We are officially settled in up north. For those of you who were unaware, we will be delivering our baby girl at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, in Palo Alto, CA. There were a few reasons as to why we chose the hospital. One big one is that we wanted to have Dr. Frank Hanley, a gifted heart surgeon, perform the surgery on our baby girl. Dr. Hanley specializes in the corrective surgery for the heart condition that she has and after meeting him a couple of times, we are extremely confident in his abilities and most importantly LOVE his sincere personality. He listens to all of our concerns and has taken all the time needed to make us feel comfortable and confident in what will need to be done with our precious baby girl.
We arrived here in Palo Alto over a week ago and last week we were at the hospital taking care of all our big appointments:
-We had an ultrasound and baby girl is growing and everything looks great.
-I’ve been contracting quite a bit, but she does not seem to be affected by them at this time.
-Scheduled my C-section for August 18th-Please pray we make it that far, we want her to be as big and strong as she can
-Met with Surgeon Dr. Hanley-As I mentioned before, we will not know until she is born if surgery will need to be done right away. He did mention there would be a very high possibility that we can stabilize her enough and take her home for 2-3 months before she needs her surgery. This will help in getting her a little stronger for what is to come.
-Met with Dr. Susan Hintz-Neonatology- she went over in full detail as to what the plan will be as soon as our baby girl arrives:
*She will be immediately taken into the NICU
*Within a few hours they will then do a Cardio echo
*Day 2 or 3 Dr. Perry will then perform a cardiac Catheterzation on her. Which means they will put her to sleep and then insert a long narrow tube into the blood vessels near the groin area. This procedure allows us to take pictures of the heart and how it functions. Which in return will give us the information we need to see when surgery will be needed.
*if the findings are favorable, they will then start feedings and we should be released within a few days. We will return home for the two months and then be back up for surgery.
After meeting with everyone we feel blessed to have such a great team in place. We have been so very pleased with every single person we have met. From the surgeon, many Doctors, nurses to the staff. Everyone has been so kind and very knowledgeable with our case. It seems as anyone who reads our file, gives their condolences about Gracie, then they ask how luke is and they follow up with assuring us we are in excellent hands and baby girl chez will be very well taken care of. Such a blessing!
We will miss the wonderful team at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles as they too have become part of our family. We will look forward to going back to LA to continue our follow up care with our children's cardiologist Dr. Skalansky and all the other wonderful staff that we love so much.
As for our little man Luke. He will be getting an echo tomorrow to see how his heart has been reacting to the stent. Also, we have been dealing with many vomiting episodes and have been trying numerous medications. Dr. Cox up hear at LPCH ran some blood work on Luke and the tests came out good. He believes Luke could be suffering Abdominal migraines and has started him on an additional medication. We continue to pray for Luke’s GI issues to get better and for a good echo next Wednesday.
God has been very gracious in helping us stay strong. We have been brought to our knees and completely humbled by him. We are doing our very best to not be anxious about what is to come. We know trusting in God means to trust in him completely and at all times.
God is the one who gives us life and it is his plan that we continue to trust in. Even though we are nervous for our baby girl we are so very excited to meet her and see her beautiful face and precious little body. We have been on many journeys and through them all, even the darkest moments we have witnessed Gods love. Although our time with Gracie was so short she truly was such a blessing and a great gift of love from God. We know our baby girl is just another addition to the love that God has provided us with.
While we have been awaiting her arrival we have really been enjoying our time here up north. It is absolutely beautiful up here. Being 25 min from San Fran., 15 min from Half moon Bay and 40 min. from Napa, how can you go wrong? Not to mention the beautiful tree lined streets, quaint downtown, being at an arms reach from Stanford University and the hospital, and mine and baby girls favorite “the food,” it’s so good! We have yet to have a bad meal.
Here are some photos we have taken in just the short time we have been here..
praying for the safe arrival of Baby girl. Will be praying for her to be stable enough to wait for the surgery. So glad you feel comfortable up there with Dr. Hanley.
ReplyDeleteLove you all,
kathie
such beautiful pictures. especially the ones of you at guys at stanford.
ReplyDeletesigh. i can't believe we just missed you. how i would have loved to have been there for you! still thinking about flying up.
and what's this i hear about luke and abdominall migraines?! you know you have to call me on this one..or i'll call you. did they put him on neuronting? is it helping? i pray that it would!
i love you guys so much and we continue to lift you up in prayer.
always,
victoria
So good to see an official update...and have a date. *I think I missed this in the past* You have seriously been on my heart...lots. I'm so very glad that you feel peace about the care...and the plan.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the pics...can't believe I was there...not that long ago! :0) It is beautiful.
Praying...as always