Jacqueline Rose was born at 1:39pm on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008. She was a beautiful 18 inches long and 6 pounds, 12.7 ounces. Being 5 weeks early, she was kept in the Memorial City Hospital NICU for several days. During that time, she got better, needing less oxygen, no warmer, and even began feeding. However, her lower oxygen saturation levels led the doctor to do an echocardiogram. It revealed that she had Transposition of the Great Arteries. She was immediately transferred to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where they repeated the echo and found an atrial septal defect, a ventral septal defect, coarctation of the aorta, and that her PDA was still open. In laymen’s terms, Jackie was born with the two major arteries attached to her heart backwards. The ASD, VSD and open PDA are essentially holes in her heart. While the TGA should have prevented any oxygenated blood from getting to her body, the holes in the heart created a mixing area, giving her an inefficient, but operating, heart. We were told in no uncertain terms that Jackie would not survive without surgery. On March 5th at 10 days of age, she underwent a 12 hour open heart surgery, 6 hours of which she was on bypass with her heart stopped. Dr. Charles Fraser and the congenital heart surgery team at TCH performed the surgery to repair her heart. We brought her home 13 days later! We are so thankful and blessed beyond words.
Posted Mar 5, 2008 10:46pm
We heard from the surgeon, and now seen our precious little baby girl. According to Dr. Fraser, the surgery was long and complicated. She had several anatomical issues that he had to deal with, over and above the several known issues he had to solve. He was very optimistic that she would recover fully.
I’ve put a picture of her in the photo gallery; it can be a little disturbing to see her with all the tubes, wires, and monitors all over her body. But she has good color, and according to Dr. Fraser, “her heart is happy.”
We take comfort in the knowledge that for the first time in her short life, she is starting to get better. She has a long way to go before she gets to go home; there are a lot of things that still have to happen before she’s totally healed, but we are trusting God to take care of her even now.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for us and reached out to us, please keep it up while we wait to take her home with us.
Posted Mar 6, 2008 7:16pm
Well, finally Mommy is posting an update. Daddy has done a marvelous job journaling our journey thus far. I am overwhelmed and exhausted, yet somehow by the miracle of God’s grace, not overcome. I now understand the last few words of the poem Footprints, “…it was then I carried you.” In my mental fog, many Scriptures come to mind from God’s Word, but one has been sticking to my thoughts like glue: Psalms 27:13-14 “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” We are daily seeing the goodness of the Lord through each of you, your words of comfort and encouragement, visits, calls, emails, meals, and most of all prayers. We are forever grateful. May we all have “happy hearts” in the Lord like baby Jackie.
As she fought for her life, we spent the hours at our baby’s side in the hospital playing soft music for her, notably “Jesus Loves Me” and “Over the Rainbow” and this…
and looking back I think the cries of our hearts were…
Jackie’s Journey
