Our New Journey

          On Monday November 18 at about 12:00 in the afternoon Henry went for his first of many open heart surgeries. At about 4:00 we got to see him in the ICU. Surgery went very well and as expected. Henry did much better than Miranda and myself. It was a long 4 hours. Henry has a congenital heart defect called Tetrology of Fallot and Pulmonary Atresia. Simplified, you and I have a four chamber heart with a pulmonary artery going to the lungs to get oxygen into the blood. Henry has a three chamber heart with no artery going to the lungs. For his first week he was kept alive by keeping a bypass valve used in utero open with medicine. It usually closes within 12 hours after birth. The surgeon has put in a shunt to replicate this valve. This is temporary until about 6-9 months when he is strong enough to endure a surgery that will essentially rebuild his heart. A donor artery will be used to create a pulmonary artery for him. However this artery does not grow and will require the same surgery over and over until he is full grown. These months leading up to that surgery are the most critical for him as he has limited oxygen in his blood and the shunt has potential to clog. We will be monitoring his oxygen levels twice daily and talking to a nurse at Children's hospital every couple days to report how he is doing. He will also be going regularly for visits to Children's to be seen by the cardiologist. It is important for him to stay healthy during this time as colds, flus, coughs, etc can cause dehydration which in turn causes clotting. He is on aspirin daily to help with the clotting. Please pray for him as he comes to your mind as well for us. This has been such a faith builder as we have seen God move us through each day. God has continually spoke to us through other people over and over different people keep saying "God's got this" and every time we hear those three words peace overwhelms us.  This truly has been our most difficult trial to walk through. My heart has never ached so bad, I missed my children at home and hurt for my newborn being poked and prodded for the first 2 weeks.  We go back to Children's this month  where Henry will likely have another little surgery to fix his diaphragm that was pushed up during the heart surgery.  Please continue you pray for healing, he is improving daily, getting strong and eating a tiny bit more