January 2006

January 2006, two excited 'parents to be' off to have their unborn child scanned at 20 weeks into the pregnancy. They were myself, Abi 25, my husband , Thomas, 25.

As the sonographer scanned me we asked to find out the sex of the baby...a boy! Visions of my son playing rugby flashed through my mind! I was asked to go for a walk as the baby was lying awkwardly so the nurse was unable to get a good picture of the heart. Off we went, still excited. There were two people at the second scan looking concerned, then a third, then we were told that they could only see half of the baby's heart and they were sure that our baby had a hypoplastic right heart ( a tiny right side).....

.... a scan with a consultant two days later confirmed this...we were given the option of a termination , but we wanted to see a specialist first...off to Brimingham...I was scanned by a cardiologist and given the news for certian ( we had been clinging onto the hope that this was all a wrong diagnosis). Our baby had a small right ventricle ( pumping chamber) , two holes, his arteries were the wrong way round and he had a valve missing. This condition was labelled 'Tricuspid Atresia'. We were given three options: termination ( a still birth at this late stage); allow the baby to die naturally after birth; or three stages of surgery that would not cure the condition but would help our child live a better and longer life. The longterm outcome, and our child's life expectancy with these surgeries was not known. The consultant said he had many patients about 12 or 13 years old who had has the surgeries, but sadly he had also lost many patients.

Surgery was our decision. We wanted to give our child every chance to live a happy life, no matter how long that would be. There would be no rugby for our little one, but we decided he will play golf! Ofcourse it felt like our world had collapsed around us, but we stayed strong and hoped that some clever surgeons would work their magic and we would have a very special little son, our little miracle.