The Bradshaw Crew

Well, I had big plans for today but they all changed and nothing happened like I had hoped or planned. It was a great day, but an exhausting day and I realized that I just need to go with the flow, rest when I can (that would be now so this is going to be fairly short and extremely disjointed, I apologize) and make myself a priority. I wanted to nap, read, snuggle Gideon for a long time, pray, blog, write his birth story, meet with the social worker, find my way around in here, plus run home to unpack what I had brought with me expecting to be an ‘in patient’ person in the hospital living in a hospital bed recovering from giving birth while Gideon was getting watched to and repack to being an outpatient person who needs actual clothes so I can walk myself to the cafeteria and purchase my own meals and meet with the endless stream of staff that is in his room every 30 min or so. So here is a very quick, bullet type list of some updates for many questions I’m receiving as well as a couple pictures from today.

This is his room from the entry way door. Lots of monitors even though he is considered a very stable patient. There is a pull out couch behind all of his equipment where we sleep. I’m so thankful we get to stay right in his room with him. He is still  on the ’emergency’ list for heart surgery but he is a stable emergency doing very well so his priority is very low on the list as of now. We know they have a cardiac conference scheduled for tomorrow afternoon where all the cardiologists get together with the surgeons to review ALL of Gideons cardiac studies so they will be all the fetal echocardiograms he has done to his 2 he has had since he was born, EKG, xrays, ultra sounds, etc. They are going to put it all together to confirm the 2 diagnosis we have so far and come up with a surgical / treatment plan. We will get to talk to them about it tomorrow afternoon/evening after their conference is done. We have been told tentatively, he is being considered for surgery on Friday. We don’t even know which surgery though because there have been a few things thrown out there so we have lots of questions to ask tomorrow when we get to hear all of their plans.

They made ‘sunglasses’ for him today while he was resting and they had to change out some equipment on him. How cute is that little nose and binky? The binky is actually pretty massive for his tiny face as you can see it spans across both of his cheeks entirely. It’s so cute. Prior to finding out about the 2nd cardiac issue, he was able to nurse after he was born for about 30 minutes. Then we found out about the 2nd cardiac issue and were told he is not allowed anything by mouth until after surgery now. He doesn’t have good enough blood flow to his gut to adequately process food and nutrients and it can be detrimental to his system to put food in it. So he is becoming a hungry boy. They started him on IV nutrition today so he is getting the nutrients his body needs to grow but they don’t go through his stomach so his hunger remains and there isn’t anything we can do about that. I am pumping milk and starting to store up a supply to get him fat and happy as soon as he can eat again after he has his surgery. They told me to expect him to get a bit more cranky each day that passes because he will be hungry although he is getting nutrition.

Bo went home to spend some time with the big boys tonight and give my parents a bit of a break. He will return tomorrow for our meeting after the cardiac conference is done so we can gather all the information together and talk to them about the plan together. THANK YOU for everyone who has offered to help with the boys, we appreciate it so much, you have no idea, we are so blessed to have such amazing support and love from our friends and family. We WILL take you up on your offers to help us as soon as we have a need to be met! We will let you know! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I did get to snuggle him for a bit today. Being that it’s flu season and we’re in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit AND we have a pre-op patient, they have requested basically no visitors and especially no hands on visitors but they allow us to touch and hold him so I took them up on that today. It took about a half hour to get all the monitors moved and situated so I could sit next to his bassinet and just hold him for a while in the chair and I started falling asleep after about 15 min so I didn’t even get to as long as I wanted to since I was falling asleep and needed to put him back to bed for his safety. I was sitting in on an echocardiogram they were doing today snuggling him from the sidelines in a very tall chair (they are so kind to me knowing I’m 36 hours post birth and got me a tall chair to sit in so I didn’t have to stand) but I started falling asleep in the chair too and had to leave when I feared I would fall out of the chair and crash down on everything causing quite a ruckus. I’m going to sleep SOON and hope to sleep all night long. So thankful for my time to snuggle my little warrior man though, he’s just a nugget head :)

Answers to questions: No, he has had not had surgery. Yes, he needs emergency surgery. Apparently in the cardiothroacic surgery world, ’emergency’ is a relative term. LOL. The cardiac conference is tomorrow (Tuesday? – I don’t even know what day it is). He COULD potentially have surgery as early as Wednesday but we have heard it’s tentative for Friday at this point. We will learn more tomorrow. We realized today that we will be here longer than we had expected based on the initial discussions with the cardiologist who saw us at St Joes. We are being flexible, going with the flow, doing our best to support one another, make sure our 3 big boys don’t feel completely abandoned by both of their parents while we both want to be here to stay with Gideon and hear every word that comes out of everyones mouth that has anything to do with his care up here because we want to know what’s going on and are just thankful for the support we have received already.

