I had my third amnio fluid draw on the morning of Thursday, July 23. They took another 2.5 liters off (the equivalent to a 28-week-old baby). Shortly after being placed in a monitoring room, the nurse came to tell me they were admitting me.June Kelley Hollenkamp arrived later that day at 8:09 pm. She weighed 5 pounds, 14 ounces and was 18.5 inches long.
I got to hold her for a split second before they wheeled her to NICU. After I had recovered, they wheeled me down to see her briefly and then took me to my room.
****************************************
After June's check up, we found out she was missing a set of ribs. She also had a whole in the wall separating the two lower chambers of her heart (Ventricular Septal Defect or VSD). She could have surgery, but they would need to do more echoes on her heart to determine if anything would need to be done to fix it. They also would need to monitor her kidneys because they found slight blockage in the ureter (the passage leading from her kidneys to her bladder).
In the next few weeks, as they started finding out more about June, VACTERL or Vater Association was mentioned, which is an acronym used to describe a series of characteristics which have been found to occur together:
- Vertebra (only having 11 sets of ribs)
- Atresia (a passage in the body is abnormally closed or absent - more on that to come)
- Cardiac (VSD)
- Tracheo
- Esophageal fistula (TEF - what she was originally diagnosed with in utero)
- Renal (blockage in the ureter)
- Limbs (does not have any abnormalities)
Babies who have VACTERL Association usually have at least three or more of these individual abnormalities, and June ended up with five of the six listed. This is a rare association that is estimated to occur in one in 10,000 to 40,000 newborns.
No comments:
Post a Comment