University Of Michigan Appt #2

We had our second appointment at the University of Michigan on June 10th. This appointment put little Evan at 34 weeks and 5 days.

We started the day off with a fetal echocardiogram with Jane. Evan was awake and ready to play. He was rolling over and just moving a lot in general making it hard for Jane to get all the information she needed. It took a while but eventually she had measured everything she needed. Dr. Owens was looking at the images in another room and came in to talk to us as well as take some images of her own. She said that everything looked great and there were no unexpected surprises. Yay! Evan will not have another echo done until after he’s born at which time they will do a very extensive echo and gather all the details needed to plan his surgeries.

We were approached about a research study and asked if we would like to take part in it. Connie came up to talk to us about the study and see if we were interested. The study is led by Dr. Mark Russell which if you read the last U of M post was the first doctor we met with at U of M that thoroughly explained Evan’s condition to us and what needed to happen to fix his heart. The study focuses on children born with heart defects and need open heart surgery. Some children have more difficulty recovering from the procedures than others despite all the steps taken to protect the tissues from injury. The purpose of the study is to see if there are any inherited factors that help determine the ability of each child to tolerate the stress of surgery. Our only involvement in the study is to allow them to take a teaspoon of Evan’s blood (which would happen at the first surgery when he is sedated) which they will use to look at his genetic markers compared to other babies. Then we give consent for the research team to get copies of Evan’s follow up appointments so they can track how he’s doing up until 6 years old. The team is make up of several pediatric cardiologists, an anesthesiologist, surgeon, and bio-statistician and they are looking to have 1000+ patients in the study. Participation in this study is a no-brainer for us. I hope that the information that they gather can help other children down the road.

We talked to the Barb, the social worker about housing in Ann Arbor while we are there. We really need to get on the ball with this. We still have not booked anything and it’s only a month away. Barb is supposed to be getting us some information on corporate apartments. We really don’t want to stay in a hotel type room for that period of time. I’m really going to focus on this next week.

We met with an OB/GYN for a pretty standard appointment. We didn’t really get anything out of meeting with her but <shrug> that’s ok. She gave us some information about the U of M triage phone, we talked about the group B strep test that every mom has to have before birth, etc. We asked about immunizations for people in contact with Evan and she echoed the need for the pertussis vaccine (whooping cough). This is the Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) vaccine that everyone should have a booster of every 10 years. If you have not had one, get one, it’s deadly, especially to small children. It’s highly contagious and people can transmit the bacteria for 2 weeks after they begin coughing. The illness can last ~6weeks.

At 3pm we had an ultrasound with Cathy… Measurement! This is what we’ve been waiting for! It was great. Evan was up to 5lb 8 oz. Yay!

Next appointment at U of M at 38 weeks.