Mum-to-be, Caitlin, shares her story of pregnancy with a little boy diagnosed with multiple heart defects:
We found out we were pregnant with our second baby and the 12-week scan came along, where everything looked fine. Our baby boy appeared perfectly healthy.
But then came the 20-week anomaly scan. Everything was going well until our sonographer couldn’t quite see our baby’s heart properly. She said it could be the angle or it could be some narrowing. To be sure, she referred us to Bristol Fetal cardiologists.
We went into our appointment with a positive outlook and had our scan. There were several nurses and cardiologists in the room. Thirty minutes later, once the scan was finished, we went into a side room to wait for the results. We never imagined, as parents to a perfectly happy and healthy boy, that our second could have a heart defect.
Our baby was diagnosed with a pulmonary stenosis, transposition of the great arteries (TGA) and also ventricular septal defect (VSD). We were told that, once he arrived, he would require heart surgery within a few weeks and medication to keep him alive.
So now at 21 weeks pregnant, we’re navigating a high-risk pregnancy with our warrior baby, who is such a strong little boy, and life with a nine month old, travelling to and from hospitals for appointments, tests and scans.
If it wasn’t for our sonographer, at our 20-week scan, noticing that something wasn’t right, we wouldn’t have got this diagnosis until he was born – or even until it was too late.
I’ll be forever grateful for that early diagnosis.
