Our beautiful daughter Jessica was born in September 2011 with a severe heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This was diagnosed at her 20 week scan and we were initially told that she was unlikely to be suitable for surgery. However, a pioneering in-utero operation at 28 weeks to enlarge a hole in her atrial septum was carried out and she was able to make it to term and get through her first open-heart surgery at just eight hours old. Jessica underwent five more surgeries during her life. Her final surgery - the Fontan procedure - took place in December 2017. She initially made a good recovery but sadly passed away suddenly on 14th April 2018 at the age of 6. This is the story of a little girl whose half a heart overflowed with love. She was, and will forever be, our little miracle and brought joy to all who knew her.

Sunday 18 November 2012

Crawling, colds and a cardiac check-up




Jessica is now properly crawling and managing to get around quite quickly – if Mummy leaves the room for a minute, Jessica soon comes to find out where Mummy has gone so it is time to get out the stair-gates and start trying to baby-proof other rooms in the house!  She knows exactly which toys she wants to play with and now heads off to get them if we haven’t already taken them out of the toy-box for her!  She will also point to her head or hair if we ask her where her head/hair is and has worked out how to turn the TV on and off!



She has had a cold over the last couple of weeks and with the cold weather, there has been the occasional moment where her colour is a little bluer than it has been but her sats are in the low 80s which is fine – we have been told that as long as her sats are above 78, we should not be concerned; any lower and she should go into hospital for some oxygen.  


Jessica had her check-up at Oxford yesterday and all was reassuring on the echocardiogram – there is good blood flow through the left pulmonary artery and aorta which were the two vessels which were ballooned when she had her cardiac catheter last month.  She is now weighing in at 8600g (18lb 15oz) and her length is 72cm so she is growing nicely and starting to get into 9-12 month clothes.


Jessica has enjoyed time visiting Nanny and her aunties, uncles and cousins and having Auntie Maxine and cousin Kieran come to stay for a few days.  She also had her first ride on the tube as we took a trip to Oxford Street so see the Nokia window display that Daddy had been busy installing in Selfridge’s.   Nanny has now come to stay for a couple of days and play with Jessica which they are both enjoying very much!


We are due to have another eye check-up at Windsor at the beginning of December and then an appointment with the paediatrician at Wexham Park the following week.   Our next appointment at Oxford won’t be until February – now that she is doing so well, the check-ups are really spacing out.