A Word From Dane's Mom

Dane Anthony Virgo was born on 12/31/08 11:16 p.m., 8lbs 6oz and 21 in long…our little tax deduction!! So far, this has been the only thing he has cooperated with his momma and daddy on!

Long story short, I was in labor for a long time, almost 30 hours before they decided I needed to have a c-section. They discovered that he was sunny side up (facing up) and that his head had wedged itself into my pelvis, so I never would have been able to deliver him on my own. We had the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) team with us during the section because I had developed an infection during labor, so they took him right up to the NICU after he was born to monitor him for 48 hours to make sure he didn’t get the infection as well. The next day in the NICU they heard a heart murmur and noticed he could not regulate his body temperature, so they ordered a ECG to see what was really going on with his heart. While waiting for the scan, he all of a sudden turned blue and his oxygen sats dropped down to the 20-something%. His heart never stops and he hasn’t stopped breathing at any point. They did the first scan Thursday morning and discovered that he has something called a PDA. This is when there is a defect in a blood vessel that connects the lung artery to the aorta. This vessel helps the baby’s blood circulate when he is still in the womb. When most babies are born, this vessel either closes off or clots off. However, Dane’s has not yet, which could be why he is turning blue sometimes. So far, he has only had 5 or 6 of these episodes, and as of last night he hadn’t had any since Sunday evening. One of the other issues they are worried about is stenosis of the aorta, this is when there is narrowing of the aorta. When they did the second scan of Dane’s heart on Friday, they thought they saw a ‘shadow’ on his aorta, which could be a stenosis. They decided to wait it out and do another scan on Monday to see if he will start to heal the PDA on his own. After Monday’s scan, it looks like it is starting to heal on its own, but they are still concerned that there could be a stenosis. They think that IF a stenosis occurs, it could be because the PDA has healed into the aorta. So, we are going to wait until Wednesday and do another scan to see how things are healing with the PDA. It’s another wait and see game. As it stands today, we are going to wait until Wednesday and see what the scan shows and come up with a game plan from there. If the PDA has not healed, there are several options. They can give him a medication which mostly likely would close the PDA. If that does not work, there is a very simple procedure where they go in and clamp it off. This procedure is generally 15 minutes long, so fairly easy. Then, they would observe him and make sure there is not any sort of stenosis.

At this point we are still getting a lot of, if’s and could be’s. All we really know for sure right now is that he does have a PDA and it’s starting to close on its own. He could have a stenosis, but they are waiting to diagnose that until the PDA has cleared up and they can get a better view of the aorta. There are several different options of attack if he does have a stenosis, but the doctor’s really don’t want to discuss that route. Basically we could go from it’s so slight that nothing needs to be done to that it’s so severe that they have to do surgery and replace that section of the artery. But right now we are concentrating on the PDA.

As soon as we know more, I will let everyone know what is going on. I would have sooner, but they really tore me up during my section since he was stuck so well. I was released on Sunday night. It’s nice to be home and in my own pj’s, but it’s still really hard to get around and move. Thank you to the person who invented Percocet!!

We want to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers, they have really worked miracles! Other than the PDA, he is a healthy beautiful baby boy. He has wonderful color, he is eating well, he is regulating his body temperature and he pees and poos like a champ! Oh, and he burps like a MAN according to dad.

Jaimee and Chris