10-8-10 7pm

OK, let's start with the good stuff - so around 3:30pm I was able to finally take Michele to see our Riley. This was the first time that Michele had been able to see the little one since 9:30pm last night. Riley did wake up at one point and looked at her momma. This movement of Michele obviously means that we have finally gotten momma healthy - blood sugars are regulated and she is eating normal and her blood pressure is back to what is normal for her. We also were able to bring Zoey in to see her little sister in the NICU around 5:30pm and she did wonderful.

Now on to the other stuff - while we were seeing Riley the cardiologist was there and we have gone from a 2 on the 1-10 bad scale to about a 5 or 6 with my newest little love. There is a lot of technical detail that I will try and simplify so that you can understand what Riley is going to go through. Everyone is normally born with 4 chambers to the heart, of which the lower two chambers (ventricles if you are a science type person) are really important. The right lower chamber takes the blood back from the body that has been used and pumps it to the lungs to get oxygenated - it doesn't need a lot of pushing pressure to do this because the lungs are so close. The blood then comes back from the lungs all full of oxygen for the body and comes into the left lower chamber. This chamber then pumps the blood to the rest of the body - this is a big big job so it needs a lot of pushing pressure behind each push.

Here is where things haven't gone well for little Riley - the wall that is normally grown between these two lower chambers hasn't fully grown. The problem with this would not manifest itself for a number of years as the heart is working as is and would continue for a while, but eventually the extra pressure would end up damaging the blood vessels and capillaries in her lungs. This is obviously no bueno. We also don't know if this is the only issues she may have (they are searching all the other things that may be related to this - immunity issues, cleft palet, calcium processing issues). The good news - I promise there is some - is that this is an 'uncomplicated problem and surgery' (those are the words of the cardiologist). The surgery would probably happen in about 4-6 months and they would finish her chamber wall with a man-made graft. There are many people who have this and the heart muscles end up growing around the graft eventually. These folks live a very normal life and the only way to tell that anything happened is their surgery scar.

We asked a lot of questions and here are the brief stuff that we remember - once this is fixed she should grow like any other kid, once she keeps her O2 levels up and is eating normally we will actually be taking her home from the NICU (with a list of things to look for), she may need to take some medicine between now and then, and finally the neonatal cardiologist rated it as a 4 between 1 going home today with no problems and 10 being the unthinkable. There are a lot of other things that they have to research right now and we have to find out. Michele will be discharged tomorrow, but Riley will be here till we have everything settled and figured out (so at least through Monday at the earliest).

Needless to say, Michele and I are trying to process everything. We thank everyone very much for your love and support. Michele and I are alternating between being frustrated, angry, upset and really really positive. Most of the time at least one of us is really really positive that our little one is going to be fixed in 4-6 months. So that helps - we are also both dried out from all the crying. Again, considering what it could be and what some other families have to live through - even in this hospital - we are actually luckier then some and for that we are thankful.

We will continue to give updates when we get news and when we can.