Mayla's Little Heart

This past month has been a whirlwind as we have been back and forth visiting Primary Children’s Hospital to fix our baby girl’s little heart.  When all was said and done she ended up having heart surgery this past week to fix a little hole in her heart. She is doing great and has recovered well!  Since I haven’t had a chance to tell everyone individually about this I thought I would post it on here…it has taken a few days for me to finally sit down and write it out but things have officially calmed down in our household and Miss Mayla is back to her fiery self!

After moving back to Utah, I got Mayla into a pediatrician for her one year check-up and was told for the first time she had a heart murmur. They said that was common in babies and it would most likely close up so there was nothing to worry about. After visiting again for her 15 month check-up at the end of December they said the murmur had gotten worse and wanted a specialist to look at it. We went to Primary Children's Hospital shortly after Christmas and found out that she had a condition called Patent Ductus Arteriosis (PDA). While in the womb the aorta and pulmonary artery in a baby's heart is open so blood can flow through, during or shortly after birth that closes off and unfortunately, for some reason, Mayla's didn't. Because of this Mayla was going to have to have heart surgery in order to close it off.

Here we are at the doctor's office doing a few tests. Mayla was not a fan of the doctors and nurses...she has quite the scowl!

We were required to do a sedated echo/ultrasound to do a full examination of the heart, to measure the size of the hole, and to determine whether she needed open heart surgery or if this could be fixed with a catheter procedure.  Mayla was put under through an IV (which I might add tore me apart—I may have cried more than my daughter…) in order to keep her completely still for the echo.  We were grateful to find out that the hole was small enough that it could be fixed through a catheter.  The left side of her heart was stretched out a bit because it was overworking so the doctor felt like it was a good time to go in and fix the problem.

Snuggling Daddy after the echo

We scheduled the surgery for two weeks later and were back up at the Hospital on January 22^nd for her procedure.  It was a long two weeks anticipating everything but we were glad we didn’t have to wait longer.  Mayla was again put under and taken into surgery.  They were able to make two small incisions in her right groin and put a plug in her heart through a catheter that went through her vein and artery up to her heart--pretty amazing.  They sealed off the hole and everything went very smoothly.  

 Primary Children's have the best waiting rooms! Mayla was loving all the toys at 6am in the morning!  

All dressed for surgery

Dropping Mayla off for surgery :( The doctors and nurses were so sweet. 

Right out of surgery

Mayla woke up groggy and not feeling well and unfortunately we had to keep her laying down for six hours without moving after the procedure---one of the hardest parts because we couldn’t hold and snuggle her…. But thank goodness for Sesame Street :)  After the long six hours were over we were able to cuddle and snuggle her and she bounced back very quickly.  Before we knew it she was up walking around, and feeding herself on mom and dad's 'big' chair.  

Feeling so much better!

We had to spend the night in the hospital and both Mom and Dad stayed in that teeny tiny room and yes it was a VERY LONG night!  But we made it through!  

 Snuggling with Dad, ready to go 'night, night'  We slept all of about 3 hours....

The next morning Mayla got a few x-rays and the doctor checked everything out.  Everything looked good and by the afternoon we were bringing our baby girl home!!

 

Mayla getting her x-rays...she was NOT happy...she was done with the nurses and doctors by this point!

We are so grateful for the many miracles and tender mercies that have happened along the way.  We have had so much love and support and have been very blessed as our little girl has done so well through it all.  She is happy as ever and back to her performing, happy self!  Thanks to all for your love, prayers and support. We sure love our baby girl and yes, as a mommy this was one of the hardest things to watch her go through, but we are grateful to be done and over with it all and to have caught it so early on to be able to fix the problem before getting worse.   

Just to end on a happy note…here is a cute video of Mayla 'performing' .... this is a common occurrence in our household :)  

If she does something great, she is going to make sure you are clapping and cheering for her.  But don’t worry, if you do something great she will make sure to clap and cheer for you too!  After each hymn we sing in sacrament she claps and yells “yah” (and I might add her voice is not little and we are one of the only babies in our ward currently so EVERYONE can hear her) and today after the musical number she made sure to stand on the seat and clap and yell “yah”.  Oh how we love our little Personality Plus!