To all my friends, followers, and those that just happen to come across this post:
I announced a while back that I am pregnant with baby number 2, but things have been everything but smooth sailing. Erik, baby 2, isn’t due till April 19th and has something called truncus arteriosus. What does that mean? He has a major heart defect where his arteries didn’t form properly. Picture below compares a healthy heart vs what Erik has.
So that being said, Erik will need open heart surgery when he is born. The plan is to deliver him and he will be brought to NICU for up to 2 weeks. During those weeks, he will be monitored and prepped for transport to a children’s hospital that can fix his heart. Surgery will happen before the two week mark and then he will spend some time (usually about 6 weeks) in a children’s cardiology icu before going home.
Which brings us down to currently. I am 28.5 weeks along and they need Erik to be born as close to 39 weeks as possible to do the surgery safely. I have been having contractions for an entire week now. I am having to take a medical leave from school till after Erik is born and take it as easy as possible. My partner is the only one working so we are working hard at saving money to care for us while Erik is in the hospital. I will most likely be staying in the city near Erik the whole time while my partner finds a babysitter for our other son. It has been a week.