Yes, he is hungry. No, he can not have any food. With his cardiac condition, he doesn’t have good blood flow to the lower portion of his body including his gut. The great news is that he has pooped twice and is consistently wetting his diapers so stuff IS working down there, just not all at 100% so we have to be protective of his organs. His little toes and feet turn a scary shade of purple when he gets worked up about something and his legs and feet will get pretty cool to the touch if not swaddled up to his body in blankets.  He loves to be swaddled tight. The surgery will correct that so he has adequate blood flow equally to his entire body.

There was a lot more that I wanted to say but I need to sleep. Please pray that the cardiac conference tomorrow is easy for the team to come to consensus about the best treatment for Gideon and that we can have an expedited surgery if that’s the plan for care that we all agree on. He needs some food. We want to get him healed up and headed home to be a part of the family at home with brothers who are so excited to meet him. We need some time together with just the 6 of our family to spend time together and debrief this whole ordeal. So those are the prayer requests right now, successful conference, expedited surgery if that’s his best method of care, healing for him, me, wellness for the whole family to avoid ALL sickness because he can’t be around anyone who is sick, peace and rest for us all as well as my parents watching the kids.

I have SO MUCH MORE that I want to say. Hopefully I will find time soon to sit down and write the endless thoughts I’ve had lately about so much stuff going on inside my head. A lot of it has to do with you who are reading this. But for now, I shut the laptop and rest. Thanking God for his provisions and thanking God for you who are supporting and encouraging us in prayer and in so many other ways as well. And thanking YOU for doing it. I cry thinking about how God is blessing us so much through all of you. But that’s another blog post I hope to write soon.

Much love,
The Bradshaw Crew – Kari

We welcomed Gideon Robert Bradshaw into the world on Sunday 1/14/2018 at 9:41am. We chose his name because it means warrior and we loved his story in the bible about how God protected him and we knew our little Gideon would be up for a battle when he was born. His birth story is quite the whirlwind of craziness that I look forward to documenting and share with you later. We just wanted to let you know that he arrived this morning and we have some prayer requests.

Gideon in the NICU at St Joes Hospital

We have already been transferred up to Seattle Childrens for emergency cardiac surgery for him in the next couple of days for a different issue they didn’t detect until after he was born. (Coarctation of the Aorta for you googlers out there). We have been so blessed already in that I was able to be discharged less than 12 hours after arriving at the hospital (less than 8 after giving birth) so I could ride with him in the Neonatal Critical Care Ambulance to Childrens. The team here has been amazing, we know we are in the very best place for him and are so thankful for the care here at Seattle Childrens already. We are thankful that our other 3 “big” boys are safe and happy at my parents house and we have peace of mind that they are thoroughly enjoying their slumber party over there and being spoiled and it’s such a huge relief to not worry about their care or having to split them up, etc. We are thankful for the timing for how all this has worked out, we’ve had offers for child care for the big boys to help my parents out this week, we are just blessed beyond measure that we both get to stay up here at Seattle Childrens for the time being.

Preparing for transport up to Seattle Childrens
   

Gideon weighed in at a whopping 5 lbs 2 oz, we don’t even know what his weight is. :) We meet with the cardiology & cardiothroacic surgical teams in the morning to review his images (echocardiogram, xray & ekg) and get a repeat echocardiogram and come up with his treatment plan. He could be having surgery as early as tomorrow pending the results of that meeting and the surgery schedule for the day. This would be a totally separate surgery from the one we have planned in 4-6 months, it’s much less invasive, as it’s not an open heart surgery and requires much less post op care/recovery time.

Getting his first EKG at Seattle Childrens

Please pray that he continues to improve his overall health and wellness. Pray for the teams that are caring for him, Pray for Bo and I to get some rest both physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Pray for my parents caring for our other 3 boys and for them as well and us when we all get back home as a family of 6!

