Visit to Doctors: 30 weeks, 3 days in utero

Today we got up bright and early again and went and saw Doctors at the Children's Prenatal clinic. We were very impressed with how very competent, knowledgeable, nice, calm, supportive, and genuinely concerned everyone we met there was. Seriously. It's like they put antidepressants in the water, and have "Must be a very nice person" as an unbreakable job requirement. As parents of a baby at risk, we found it amazingly reassuring. The pediatric cardiologist who talked with us didn't pull any punches and admitted to not knowing a lot of things - but he answered every question calmly, patiently, fully, and spoke to us as educated adults.  He clearly has a deep understanding of all the issues, and spent the time to make sure we understood everything he said. He reviewed all of the procedures that is going to be needed over the next several years. He said that despite one other worrisome feature (some apparent leakage in his working ventricular valve) he had a fairly standard HLHS, and the doctor was reasonably confident of a good outcome. As much as one can ever be. 

The high-risk OB-GYN we met with was much the same, though he had less to say: other than the HLHS, our unborn son is very healthy. In all other ways he's doing great. The two people that run the ultrasound were very good as well: one woman only measured the heart, and she measured it in every conceivable way despite our little guy squirming around the entire time like a ten-year-old being given the "Birds and Bees" talk. The other woman examined the rest of the baby. One memorable moment was seeing definite proof that his urinary system worked correctly: right there on the ultrasound screen we could see him pee. It was unmistakable, and quite funny: the technician laughingly played it again for us. It was very re-assuring to have her and the OB-GYN tell us that in all other ways he is looking great. He's going to have a heck of a fight on his hands after he's born, and the healthier he is at birth the better his chances.

All in all, we did not learn much that was new about our baby's condition, but we learned a heck of a lot about the doctors and staff at UW and Children's - and all of it was positive. We are both going to sleep a lot easier tonight.