Day 1

I will praise God’s name…
and glorify him with thanksgiving. 
Psalm 69:30

Hard to believe how FAST today has flown by!  We are overwhelmed with the love, support and encouragement we have received from so many already!

Wanted to give you a quick recap of the day and let you all know some specific ways to be praying.

We arrived at Overland Park Regional Med Center at 6am and by 7:30am I (Kerry) was all hooked up to the multiple tubes you saw in the earlier post and ready to roll.  Doc broke my water around 7:50am, and while I had been having a few contractions sporadically, the minute she broke my water they became intense and consistently 3 minutes apart! Slowly down to 2 and 1 and then constant…and by 10:30am, with only 5 little pushes – out he came!!  Koal is HUGE (10lbs 4oz, 21inches)…which is GREAT now that he’s out and ready to fight (what a praise that labor and delivery was so short and easy with another 10+ pounder!).

Adam and I were both able to hold him for about 3 minutes before they whisked him away to the NICU.  First reports came back that he was doing well – breathing normal room air well with excellent oxygen saturation numbers and looking good all around.  He had a slightly low blood sugar level, so they gave him some glucose to bring that up, and then all went well as they placed the umbilical IV in to start the prostaglandin (drugs to keep his fetal blood vessels open so blood flows as it should to the lungs). Unfortunately, they took some x-rays to check everything out and discovered his heart is placed on the right side of his chest, and it appeared to be tilted or positioned oddly in a defect known as Dextrocardia, but it has additional complications with his chambers not all functioning and connecting properly, on top of his already diagnosed Tetralogy of Fallot with Pulmonary Atresia, so he was prepped and sent to Children’s Mercy this afternoon.  Adam followed shortly after and was able to be with him while the pediatric cardiologist spent nearly 2 hours doing an echocardiogram to determine what more is going on with his little heart. The testing has showed numerous congenital heart defects which all together don’t have a specific diagnosis. Dr. Shah told Adam he’s not seen anything exactly like this before, and it poses different and sometimes more difficult challenges than they expected.  He was hopeful that with multiple surgeries, these issues would be improved but possibly not completely repaired ever, and there are just many unknowns at this point.  For now, the first step is the same.  In a week to two weeks, they will place a shunt in to keep the blood flow of his heart going to all places it needs to.  From there, they will decide how to proceed depending on his growth, changes they might see occur or as they discover new abnormalities through more tests.  By the time Adam was about to leave CMH to come back to see me, they were about to take Koal’s breathing tube out and adjust him to a lower dose of the prostaglandin, as he was stabilizing and seemed to be doing well.

Tonight, we are exhausted (we did get up before 5am, so I suppose THAT is expected! HA!) and a bit overwhelmed with information and so many things changing so fast. We are so thankful that our little man is here and that he is safe and stable at CMH where he can be monitored and taken care of as needed.  It is difficult to be stuck in a hospital across town from where he is, but the docs here seem to think I should be able to be discharged tomorrow morning. Please pray that would happen…how we long to be where Koal is.  Hard to believe he’s just now 12 hours old – and yet I’ve only gotten to hold him twice for a total of about 10 minutes.  While it’s not the situation we would have hoped for, we do pray now that we can get some rest tonight as there will be much fewer checks and interruptions, and be ready to go be with our babe tomorrow morning.

Thank you all so very much for your continued prayers. We will continue to update you with more details as we learn them.