February 25, 2004

Monday, March 28, 2011

As time went on.

I spent one week in the Hospital in Wiesbaden and was transferred to the University of Marburg where I stayed for 2 more weeks before she was born and then one week afterward.  So in all, I was in the hospital for 4 weeks.  The kids were without a parent for 4 days until Phillip could get back from Iraq

I can’t tell you how happy I was to see him when he walked into my hospital room.  Over the 3 weeks I spent in the hospital, we learned more about what was wrong.  Mollie had a rare malformation in her brain.  The Vein of Galen malformed and was larger than it should be.  Apparently when a vein is large, it requires blood flow to fill it.  This required her heart to work overtime, all the time which was causing heart failure.  The treatment (embolization) is to go into the femoral artery (upper thigh) with a small catheter, all the way up to the brain to occlude the vein.  They do this by using a special glue-like substance or coils.  Then, the blood flow is reduced and the heart can heal. 

At the University Hospital, they decided to do an amniocentesis because Mollie was so small for her gestational age.  In fact, they didn’t really believe me when I told them I was 31 weeks.  It was very important to know exactly how far I was because they said that they couldn’t help her if she was born before 32 weeks.  They also wanted to find out if there was anything else going on.  The initial test came back showing nothing.  This initial test tested for a trisomy (three of one chromosome) for Chromosomes 13, 18, or 21.  (trisomy 21 is down syndrome).  Next would be a more extensive test to check all the chromosomes for trisomy (3), monosomy (1), translocation (part missing on one chromosome but found on another) or deletion (part of a chromosome missing). 

So, we just plugged along.  Somewhere around the 16-18 of February, we met with the professors and talked about options.  They felt that if she stayed in the womb longer, it would be better for her to grow.  So they told me that they would plan to do the cesarean at 36 weeks.  They would set it up to do the cesarean in the OR at the Neurosurgery clinic so the Neurosurgeon could then immediately perform the embolization on Mollie.  They said she wouldn’t live more than 24 hours without having this done.  I was 32 weeks at that time so that meant that I had to stay there for 4 more weeks.  It was hard to imagine but I figured I could tough it out. 

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