Another significant anniversary

It has been exactly a year today since Jessica had her in-utero atrial septostomy – the first big step in this journey and one that gave us a glimmer of hope after being told a few weeks before it that surgery was unlikely to be a viable option.  It is so wonderful to be able to look back at it with our beautiful baby girl here with us and we are so grateful to all the wonderful consultants who were involved that day (and the day before during the first unsuccessful attempt) and were willing to try a new procedure in order to give our little Jessica a chance to survive.  It felt like such an answer to prayer and a year on, so many of our prayers have been answered in the most wonderful way – God is so good.

A year on from one of the most anxious times of our lives and our little girl is coming on in leaps and bounds.  She is now starting to sit for brief moments without needing to be supported and she has really got to grips with rolling from her back to her front and is now working out how to roll the other way.  She is also trying to pull herself forward when she is on her tummy and move about – and we are beginning to realise that we need to baby-proof our lounge a bit more as she is starting to want to explore!  Yesterday, she discovered the basket of nappies on the floor and had great fun pulling them all out and throwing them about!

Weight gain continues to be good – Jessica is now up to 6490g (14lb 5oz) and has gone from being way below the 0.4^th centile on the weight chart to being on the 2^nd centile.  She is doing really well with feeding in general – eating more solids now, breastfeeding well (apart from the occasional moment of confusing Mummy with a teething ring – ouch!) and having less top-ups of Infatrini .  We are still working on encouraging better sleep patterns, particularly with daytime naps but she is sleeping well through the night even if getting-up time is a little earlier than we would like!

 

Oxygen saturations remain stable and in the low to mid 80s which is great and Jessica continues to be a very happy baby.  She is getting increasingly communicative and it is delightful to hear her babbling away as she plays on her activity mat.  She is also starting to mimic some of the sounds we make – particularly coughing which is very funny.

Since Jessica’s diagnosis over a year ago, we have received a huge amount of support from everyone at our church, Christ Church.  They have recently donated £500 as part of their outreach to Little Hearts Matter and we would like to say a huge thank you for their generous donation and for all the wonderful support we have had as a family.

Finally, on Wednesday next week (4th July), the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts will announce the decision of the Safe and Sustainable review.  This meeting will give the verdict on whether or not Southampton will be able to continue providing children's cardiac surgery.  We are of course praying that Southampton will be able to continue to provide this as we have had such wonderful care from Southampton and would be very grateful for any prayers in this direction!