At 4:13pm on July 14th, 2010 Noah Ashton made his way into the world. At first he didn't make a sound, he seemed like he was just shocked but then he started to wail and I took a deep breath for the first time since finding out I was expecting him. he weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 19 3/4 inches long (same length as DD), despite being 3 weeks early.
The next few weeks were a bit of a whirlwind. Noah was released on time 2 days later but the following day we noticed that he had a yellowish tinge to his skin. We took him back to the hospital to be tested for jaundice. It came back positive so he spent 24 hours in luminotherapy so I could only hold him to feed him. That was tough! Then we got to take him home but had to take him back the following day for a control test. His levels were rising again so he had to stay 24 hours again. This happened three times when finally a nurse noticed that his breathing seemed laboured and his skin was turning greyish. The pedicatrician ordered a whole bunch of tests and it was found that his heart was enlarged and he had very low oxygen saturation.
That day, at 12 days old, Noah was transferred to the ICU of a local children's hospital. He was diagnosed with Coarctation of the Aorta, basically a narrowing of the aorta. You see, babies have a little flap in their hearts which is called a truncus, which helps blood flow while in the womb. It closes shortly after birth.When Noah's flap closed it caused pressure to build up in his little heart because with the narrowing in his aorta, there was nowhere for the blood to go. is heart was working overtime so it became enlarged (since the heart is a muscle). They gave him some medication to reopen the truncus in order to relieve some of the pressure and he stabilized within a couple of hours. The following day we met with a pediatric cardiac surgeon and discussed what would happen with Noah. We were told that he needed surgery to repair the coarctation... The scariest news I could possibly imagine. I've never prayed so hard in all my life.
When Noah was 14 days old he underwent surgery to repair his coarctation. He came out of it in just under 4 hours (the LONGEST 4 hours of my life) and was released from the hospital 4 days later. Here is a picture of him 2 days post-op. Already feeling better :)
He goes in to see his cardiologist every 6 weeks or so and in October he was sleeping a little more than usual but I didn't really think anything of it since he was about to hit 3 months and I figured he was just going through a little growth spurt. So I took him in for a regular check-up with the cardiologist and sure enough the coarctation had returned (recoarctation). This time, though, he would have a catheter dilatation, which is a fairly straightforward procedure in which they put a catheter in his groin which threads up to his aorta and they inflate a balloon to reopen the narrowed passage. That was a Thursday, he had the procedure done the following Monday and got to go home on Tuesday.
Since then he's been doing great. He's a happy, energetic 8 month old and you would never know that he had been through so much in his little life.