We don’t have any needs right now other than prayer. Bo is going to go out tomorrow to pick things up at the house that we will need. We hadn’t planned on me being discharged so quickly and needing more clothes and toilitries and food, etc. as well as the breastmilk that got left behind at St Joes that we need to pick up so Gideon can have that up here when he is allowed to have food by mouth.

We will update on this blog / FB page and I will for sure read every single comment that is posted. Right now, I haven’t slept for about 4 days (labor was LONG) and we can’t quite keep up with all the text messages on our phones but we will read and be thankful and grateful for all the comments here and the ones we receive in other places, even if we are unable to write back to them all. Please know we get them, we are so thankful for your prayers, concern, offers, encouragement and love and are so uplifted by you all, we just need to get a bit of rest right now while we process this all and heal our bodies from the whirlwind time it’s been these last few days.

Much love to you all!
The Bradshaw Crew

I got to see the doctor today for our 36 week checkup. Since I’m so close to the end, I now have to see him every week. The appointment went great, I’ve maintained my 23 pound weight loss since I got pregnant (thanks to eating healthy and exercising due to having gestational diabetes). My blood pressure is excellent and my blood sugars are in good control. The further along I get in pregnancy, the harder it is to maintain good blood sugars and even just a little cheat now will cause me to rise too high. It’s quite a bummer. I’ve seriously been craving something sweet but even fruit does me in and has to be avoided. It’s only for a few more weeks though so hopefully I can maintain and not go on a bingeing bender and eat all things sugar. LOL. Babies heart rate is in the mid-upper 120’s which is right where it should be for this time. He is still head down and pretty low which is uncomfortable for me but good for labor. My tummy is measuring at 35 1/2 weeks which is good, we don’t have any concern of having a 10 lb + baby due to the diabetes as his last ultra sound showed him in the 40th percentile and my measurements are showing steady growth but nothing too large. We took my first pregnant belly pic today, yes, I realize I look like I was due a few weeks ago. LOL. This is my 7th pregnancy in 6 years, apparently your body really does remember what to do and once I hit 20 weeks, my stomach just exploded. Hahaha. My doctor is still considering admitting me early to try natural induction so we don’t take the risk of not making it to the hospital when I’m in labor, I’m waiting to hear back from baby boys cardiologist about that to find out the risk or concerns she may have.

All in all, it was a great appointment. My body has been preparing for labor (cramps, braxton hicks, lower threshold for activity/exercise, tired, etc) but I’m doing great and baby seems to be doing great as well.

We are of course still praying for complete healing for him, a great birth experience AT the hospital with our doctor and the adjustment to becoming a family of 6 with our 3 other little munchkins. We know God is in control and has His plan set for us, we are just along for the ride and praying and trusting in Him and are so thankful for the blessings we have received this far along already.

Prayer Requests:
* Complete healing for baby
* That we and our doctor make it to the hospital in plenty of time for a good birth experience.
* A smooth transition for the whole family while I’m at the hospital and the boys are awaiting the arrival of their baby brother.

We are asking for a lot but we serve a big God. :)

Thank you for the continued thoughts and prayers! I’ll keep you updated as best I can. There shouldn’t be any new baby related changes or updates until after he is born and gets his initial checkup at the hospital by the birth staff and his cardiologist who will come see him soon after he is born. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers so much, I wish I could express how much it means to us but I guess these words will have to do.

We did have a very Merry Christmas and had a Happy New Year as well, we hope the same for all of you!

Blessings!
The Bradshaw Crew (Kari)

We saw our doctor again today for a routine follow up. Everything looks good, babies heart rate was in the mid 130’s right where it’s been and where it’s expected to be. He is measuring right at 34 weeks, my blood sugars are mostly in range and I’m still very slowly losing a tiny bit of weight which is good for us both. I eat healthy (for the most part) and walk on the treadmill most days, sometimes 2-3 times depending on what I’ve eaten. I do have a very restricted diet which tends to make me cranky and hungry from time to time but I’m getting the nutrients we both need to stay healthy and for him to grow. I have increased my dose of nightly Metformin (blood sugar reducing medication) since our last visit 2 weeks ago because my fasting blood sugars in the morning are still often above the limit (limit is 90 and my average is 96). I realized the other day, it could be due to the tums I eat throughout the night. There are sugar/carbs in tums so I will be quitting those and switching to a safer alternative that he prescribed for me to try at night so I won’t need tums anymore. During the day, I use essential oils to help with the heartburn but at night, it wakes me up, I just pop a tum and go back to sleep but that could be 2-3 times per night which is a lot of sugar/carbs to be consuming during fasting periods. I’m really hoping this switch will help reduce my fasting blood sugars. I also should be more consistent with being on the treadmill later at night, that’s always helped and I’ve switched from 10/11pm to 8/9pm because I’ve been going to bed a bit earlier but I may have to switch that back to the later time.

