2nd Post...1st U of M Visit

January 19Th, we finally had our appointment and found out they suspected the baby had a rare Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) called Truncus Arteriosus (TA). Below is a link to the U of M Mott Children's site, describing the CHD.


Normal Heart

Truncus Arteriosus (Type Unknown)

The perinatal Dr. referred us to a peds. cardiologist who did a follow up fetal echo 2 days later and said to hold out on a diagnosis, until the baby's heart was larger than a finger nail, but that there is a CHD. He was very optimistic of successful treatment (surgery).

(There are 35 types of CHD's)

www.mottchildrenshospital.org/chc/patient_con_trun.html

TA is associated with a chromosomal defect called Di George Syndrome. Approximately 70% of TA patients have Di George, but we aren't not worrying about any of that at this point.

We transferred my care to U of M Mott Hospital. Justin and I felt so comfortable with that decision. Should any surgery be needed, we wanted it done there and how convenient for me to deliver there and the baby would be at the same facility, rather than me delivering in Dearborn and the baby transferred to Detroit.

We took the grandma's to the 1st appointment with the cardiologist at UofM. Oh how they were hoping to get a glimpse of something gender related during the echo, ha ha they didn't.

The cardiologist confirmed the first diagnosis and also stated something appears to be wrong with the aortic arch, the artery that pumps oxygenated blood throughout the body.

There are 3 types of TA, we will not know for sure what type we are dealing with. However, TA usually has other CHD's attached to it.

Most common is the Ventricular Septal Defect, VSD, which is the hole inbetween the bottom 2 chambers. There also seems to be something wrong with the Aortic Arch, they will know more at our next visit at the end of Feb.

We were all pretty shocked and devastated, however I was very happy to hear I would be able to hold the baby after deliver.

Soooooo, we made an appointment for later in February for more details.