1.05.2012

Meeting Dr. Merrill

After two nights in a row of zero sleep, I rolled out of bed to my 5:45AM alarm this morning.  After dropping Londyn off at Auntie Becca's, Andrew and I headed to Emmanuel Maternal & Fetal Medicine for what turned out to be a 4 hour appointment.  First off, we had an in-depth ultrasound, followed by an echo-cardiogram with Dr. King, our pediatric cardiologist.  Since it has been over a month since we last saw and first met Dr. King, I had a lot of questions.  He was able to give us fabulous news and calm our fears.  He told us that we could hold Zoe for up to an hour after birth until needing to be taken to the NICU for medication to keep the PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus) open.  The NICU is open 22 hours a day for us to be with her and HOLD her!  The Norwood Procedure (1st out of 3 surgeries) will be performed 3-4 days after birth.  She will then be in the PICU for 2.5-3 weeks (much shorter than we originally thought!).  While in the PICU, they have private rooms and sleep rooms for parents.  Andrew and I counted out all of the doctors involved in sweet little Zoe's journey already and we have an Obstetrician, Pediatric Cardiologist, Pedatric Heart Surgeon, Perinatologist, Neonatologist and Pediatrician.  Talk about a team of care!  That's SIX medical professionals all working to give our baby a successful start at life.

All wonderful news!

After seeing Dr. King, we were able to meet Dr. Merrill (perinatologist).  He is a good friend of our Obstetrician, Dr. Flath and all of the amazing things we have heard about him were true!  He reminds me of my dad.  Kind, funny and just a great guy.  Dr. Flath and Dr. Merrill will be sharing all of our obstetrical care.

We will follow up with all of these doctors in a month!

Here is our precious baby Zoe.

She looks so much like Londyn as a newborn in this picture.

3 comments:

The Brown Family said...

Such a sweet and precious face!!

Kelly(M&M) said...

Wow. This post has me in tears. I am so happy for all of your good news and that your fears were calmed. Sounds like you have the perfect team working for you. Thanks for sharing all of this with the rest of us. Zoe is beautiful! What amazing pictures!

Nicole said...

hoooooooooooray for being able to hold her right after birth! I did my internship in a PICU, it was a great place - lots of mom's with their babies (: what a relief to get more details on how its going to all work!