, we learned so much and received so much comfort and care from others. The road with having a child born with a heart defect was a bit rough and trying sometimes, but we've made it and now are very grateful for a pretty healthy baby boy who brings a lot of joy to our family. Our belief in prayer and faith of others has increased as well as our gratitude for those who remembered Brock in their prayers.