3 months old!

Day 2 in the hospital: Overall Haley-bug is doing pretty well. She had a bit of a fussy night last night, but luckily Grandma was here to hold her and snuggle her through the wee hours of the night/morning. And it's quite understandable that she would be fussy after the kind of day she had yesterday! But she did eat well in the night, so that was good. This morning she was still pretty swollen and then finally gave her some lasix. Now she's had some impressive wet diapers and is starting to look like our baby again!

Finally late this afternoon/early evening she has started to act almost like our normal Haley-bug again! She's been laying, playing, waving her arms around, and nearly smiling. She's been making all her cute little faces and is more easily consoled when she gets upset. She could still be eating a little bit better but I imagine that might take a couple days. Before she would become irate every time they took her blood pressure, and now so long as we shake her rattle for her she doesn't even cry!

Unfortunately during her echocardiogram today there was a slight decrease in the function of her right ventricle (the ventricle that's responsible for pumping all the blood in her body because her left ventricle - the normal pumping chamber - is what didn't develop). They say this can be a common transient complication post-op, when volume overloaded (which she was post-op because of fluids and a blood transfusion), and partially because she hasn't been getting one of her heart meds (digoxin) because of surgery day. So hopefully now that surgery is over and more time is passing, we gave her lasix to get rid of all that excess fluid, and she's getting her Dig again (and now twice a day) she will start to be on the mend and the right side's function will come back up. They think that's the most likely scenario, but there is also the risk that they are just catching her right side when it is starting to do poorly and may start/continue to deteriorate. So they are keeping us in the CICU till tomorrow morning at least when they will repeat an echo and then depending on her heart function we will go from there. After the CICU we will have to spend probably at least 24 hours in C5 (the step down ward) before we can go home. Thus there is really no chance that we will be going home tomorrow, and we'll just have to see how her echo goes before we can make any predictions.

It's really very scary to me how nothing seems to go smoothly. Her catheterization was challenging, and now we have this bump in the road with her echo. I was lamenting to one of her doctor's who we'd had before and really like, Dr. McKee, and I said I just wanted it to be easy. His response was very true and appropriate, that I should've learned from last time that it's never easy and not going to be. I told him I just wanted it to be easy one time, but really what he said was true and strangely does make me feel better. For me it helps to keep in mind and remember that this is not easy, never will be, and that bumps in road are par for the game. It makes those bumps seem more manageable and not like some unique-to-us unluckiness. I would love it to be easy, but I know it's not and we just have to trust and pray that we'll work our way through these obstacles. We love our Bug and we'll do anything for her!