(playing backgammon in the waiting room at the doctors office)

We did discuss transport options and alternative birth options due to the lengthy drive of where we need to get to in labor. He reminded me yet again, that I need to have a “very low threshold” for considering going in to check for signs of labor and to plan to make a few practice trips to the hospital if I’m feeling any contraction type cramps at all. They really don’t want me to deliver in the car on the way to the hospital so he wants to be sure that at the very first sign of even potential labor, we head to the hospital right away. When I was in labor with Solomon, I laid on the couch believing that I had a stomach ache (that came and went in a rhythmic, timed manner) for about 4 hours before I realized that maybe it was just labor. By the time we made it the 15 minute drive to the hospital after that, it was time to deliver, I had gone through transition and everything in the car and Solomon was born quickly after arriving at the hospital. We don’t have the luxury of a 15 minute drive this time so I can’t labor at home at all or afford to have a stomach ache that I don’t go in and get checked out in case I’m in denial that it actually may be labor again like it was last time. He also mentioned the possibility of hospitalizing me at 39 weeks to break my water and try to induce me that way to ensure we don’t miss delivering at the hospital depending on the status of my cervix. If I’m dilated at my 37-38-39 week appointments, we may consider it. I’ve pretty much gone from dilated 0 to 10 in less than 6 hours with the first baby (induced), and 4 hours with the last 2 so they aren’t expecting me to have a very long labor with baby boy 4. Some women tend to hang out at a 1-2-3-4 for a days or even weeks, I never have. I’ve gone from 0 to done very quickly every time. The doctor is relieved that I have absolutely no problem calling 911 and having an ambulance transport me if labor hits hard and fast and it’s a horrible traffic time or something as well.

Baby is growing well, moves well when I eat and sleep and seems comfy and happy. I haven’t had any swelling like I normally do with 3rd trimester pregnancy, horrible arm/back/joint pain like I had previously, haven’t been sick at all, my blood pressure has been awesome, I do have to say, this has been my healthiest pregnancy. I assume eating healthy, daily exercise and losing weight all play a role in that. So, no real new information, status quo, we are doing well. We ordered a car seat and the leg extensions we need to raise the co sleeper up to the height of our bed for him to be in our room with us for who knows how long and we are ready as soon as he is ready! We check back in with the doctor in 2 weeks and probably contact the cardiologist after that to see what she thinks about a 39 week natural induction depending on how I am presenting at the time and wait for him to decide he’s done cooking and wants to come meet his brothers who ask multiple times every day when baby will be coming out of my tummy. The love those 3 have for this guy is amazing, it’s so sweet, they snuggle him constantly and always want to kiss him and say hi, it’s priceless really.

Still praying for complete for this little man of ours, also praying we make it to the hospital in a timely manner and our doctor makes it to the hospital to be with us since he doesn’t normally deliver there. I know God has it all worked out just as it should be though so I’m not stressed, worried or anxious. I think what gives me the most anxiety is thinking about how stressed Bo would be driving me to the hospital fearing I would deliver in the car on the way there being stuck in traffic or something. :)

Thank you for your continued prayers, we appreciate it so much and feel all the love, otherwise I probably would be a stressed out, anxious mess but I know God’s got it under control! We will have what we need when we need it. We will update again when we have more to update!

Have a BLESSED, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Well, we have had a productive week of doctors appointments to update on!

