Kylie

Okay, well some of my blog reading buddies already have a rough idea of what I am about to post about and some of you this is a big shock. Well, I am still in the shock phase so you're with me...

Last Friday, David and I headed out for a date night and left the kiddos with a friend, but instead of heading to the movie theater David pulled into a parking lot and looked very serious. I figured he had been fired or something...very wrong...He had taken Kylie to her annual cardiology appointment and found out she has a membrane growing rapidly in her sub-aorta. (For those of you who have lots of medical knowledge--I'm sorry I am doing the best I can with all of this...). Basically, a year ago at her cardiology visit, they had seen a very minute mass growing, but I had been told at that point not to worry and come back in a year. Well, now I am very pregnant and overwhelmed so I made David take her this year and that very minute problem has reached the range of severe, meaning that it is obstructing the aortic valve, (or Aortic Stenosis) which as it continues to grow will shut off the blood to the aorta completely without surgery.

We didn't make it to the movies that night.

So, after a weekend of tears and fears, we met with the pediatric cardio-vascular surgeon this afternoon. I am so grateful that we live Houston and have such well-qualified doctors. That is a comfort. So, in a normal time frame the surgery would happen in the next 4-6weeks. However, my belly being what it is has moved this up to next Thursday, March 11. She will undergo open heart surgery in which they will go in and remove the membrane. She has a 2-5% chance of it growing back, so quite low. If she doesn't have the surgery, with the aggressive nature of the membrane, (it's just tissue by the way not at all cancerous) she would die within a year. Not really a difficult decision whether to operate.

Plus, today I went to my OB appointment and due to a minor complication they are going to induce me around 38 weeks, which will be the beginning of April. If you are wondering I really would have preferred different timing on this one...Oh my goodness. The stress of this better not send me into labor.

So, here we are. We are heading back to her beloved hospital staff and the Ronald McDonald house next week and I have 5 weeks until delivery, so my goal--get her home before I pop. Optimistically, she will be in the hospital 3-5 days, pessimistically 7-10 days, and obviously if there are complications it will be longer than that. The fact that she is on a feeding tube should help things because we don't have to wait for her to feel like eating--we can force it.

I have a lot of diagrams of the heart now if anyone needs one...keep us in your prayers and wish us luck. Oh yea and the thought of sleeping on one of those bench beds in her room being this pregnant and uncomfortable sounds absolutely horrendeous to me. (Kylie will be in 2 different levels of ICU as she recovers--the highest level, we will be in the Ronald McDonald house--after that it's the bench bed.)

One last thing, just to add to the cream and sugar of this post...Dallin threw up all last night and and hasn't been able to eat all day. David and I are going on 4 hours sleep and it's imperative that Kylie doesn't get sick before Thursday. Happy Happy Joy Joy!