Happy New Year!

I hope 2008 brings happiness & good health to all. Jack is doing well. He reherniated and had a second repair surgery in December. It turned into a 16 day hospital stay because he developed a bloody pericardial effusion (blood around the sac of his heart). The exact cause is unknown but believed to be a complication from the surgery. Now we're doing some followup with him with cardiologists. Despite all that he is now home and thriving. He is still getting all formula through his NG tube until we have a swallow study on January 8th. When he was at Johns Hopkins they were not happy with the way he was bottle feeding and feared that he could aspirate. The swallow study will tell us if he can go back to bottle feeding. I hope all goes well and we don't loose too much ground (feeding has always been an issue).

There were many other CDH babies born in the past few months and I want to say that I've been touched by each and every one of them. Cindy gave birth to Claire a short time before Jack was due. We followed Claire's successes with such enthusiasm. She is now home and doing GREAT! Recently I became friends with Gina who gave birth to Wyatt about 1 month after Jack was born. He and Jack had very similar paths at Hopkins. I can't wait until they will play together one day. This journey has been a rollercoaster as promised by CDH moms who've gone before me. The highs are so high and the lows are so low. Would I change anything or do I feel robbed of a 'normal' experience .... NO WAY! This hasn't been the experience I envisioned but it is the one I have and every time I look at Jack I know that everything is the way it was meant to be.

Here are a few more pictures of the little guy (taken in December). Again, we do all our updates on Jack's Carepage so feel free to check that out. There's a link to it on this blog.

Love
Vicki