Progress! The good kind!

As you may have guessed today baby and I went in for our second Heart ECHO. You might remember from the last post, we had some concerning news about the thickening of the tricuspid valve. This second appointment was the next in a series of ECHOs they wanted us to go to every 3 weeks. They were really worried about the thickening because it meant that less blood can get into the right side of the heart and the condition could progress to the point where the right side of the heart does not grow. I was very nervous about about this appointment especially since I would be going to it on my own.

During the 45 minute ultrasound, I fell asleep. It was actually pretty awesome because I wasn’t trying to analyze the pictures I was seeing on the screen. The room was just so dark, warm and the white noise from the ultrasound machine was so soothing. Maybe I will do this every time. Anyway after the scan, the neonatologist came for a consult which I will write a separate post about since I really want to talk about the heart today.

After the visit with the neonatologist the cardiologist came with some really good news. Baby’s heart condition didn’t progress, in fact it had reversed! Which is good progress. Yes the word progress is confusing but in this case just think this is good news. The tricuspid valve has stopped thickening and in fact looks better than at the last ECHO. The right heart has caught up to the left heart in size. There is good blood flow into the right heart and out of the right heart. The pulmonary artery is still a little smaller but the cardiologist is not worried. The cardiologist actually mentioned that when she first looked at our pictures she didn’t have our charts in front of her so she was wondering why we would need an ECHO at all. She has cancelled our 28 week ECHO and we will do another one at 34 weeks in Calgary just to make 100% sure there is nothing wrong before baby is born.

After the cardiologist we saw our OB -GYN. It was Dr Cooper today who is the one I like and now I purposely ask for her when I book my appointments. We went through our MRI results and the other baby measurements taken from the ECHO. Baby is bigger than average, but not extremely. MRI showed that most of the liver is in the omph, but nothing that can’t be surgically corrected. The lungs look like they are growing normally – which is pretty good. We aren’t out of the woods yet. We will watch the chest cavity closely at the next ultrasounds (which starting in two weeks will now be biweekly), and do another MRI at around 32 weeks.

So as a summary, we have now eliminated the heart condition. So it is back down to lungs and omph. The omph is something we know can be taken care of. The lungs is still the wildcard but I think that chances are good that we can manage whatever might come up. We might preemptively provide a shot of steroids to open up the lung passageways just like they do for mommy and babies suffering from pre-term labour to give the lungs a better chance, but other than that it’s just wait and see. But the big news is no heart condition. Most likely no trip to Edmonton or heart surgery. Now even if there are lung problems, there won’t be the complication of heart plus lung.

I forgot to ask Dr. Cooper about the bloating because I was too excited about baby’s heart. I guess I need to wait another two weeks. Of course it doesn’t help that we went for Indian food to celebrate today, but we got good news dammit and I’m going to take advantage of it.