More Appoinments - Day 2

On Tuesday we had another Fetal Echo Cardiogram done. The cardiologist seemed to be very particular about what he wanted to see and kept sending the technicians back in for more footage! Probably a good thing in a doctor.

I am including a picture of what a normal fetal heart looks like (the labeled one) and what Matthew's looks like (the one with diagnoses written on the side).

He thought it would be best to start from scratch and tell us what he saw. Along with the previous findings (ASD, VSD, DORV, small left side, irregular beat, poor strength of beat) he said that the right side of Matthew's heart is too big and the left is now too small. Also, the Pulmonary artery's valve is small and the artery is narrow near the valve. He also said that the  Mitral Valve (between the upper and lower left chambers) is small and may not be functioning well.

What this means for Matthew is that the blood may not flow well into the Pulmonary artery, the left side of his heart may not work strongly enough and if after Matthew is born the left side is measuring this small there is nothing they can do for him. They are unable to make a small side bigger and a possible surgery on a normal child would be too complex for Matthew's weak heart to sustain.

It is like those "find the difference" pictures!

They said a normal left side measurement falls between -2 and +2 and that his right now is measuring -3.5. They said what they find after birth may be better because of difficulty measuring while in utero and/or it may improve by then but if after birth it is measuring worse than -2.5 they are unable to do anything to help it. Fixing the other heart problems won't fix that one.
He told us that before any medication is given we should wait to see how Matthew is doing for breathing and that if he is breathing well we can do the echo to see how his heart is doing. His recommendation (which we are going with at this point) is that if he is breathing but his oxygen is still low (not because of breathing) that we can do the echo within hours after birth to see if giving him prostaglandins to keep the "Patent Ductus Arterosus" (first picture, top right) open will help blood flow into the Pulmonary artery. Matthew will have an echo done within the first 24 hours no matter what, as long as he is stable.

Right now our biggest prayer requests for him are that his heart rate will increase to 110 or higher and that he will be head down, anterior (ideally so that he can be born vaginally), that after birth that he will breathe on his own and that the left side will be big enough to work with.

Please also pray for peace during this waiting time and that we would be okay with whatever God chooses to happen. Our induction date is set for October 16 provided he doesn't come on his own before then.

I am halfway done with Matthew's layette blanket! Only 12 more squares to make! I may decide to make it square instead though and only do 4 more :)