We picked a hospital - St. Louis it is!

After our trip to Peoria I wrote a blog found at this link The Facts About Ollie's Heart.  If you haven't read it, please do.  It goes over Ollie's heart in detail - the problems, what to expect before surgery and what not.  The very next day, Wednesday, we went to St. Louis and met their team to pick Peoria or St. Louis for delivery & open heart surgery.  We had been praying hard that the choice on where to take Ollie for open heart surgery would be obvious to us and it was praise the lord!  We have decided St. Louis is the place for us.  St. Louis is closer to home and to our support system, and it's just a really great hospital as well.  Pretty much the entire post I had written after the Peoria appointment is the same as far as Ollie's heart structure.

At St. Louis I saw a group of Maternal Fetal specialists first.  It's basically a group 12 high risk OB doctors.  There I get ultrasounds to monitor Ollie's growth & heart.  I walk out one door in their office from an ultrasound and go in the next door to meet with an OB that day.  They want me to deliver there at Barnes so I'll be induced around 39 weeks - I'm guessing around February 10th.  My due date is February 17th.  Until then I'll have split care so I'll see my regular OB and also these high risk OBs for the next 9 weeks.  Both groups that I met in the ultrasound area & OB area were awesome.  We were very impressed.  It's also a teaching hospital so there were multiple students involved & I liked that as well.

After this appointment our personal nurse coordinator (who I can't express how much I appreciate her!) took us through the sky walks over to our to our echo cardiogram appointment.  The lady who did our echo had the most amazing equipment used on us so far.  She's done only echos for the last 25 years.  She was fast, accurate with the images needed, and very funny - we really liked her.  Then we met Dr. Lee the Pediatric Cardiologist.  She was very nice, and also funny.  She has two small children around the ages of Aubrie and Everett and was very personal with us which was nice.  She went over again in detail Ollie's heart structure, which I posted about yesterday.  She then said the surgeon who will operate Dr. Huddleston has been there for 10 years and does these surgeries daily.  They are his favorite operation, and to him very routine.  She acted like it's ear tube surgery to him which was good to hear.  She said the survival rate is very good & basically not to worry about that at all.  The big difference is she said Ollie's recovery time will be 7 to 10 days in the hospital - this is awesome news!  I was very worried about being away from my kids for weeks, and 7 to 10 days is a long time, but really that's very doable.  Again, she said probably 3-6 months of age Ollie will have surgery, but that will all depend on how she is doing after birth, but basically a plump baby is better when it comes to surgery.

So we're going to St. Louis for sure and head back January 5th to see the specialists, get an ultrasound for Ollie's growth, another heart echo, and meet the cardiologist again to make sure everything looks good.  On top of that, Meg, our personal nurse, is setting up all our appointments with all the doctors as well as meetings with neonatologists and tours of the facilities.  She makes sure nothing falls through the cracks, and she is really good at her job - I seriously love her.  We are looking forward to going back.

Thank you all again for the prayers and support & please keep them coming.  After going to Peoria & St. Louis we feel much much better about Ollie's surgery and look forward to meeting her around 9 weeks from now!