Joshua was born in February, 2006. Because Josh was an IVF baby as well as our ages, our pregnancy was monitored closely. Only because we had a level II ultrasound did we find out that Josh was going to be born with a heart defect.

On Halloween of 2005 we found out for sure there was going to be a problem and at first he was diagnosed with double outlet right ventricle, only later to be changed to Tetralogy of Fallot. Only now do we realize the turn of emotions in that office that November day. At the time we were still freaking out that our little boy was going to be born with a heart defect. Now we are very thankful he “only had TOF”…… Never the less, we were still very nervous and scared about the unknowns.Other tests were called for chromosome checks – which we originally did not want to do. Needless to say the final stages of the pregnancy were more stressful than the beginning.

When Josh was born, he was taken immediately over to the NICU at All Children’s and hooked up to more monitors and IV’s than we’ve ever seen. Being a first time mother and going through the whole IVF procedure, we were yet faced with another challenge of 2 surgeries in the next few months. Josh’s first surgery was 9 days after his birth. He has a BT shunt installed and then when he was 3 ½ months old he had is repair done.

He is now almost 16 months old and except for the scar on his chest you would never know he’d been through everything he’d been through. I think the reflux problems we had were harder to deal with than the whole heart surgery which were totally separate from his heart defect.

Josh will be monitored over the years and we hope to be able to get him into his late teens/early twenties before he has to have a valve put in his pulmonary artery. If we are lucky enough to follow the plan laid out, we will be perfectly content with that. We can’t wait to tell him when he can understand how brave and special he is.

We are so thankful for him and love him with all our heart! The Doctors and Nurses at All Children’s and St. Joseph’s were the best and the Surgical doctor, Dr. Chai has a special place in our hearts and we will always be thankful for him and his talent to be able to fix our little boys heart!