Today has been incredibly busy. We started with visiting with a cardiologist fellow who explained that he will be receiving an echo of the heart to see how all the different structures are functioning. then they removed the right atrium wire. This was going straight into the right atrium of his heart, it's been the big scary thing that I try desperately hard not to touch. After removal of the wire another echo is done to make sure he doesn't have any fluid being built up or bleeding occurring.
An occupational therapist worked with Holden today on his sucking reflex. I enjoyed talking with her and learning about his potential for breast feeding. We fist have to test his nerve that controls speech and swallowing. If that is fine, we can try feeding by mouth, which would be a bottle at first. If he takes a bottle well, we can try breastfeeding. The doctors have concerns that breast milk will not have enough calories for him and I will have to supplement with some formula. I, of course, hate the idea of this. I truly believe breast is best! Fingers crossed.
The cardiologist fellow came back and and told us that the surgical repair looked good, but they did see that the pressure in his right atrium was a little high. This is due to the fact that his pulmonary artery is smaller than it is suppossed to be. We had never been told that before. So I have a new worry. Our course of action for this is to monitor how Holden is doing. As long as he does well, we won't worry about the artery being small. He said the biggeest sign of him doing well is whether or not he is being successful in his feedings. They are hoping that as holden grows, his pulmonary artery will grow too!
Prayer requests:
Holden's pulmonary artery will grow to accomidate his body and the pressure will be normalized in the heart.
Sucking and swallowing will be successful this week.
He will quickly move from the bottle to the breast.
The doctors will let holden have breast milk without supplementing.
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