St. Louis it is!

John and I had a great visit to St. Louis last week. It was a jam-packed day of meetings, appointments and tours but a very productive day for sure. We had lengthy, critical discussions with a neonatologist, a cardiothoracic surgeon, two high-risk OBs and the CICU (cardiac intensive care unit) assistant manager (and RN) as well as being accompanied ALL DAY by our Fetal Care Coordinator, Chris, who is wonderful! She took us to each appointment, guided us on tours and answered tons of questions. She rocks!

Important things we learned during our day visiting St. Louis Children's & Barnes-Jewish...

• From the sonographer and one of the high-risk OBs... Outside of the heart defect, Baby Girl is on the small side but is growing and developing well. Yay! This is a big deal. We even got this 3-D view of her sweet face this time. Loved it. :)
• From the other high-risk OB... It is critical for me to get to 39 weeks, and they will do everything they can to get me to that point. I will be induced and deliver at 39 weeks at Barnes-Jewish in St. Louis.
• From the surgeon... He covered the "staged reconstruction" (three surgeries she will undergo in her first few years) in detail and answered all of our questions...and there were a lot. Bottom line, there are LOTS of variables when it comes to the success of the staged reconstruction of an HLHS baby's heart and the care of these babies is a unified team effort. They handle approximately 13 HLHS cases per year.
• From the neonatologist... After birth, Baby Girl will be immediately taken to the NICU at St. Louis Children's (which is connected to Barnes-Jewish) where IV med will be administered to keep the two holes in her heart open until surgery. We may or may not get to hold her before she's taken to the NICU. At the very least, we should be able to touch her and snap a photo or two. She will stay in the NICU for a few days until she is stabilized. Then she will be moved to the CICU just before her first surgery within the first week of her life. She will return to the CICU after surgery for recovery, which could last approximately four weeks.

Ultimately, we came away from our day in St. Louis feeling great about this option and decided, even without visiting Cincinnati, that St. Louis is the place for us and our sweet baby girl. In two weeks, we will return to St. Louis for another ultrasound and fetal echo, a meeting with the cardiologist and a tour of Labor & Delivery at Barnes-Jewish. We are also looking forward to taking our girls with us this time to begin to get familiar with the area and spend some time having fun in St. Louis as a family!

Thanks again for praying, dear ones. We appreciate you. God is good, and He is sustaining us!