Atrial Septal Defect....... We met with the cardiologist this afternoon for an echocardiogram. Several doctors had noticed a significant heart murmur in Rose Nacheca. At first I was worried because we were supposed to be there only for the echo but after the technician was done she said she was going to put us in a room and have the cardiologist come in and talk to us. That was a stressful 20 minutes.

The news was not really that bad though. The good news....ASD is very easily fixed and does not even require open heart surgery! It can be done in a cath lab as a same day surgery. She would not even have to spend the night. The bad news...she is too small for the surgery. They would not do the surgery for 12-18 months. So it cannot be fixed during this visa.

ASD is a hole in between the top chambers of her heart. Most infants are born with this. The hole gradually closes on its own. At three years old they do not think that will happen now. The average hole is 2mm. Hers is almost 7mm. They want to do another echo in 6 to 9 months to see if there has been any change.

ASD would not cause her growth retardation so there is still something else going on. My question for the cardiologist (to which he did not have an answer) was if whatever is causing her growth delay could also have caused the hole to not close by itself. Michelle was born with kidney reflux. Kidney refux will (if it is going to) correct itself by age 5. After age 5 surgery is required to fix it in order to protect the kidneys. Michelle still had kidney reflux at age 5 and the doctors wanted to do surgery. Since Michelle was significantly behind in size I refused to consider surgery until she was the size of an average 5 year old. My instincts paid off, when Michelle was 7 1/2 to 8 years old and the size of an average 5 year old her kidney reflux was gone. My thought is maybe this could be the same for Rose Nacheca. Maybe once she grows a little maybe the hole could close too. I have no idea (nor does the cardiologist) if this is possible or not.

So for now they said that she can be treated like any normal 3 year old little girl. She can run around and play and she will be fine. They said that the surgery needs to happen before she is 5 years old or the hole gets to be 11mm. After 11mm the surgery would have to be open heart surgery. So this is better news than we were fearing!

We are still waiting for all of her blood test results, some of which could take a couple more weeks. But we are moving forward. Now that the cardiologist has cleared her the next major test she needs in an MRI of her brain and pituitary gland.

Thanks for the continued prayers. We are enjoying everyday with her and she is a bright spot in the house :) She learned to to say I love you, which is so sweet to hear!

Goodnight!