On Tuesday, we had another ultra sound with Maternal Fetal Medicine. The ultra sound showed good growth. Baby is in the 41% on the growth scale which is a good thing. At 32 weeks, his head and abdomen were measuring 33 weeks but his humerous and femur were measuring at 29 weeks. That’s not so great news but doesn’t say anything definitive at all. (Short long bones are a soft marker for Down Syndrome). He is measuring at about 4 1/2 lbs which is pretty much on target for this time in pregnancy. The placenta looks like it’s as big as he is in the ultra sound pictures. We tried to get a cute pic of his face but due to his position, were unable to. The big praise is that he is head down now so he is no longer breech and will hopefully remain that way!

At Cardiology at the Federal Way Seattle Childrens Clinic where we hope to have most of our visits with the cardiologist. 
The echocardiogram we had today with the new cardiologist, who will be his cardiac care provider long term, showed no change with his heart. We did learn a little bit more about his actual defect and the physical construction of his heart which was interesting to learn. Attempting to put it in Kindergarten terms, there is a cross inside of his heart like a + sign that divides the atrium (top chambers) and the ventricles (bottom chambers) as well as the left and right sides. On the vertical wall, he has a hole on the bottom and a hole on the top, they are large holes and may potentially be 1 large hole that spans the whole center of his heart, they can’t tell until they open him up. On the horizontal wall, there should be 1 valve on the left and 1 valve on the right that direct the blood flow from the body into the heart and from the heart back into the lungs. Instead of 1 valve on either side (left and right) of his heart, he has 1 very large valve that spans equally across both the left and right side so his blood is not being directed or pumped in and out of the heart properly.  This doesn’t matter at all while he‘s in the womb so the rest of pregnancy, labor & delivery shouldn’t be affected. 

Waiting at the doctors office playing our travel backgammon which we are totally addicted to.

The follow up with our doctor went great. We decided to deliver at St Joes for a variety of reasons and are very happy with our decision.  We hope to take a birth center tour this weekend so we can go check it out and see where we will be. We modified our birth plan to benefit both baby boy and I to include things like immediate cord clamping and cutting which normally we wouldn’t do, but with his heart defect, we don’t want that extra blood flowing back into his body when he will have a hard time pumping it out already. We also plan to take steps to try to avoid the blood loss that I’ve experienced in the past to make it safer for me as well. The last 8 weeks of pregnancy should go as normal, I’ll keep managing my blood sugar during the day with diet and exercise and take medication at night to help while I sleep. We will deliver at St Joes sometime around the end of January if that’s what baby decides and plan to be in the hospital for around 3 days. They want to monitor his heart and respiratory status for a couple of days and make sure my bleeding isn’t out of control again as well. 

After birth, we will have our couple of days in the hospital and expect to go home with a pretty normal baby. He won’t be any more fragile than a normal kid or any more at risk to die of respiratory failure during the night than any normal baby. When I asked the cardiologist about getting an angel care or owlet monitor for him, she asked if I ever wanted to sleep again. I said “YES!” She told me not to get a monitor then. He isn’t at any more risk than any other baby of going into respiratory faiure and dying in his sleep so if I want to sleep, don’t get a monitor and freak myself out. His respiratory rate will normally be higher than a normal kid and his o2 saturation will be much lower than a normal kid but that will be his normal and “healthy” for him. Physically he won’t be any more fragile than most healthy babies, he can scream and cry and it won’t kill him. We talked to her about the sleep training we do with our kids and she fully supports it, getting him on a feeding and sleeping schedule so we can all have some normal sleep and try to live a normal life. As long as he tolerates it, is breathing well and nursing well. All of that of course will change if he isn’t growing well or nursing well, we will adjust if need be.

After we go home, we will see the Ob/Gyn as his pediatrician while he’s a newborn as well as seeing the cardiologist but the cardiologist only wants to see him at birth, 2 weeks, 4-6 weeks and every month up until surgery. We had been planning for the worst case scenario of having to be at the cardiologist office every 3-5 days or at least every week so this was a huge relief to hear. He should be stable enough to not have to be seen constantly if all goes to plan.  Surgery will be 4-6 months after he’s born so we’re ballpark guessing it will be June/July’ish but it all depends on how well he is growing and how his respiratory status is while he’s technically in heart failure from having blood back up into his lungs. He may or may not need lasix to help with that until surgery, we won’t know until after he’s here.

