BABY NEWS: We're Coming Down To the Wire

Today we are preparing to move into the Ronald McDonald House in Camden (just over the bridge from Philadelphia) where we will spend the last month of the pregnancy so that the baby will be delivered at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Everything is going perfectly with the pregnancy and James is already 6 pounds.

We are told that he has a hole in his heart, and that is a good thing for the procedure that he'll need to have done. The hole means that he won't be born blue, that the blood pumping through his heart will be oxygenated just enough that he won't need to be rushed immediately into surgery; he'll (hopefully) be able to wait a week.

Then he'll need open heart surgery to transpose the arteries and veins into his heart and his chest will need to stay open for three days for the swelling to go down. He'll stay at the hospital for up to three weeks before we can take him home. Then we'll need to take him back and forth to Philadelphia for weekly and then monthly check ups for the next few years.

We're extremely lucky to be so close. I don't know what we'd do if we weren't just an hour away. There are only three hospitals in the country for this type of procedure.

I know it's not the happiest news in the world, but it could be much worse. We see children and their families on each visit there who have a much longer road ahead of them than we do.

So, for right now, we have to trust that we are in good hands, that we have done all that we could and hope for the best.

Clownalley.net hasn't been a priority for me the last few months, and given the idea that James may arrive as soon as tomorrow or as late as the end of next month, means that it will become even less of a priority in the foreseeable future.

So, if you find that things here get erratic and the blog is updated hourly (while I'm sitting around with little to do) or not at all (because I've got too much to do) please bear with me and we all get through this and get James home safely.

Thanks,
~P