Girl Power!

We had a really great day yesterday! We had our appointment for my 20 week ultrasound, and given our history with Evie, I got a little more than the routine treatment. I saw 3 specialists for about a half hour each: 1 to do the routine ultrasound, 1 who looked only at the structure of the heart, and 1 who looked at all the other organs and bones and such. All in all my belly was abused for about an hour and a half! But it was so fun. One of the very first things we found out was that it's a GIRL! And the best thing we found out is that she seems to be in great health. They can't see everything on the ultrasound, but they can see a lot--including most of our concerns about the heart. Everything is in its right place and appears to be the right size. Thanks to everyone who prayed for us and encouraged us! We feel so lucky.

Interesting coincidence--I knew that the person who would be looking at the heart would be a cardiologist from Children's Memorial, but I imagined the chance of it being someone we knew would be slim because they have nearly 20 cardiologists on staff and we only met with 3. It just happened to be that the cardiologist who came to do my ultrasound was a Dr. we met on the very first day that Evie was admitted to Children's. She did Evie's echocardiogram on that day, but that was the only time we met her. She still remembered me and Evie even though it has been over a year! Such good people.

I feel that while I'm being honest about my joy I should also be honest about my grief. I found that when we discovered that the heart was in great shape I was so relieved, but then also heartbroken all over again that Evie didn't get to have the same fortune. I wish our 2 daughters could have had the same opportunities. Matt and I have seen a therapist periodically since Evie's death and we have talked extensively about future children. One thing he's always noted is that with the joy of seeing milestones in our children's lives, grief will also come. I didn't take that to heart until yesterday and now I can see what he means. While I feel like I have gotten a great gift, I also am bound to remember that Evie got cheated out of the gifts of health and life.

With that said, we are THRILLED! So happy that we got a good health report, and also that pigtails and dresses are in our near future. :) Poor Matt will be outnumbered in his own home!

Blood & Prayers

If you live in the Chicagoland area, have an AB+ blood type, and are willing/able to donate, please contact me! I have a friend who is having heart surgery in 2 weeks and LifeSource is having a blood drive for her type. If you fit the description, you can e-mail me for details at nicolemgk (at) gmail.com
If you live in any area, have any blood type, and are willing to pray for her, please do so!

Thanks!

Echocardiograms

I originally posted this on 4/25/08, but I thought I'd bump it back up to the top so anyone who didn't read it before might see it. Go ahead and sign the petition if you think it's as important as I do!

You probably didn't know this, because before Evie was diagnosed neither did I, but Congenital Heart Defects are the #1 most common birth defect. The stats I've found about its frequency are approximately 1/100 to 1/125 people are born with some type of CHD. However, though hospitals do a myriad of tests on babies during their first day, an echocardiogram is not one of them. I'm no doctor, so excuse me if this is an inaccurate description of what an "echo" is, but essentially it is an ultrasound of the heart. There is no way that when I have more children that I will take them home from the hospital without having an echo first. But since this is not currently a required test, it's my understanding that medical insurance would not cover it. I found an online petition through Facebook that has the goal of urging that echocardiograms be a standard test for newborns. It is my opinion that each newborn needs this because it may just give 1 in 125 babies a better chance at life. See the petition here.

You may be wondering who this petition is going to be presented to, and I don't really have an answer. I looked for details and didn't find any specifics. But I signed it anyway and would encourage everyone else to do so as well because so far it's the only thing I've found that is working towards this cause.

EDIT: For clarification, I'm fairly confident that in our daughter's case her death wasn't caused by the lack of early diagnosis. She had an ER scare but was stabilized very quickly and remained stable for the entire week leading up to her surgery. However, had we not perceived on our own that something was wrong and brought her in to the hospital, she likely would have had a cardiac arrest at home. Such is the case for many newborns with CHD.