We didn’t really get any new news but there were a few blessings, he is head down which is great, his cardiac defect is a balanced defect rather than an unbalanced one which would be worse and we didn’t even know was a thing until today, we know where we will deliver. We hope our current doctor won’t be delivering at that time in Enumclaw so he can come deliver our boy at St Joes so we can still work with him because we are very comfortable with him. If all goes according to best case scenario, labor & birth should be normal and he will be doing fine after delivery, be able to stay in my room with me and have his echocardiogram done in there as well as all other newborn procedures. The NICU team will be there standing by just in case but aren’t expected to be needed and will hopefully be able to just leave without having to do any work.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few things but I’ve got 3 kiddos at my feet at after 5pm with no idea what’s for dinner tonight and need to go to the fire station for drill tonight so I need to wrap this up. :)

There is nothing we need right now, we are doing well, we feel very optomistic after all of our appointments and meeting with all of the doctors. We are of course praying for complete healing, no Down Syndrome and a healthy heart when he comes out but will prepare for what may be as well just in case. Please continue to pray for him and we will keep you updated as best we can on the blog here! We may have 1 more echo before birth, that’s not confirmed yet so it may just be routine prenatal care from here on out until he arrives. The doctors and us all agree on our plan and look forward to a healthy next 2 months until he arrives and thereafter!

Thank you so much for the continued prayers!

We made it to 28 weeks! Not shocking but sort of exciting nonetheless. We met with our doctor who has been in contact with the specialists and cardiologist who we will continue to see throughout the end of the pregnancy. The appointment with our doctor today was so great. We hadn’t seen him since we got the official diagnosis, I just spoke with him once over the phone. He is so reassuring, calm, mellow, accepting and kind with us. We spent WAY too much time in his office, I really do feel bad for his other patients but I knew it would be a long appointment discussing all the results and considering what our plan will be. But, we don’t know any of that yet. We aren’t making a plan until after our next round of appointments with all the specialists in December at around the 32 week time to see if there are any differences at that time. Any changes with the heart, any changes with growth, my gestational diabetes or blood pressure or anything else. I’ve had gestational diabetes with all my pregnancies but never to this degree and I usually end up with high blood pressure near the end (which was the cause of inducing Elijah prior to 37 weeks) but for the past week +, my blood sugar has been awesome. Thanks to a little medication, a very strict diet & daily exercise. That also seems to be helping my blood pressure which has been perfect the whole time as well and I’ve even lost a little bit of weight and every pound dropped will help improve that.

(this is my glucose monitor to check my blood sugar)

Baby boys heart rate was good, right where it should be. He gave the doctor a big kick when he put the doppler on to listen, we had a good laugh at him giving us his ‘opinion’ of that. LOL. His kick was pretty low which is a bummer because that means he is probably still breech but that won’t matter until week 36 or so, he still has lots of time and lots of room to flip over for now.

That’s about it. No real news. He is very active, anytime I lay down, he decides to party. I’m pretty sure he’s nocturnal. My blood sugars have been awesome, I’m so thankful for that! I’m also thankful for my friend who is a registered dietician and a diabetes educator who has helped me out and another friend who is an OB/Gyn and has given me her opinions/advice as well. I love that I can speak candidly to some friends about this stuff to learn more, get ideas, see a different perspective and since they are friends in the medical profession, they can speak to me candidly and not give me the required medical answers they would have to give their patients. I’ve reached out to a few other people asking questions who are willing to answer and I’m so thankful people will share with us.

I know we are on prayer lists and chains all over the place, a friend of my parents from their church just took his picture with a prayer request to be placed on the wailing wall in Jerusalem, that’s pretty cool too. We appreciate it so much. I can’t even express how much it means that so many people are praying with and for us for this little guys health. Keep em’ coming, I’m hopeful for some amazing news to share after our next round of appointments about what God can do!

Thank you!!!

I just wanted to put a real quick update on here about our status. We have no new information at this point and likely won’t have any for about 5-6 weeks. We have 3 different appointments scheduled in the first 2 weeks of December with our current Obstetrician as well as the Seattle Childrens South Sound Cardiology Team who will be taking over his cardiac care after he is born until surgery and the Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialists again as well. We are still deciding between Tacoma General or St Joes for delivery and will probalby decide for sure after those 3 appointments based on their results. We are on many prayer chains and are believing in God for a miracle for our little guy for complete healing! I did get anointed with oil and prayed for by the elders of our church and know that many people in many places are praying for us and we can’t express our gratitude enough. Thank you for the prayers!

