Zoey Ryan was born with a 7 millimeter hole in her heart — roughly the diameter of a pencil. Clinically speaking, her diagnosis of ventricular septal defect (VSD), is a fairly common one for infants, but that doesn’t reassure a new mother who’s been told her baby needs open-heart surgery. Zoey, from Beloit, was born in April […]
Tears of joy after seeing our son pink for the first time after open heart surgery
One year ago around 8 a.m. we handed our son Jonathan at 10 months old, over to his heart surgeon for his second open heart surgery. When the surgeon came to talk to us about the surgery, they told us our son was pink. Tears came falling down, tears of relief.
Meet Addison: fighting spirit, smiling face!
I found out when I was about 20 weeks pregnant that Addison had a 2-vessel umbilical cord (SUA = single umbilical artery). All of the level 2 scans and high-risk doctors said she looked perfect, but we wouldn’t know until after she was born.
Running marathons after open heart surgery
Even though Heinz Pak was born with a hole in his heart, it didn’t stop him from being an active kid and adult. When he was 3 weeks old, Heinz was diagnosed with ventricular septal defect (VSD), which can be one or more holes in the wall that separates the right and left ventricles of the heart. VSD is one of the most common congenital (present from birth) heart defects.
Learning the NICU dance
There’s a cliché you sometimes hear in the NICU—“Two steps forward, one step back.” Well, in the past seven and a half weeks Rebekah has been making leaps forward and only taking baby steps back. I guess we were just due for a bad day. In the past weeks, my husband, Christopher, and I have […]
