A few hours after Cameron was born, we were visited by one of the NICU doctors. He told us that because Cameron had Down syndrome (blood tests were still needed to confirm) they wanted to look at her heart because heart defects are a common occurrence in babies with Down syndrome. They had done an Echo Cardiogram on Cameron and found that she did indeed have a heart defect which would require open heart surgery before she would turn 1 year old.
Ok, well THAT put quite a new perspective on the whole Down syndrome thing! Now our baby had a life threatening condition! Down syndrome didn't seem quite so bad now. I spoke to many parents later who faced the same thing we went through and their outlooks all were the opposite of ours. You can fix the heart but you can't fix Down syndrome. Neither Tony or I looked at our situation that way and I can't explain why. But I do know that Cameron's heart defect was really a blessing in disguise for us. It took the focus off the Down syndrome and put it on getting done what needed to get done in order to make sure Cameron's heart was repaired successfully.
Cameron stayed in the NICU at Sierra Vista Hospital in San Luis Obispo for 1 week. She came home on Friday, November 14th.
(I haven't quite figured out how to arrange these pictures in a nice orderly fashion)
1 comment:
I remember those first few days so well! And no it sure didn't seem to end that's for sure!
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