Elijah, Moses & Solomon don’t know anything is going on other than brother is growing in my tummy and they all kiss him every day and tell him how much they love him already. It’s the sweetest thing ever. They are all 3 so excited for their baby brother! They did great when we received prayer from the elders and sat quietly at the table with ‘praying hands’ participating as best they could and I’m so thankful that the childcare we had worked out for that time ended up not being available so all the kids could participate with us in that special time of prayer.

Apparently I went into too much detail for some to understand what this little guy is facing so I’ll try to explain it a bit more simply here. The official diagnosis names and terms are listed on my previous blog but the easy way to explain it is that he is missing an entire wall inside of his heart that separates the 4 chambers of his heart. Because of that, his valves aren’t properly connected (because they are supposed to be connected to the wall that doesn’t exist) so they can’t function as they should and all the oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood just pools and swishes around in his heart but it’s not being pumped the way that it should or separated the way that it should. That is all reparable with surgery when he is 4-5 months old with an extremely positive prognosis following that surgery. There are 3 concerns they have with his risk for Down Syndrome. 1. My age (29) (+10) ha. I’m 39. 2. One in two babies with this specific heart defect have Down Syndrome. 3. His ultrasound measurements are potentially indicitave of Down Syndrome. None of that is confirmed or conclusive, it just tells us he is at an elevated risk, I don’t remember the exact percentage the genetic counselor gave us but basically above 70-80%. We won’t know for sure until after he is born, they take cord blood and test it offically with results coming 10-14 days after his birth.

The last concerning thing is my Gestational Diabetes. I’ve had it with all of my pregnancies and have never had a hard time controlling it with just diet and exercise at home. Except this time. It’s a doozy this time and I’m trying so hard to beat it, even with medicine, but we haven’t got a good routine down for me yet. I could use some prayer for that as well please. I’ve counseled with my doctor, the specialist, and a dietician and diabetes educator about it and combining everything everyone has told me and the medication I’m on, it’s still not where it should be. We will be making more adjustments to get to a healthy range but we haven’t quite figured it out just yet. If you’re not familiar with Gestational Diabetes, it’s Diabetes that you have only while pregnant due to the hormonal changes in your body. As soon as I delivered all 3 of our boys before, my blood sugar went back to normal and I’ve been great. I pray that is the case this time as well and that we get it under control quickly and it goes away immediately after delivery.

Right now we are doing well. Bo and I are learning how to support each other in the way we each need. It’s quite a learning process :). Other than prayer for healing, there is nothing we need. We have food in the fridge, the laundry is washed, the kids have been enjoying time at the park during the nice days the past few days and we are just trucking along. The unknown about it all can be frightening but we trust in the Lord and in His plan for our family and know He desires good for us and that is our only focus. Even if we don’t know what will be or how it will be or how healthy our boy will be, we know that God is good and we trust Him and know we just need to focus on His goodness and love and promises so we don’t get wound up in fear and worry.

So that’s where we’re at! I don’t expect to have an update again until mid December after we have all of our appointments, get results from them all and come up with a more concrete plan and more specific prayer requests at that time.

The doctors tell us to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. We are praying for the best while considering what we may be dealing with if he is not healed before he is born. We will need help later, after he is born probably when he has surgery but that’s not likely to be until May/June 2018 if all goes the way it’s expected to. My due date is 1/29/18 and the doctors are hoping I go all the way full term so his heart and lungs have as much time as they can to get strong while in the womb. So there will be a time when we need some help if that is the case and we will be sure to make our needs known so our friends and family can help out as they desire. Right now though, we are doing good and just need prayer!

There is now a subscribe option to this blog so you may chose to receive an email when I post. Scroll up to near the top of this page and you should see a box where you can enter your email address to receive updates. If you don’t see it, feel free to comment in the FB group if you’re comfortable doing so with you email address and I can enter it for you. Just be sure to check your trash email folder for the confirmation to make sure you receive it.

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Here is the latest update on our little man. I know I just posted on Wednesday with what was going on and said it would be 3 weeks before we got further information, but we were blessed to get an appointment with the top Pediatric Cardiologist at Seattle Childrens TODAY! That’s right, they got us in 3 weeks early and we had our exam today. We don’t know a lot yet, but here is what we do know.

