Visit to UNC

Today mom and I went for my regular visit with the OB clinic at UNC. We met with Dr. Kim Boggess and really liked her! She was very helpful and was able to answer a lot of general OB questions I'd been collecting since starting birthing classes earlier this month. Unfortunately, I failed my 1 hr. glucose test at last month's checkup so I've got to have a follow up 3 hr. glucose test on Friday. I will be able to have that done at Rex since it's a little closer than UNC, but I'm still not looking forward to it. It involves drinking a sugary orange carbonated beverage once an hour for three hours and at the end of each hour, having my blood drawn. This test is used to confirm whether or not I have gestational diabetes.

On a brighter note, it's such a relief to be treated like a "normal" pregnant person and to just be able to focus on the "normal" questions a first-time mom has with trying to understand the process of labor and delivery, without the equation of Ethan's heart problem. Dr. Boggess assured me that since nothing can be done to treat Ethan until after he's born, that I'd progress with labor and delivery like any other mother out there, no special treatment because of his heart problem. This means I can have pain meds :-) and a regular delivery without need for a C-Section (unless some other complication arises...unrelated to our son's heart defect).

After meeting with my OB, my care coordinator took us over to meet one of the cardio-thoracic (CT) heart surgeons - Dr. Robert Stewart. He and the other CT surgeon, Dr. Michael Mill will be tag-teaming Ethan's heart surgery. Both doctors are very skilled at what they do and they operate on at least a dozen HLHS babies a year! Our pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Cotton has done a great job at our previous 2 appointments at explaining the 3 heart surgeries, and today Dr. Stewart re-explained the procedures once again and answered a lot of our questions about what to expect post-op and also for years to come after all 3 surgeries are completed. Mom and I left UNC feeling a lot more confident about our hospital choice and about the whole situation overall. We are definitely thankful to be blessed to live in a day and age with so much technology and medical expertise to be able to help our sweet son live. It's hard to believe that treatment has only been around since 1980 for this congenital heart defect and we are very thankful that God has allowed our son to be in such good medical hands.

Now that we're well into our third trimester, it's time to start having more frequent checkups. We return on July 10th, where we'll talk about possibly induction for labor because Ethan's surgery needs to be timed to be 3-5 days after he's born and they want to make sure that he's born in time to have the surgery during a work week and not have to extend it a few days by having to wait through the weekend. That week, we'll also have one last ultrasound to check Ethan's growth once more before he arrives! Not long now until we get to meet Ethan at last!