Birthday! Jan 02/06

On Jan 2^nd after a complicated pregnancy and over two days of labour resulting in a caesarean, I was overjoyed when my baby was born. My nurse told me that I had a healthy baby girl that weighed 7lbs 10oz. I named her Anniek. I was told that she had a heart murmur, but I did not need to worry since this is a common condition in newborns which goes away a baby’s Patent Ductus Arterious (PDA) closes.

About 6 hours later when Anniek’s PDA closed my world fell apart. Anniek started to cry and because of my caesarean I was unable to get up to comfort her. I rang for the nurse. When the nurse came, she told me that she was going to take her to have a doctor look at her since Anniek looked a little off-colour to the nurse. I was still groggy from my lack of sleep and wasn’t overly concerned.
Anniek’s godmother Joanne stopped by shortly after. I told Joanne what had just happened. Since Joanne is a nurse, she immediately went to investigate and found out Anniek was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the hospital and some tests were being done on her. Joanne offered to call my parents if I wanted. I knew they were visiting my grandparents half an hour away but I decided it would be nice to have my parents with me.

Shortly after my parents arrived at the hospital, I finally received a visit from some doctors. When two doctors come into your room at once, it is not reassuring. One of the doctors told me that they had run some tests on Anniek. They had initially believed that Anniek had an infection but after running the tests they thought she had a serious heart condition. I was told that they had to do some more tests but that she was in critical condition and her condition was potentially life-threatening. My heart stopped. I was devastated. My beautiful baby girl could die at any moment. Why would this happen to someone like me who had followed all the doctor’s orders and taken good care of myself? The other mother in my room had her baby in the NICU because the mother was addicted to drugs, yet her baby was just suffering from withdrawal and otherwise was perfectly healthy. There are many times that life does not seem fair. .

I was told that my baby girl had a Congenital Heart Defect (CHD) called Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF or TET) and had to go to The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto as soon as possible. At this time, I had never even heard of CHDs…Unfortunately, I had a lot to learn.