Baby boy has 3 different cardiac defects that all fall under the umbrella of CAVC – explained below. For those of you who like to Google and know more, here you go: The 1st specialist we saw was right with his suspicion of a VSD – a ventricular septal defect.  Basically, that means he has a hole in the septum inside of his heart that separates his right and left ventricles. The second specialist we saw was sadly, also correct that he has CAVC – Complete Atrioventricular Canal Defect meaning that he has a large hole in the middle of his heart so the chambers of his heart are not properly divided and oxygen rich blood pools with oxygen-poor blood from the body and neither are pumped out exactly as they should to the heart and lungs. His valves aren’t connected as they should be because of the missing walls in his heart so they don’t work properly either to keep the right blood going in the right direction. In addition to both of those, the cardiologist today saw an ASD as well, that’s an atrial septal defect meaning that his septum in the top portion of his heart has a hole in it as well. The VSD and ASD are both so large, they pretty much connect and there is an entire wall in his heart that is missing plus a big hole in the center of his heart as well. The biggest concern with all of this is the risk of Downs Syndrome. 1 in 2 babies with this cardiac condition have Downs Syndrome. In addition to that risk, my age greatly increases his risk and his measurements on his last ultra sound from Wednesday also show increased risk of it. That could make him more suseptible to other difficulties and we are hoping he won’t have to deal with that. The major cardiac defect seems like a big enough mountain for him and us to make it over without adding additional challenges for him. Of course, we do believe that God can just move that mountain and heal him completely on His own, but we informed ourselves of what would happen if that doesn’t occur so the doctors can have a plan for us.

So, we are having to transfer care yet again, for the remainder of my pregnancy and his birth. We will switch to either St Joes in Tacoma or Tacoma General because they both have Seattle Childrens Cardiologist teams either on location or on call for the birth of our boy to be standing by in case of emergency.  The cardiologist said my pregnancy is fine, we will follow up to have another echocardiogram for baby to make sure there are no other changes (or complete healing!) and another ultra sound with a specialist to monitor his growth but the rest of my pregnancy and our birth should be normal. There is no need for a C-section, unless he doesn’t flip over as he is still breech. We should probably be at a location that has a pediatric cardiac team on location in case something goes sideways. This defect really has no effect on baby in the womb since I’m providing all of his oxygen and he isn’t using his lungs yet. He will be born hopefully naturally as we have done all the rest and should come out pink and screaming like most babies do. The doctor said his o2 sat will likely be in the low 80’s but for babies with these defects, that is normal and it’s ok,  nothing to be concerned about. The EMT in me puckered a little bit hearing that. He should be a normal, healthy(ish), regular boy when he is born for at least the first week because the lungs of a newborn are under such pressure, it will force his heart to pump blood adequately. He will have an echo and EKG in the hospital when he is born and likely be released to come home the next day to be a normal newborn with us at home. Between weeks 1-3 after he is born. his lungs will relax lowering his thoracic/cardiac pressure causing blood to back up into his lungs and respiratory difficulty. At that point, they will put him on Lasix (diuretic medication) to help eliminate all the extra fluid from building up and prevent heart failure. He will remain on Lasix for 4-5 months until he is big and strong enough to have open heart surgery.

At 4-5 months, he will have his surgery at Seattle Childrens. They will open him up, put him on heart/lung bypass, open his heart and build a new wall in his heart made out of goretex. That will repair the holes and the missing wall and then they will also repair the valves and connect them to the new heart wall that they put in so they can start functioning properly. He will be in the ICU for 1-2 days where we are welcome to stay with him 24/7 in the same room but we can’t hold him or anything because his chest will be too fragile and he’ll be in an incubator, then be moved for the cardiac floor for the next 7-10 days.  He should be able to come home in less than 2 weeks to recover.

The national average for survivability of this surgery is 95%. With the cardiac team at Seattle Childrens, it’s 99%+ . We of course, pray for healing on his own from these defects but we also have peace with the treatment plan if this doesn’t heal on it’s own. We will have a challenging couple of weeks dealing with him in the hospital and the massive surgery he faces all while dealing with our 3 littles at home and trying to minimize the impact on them while we are trying to divide time between living with baby at the hospital and 3 babies at home. I’m so thankful we have about 7 months to prepare for that time so I should have plenty of time to get some meals in the freezer, get some childcare help worked out, maybe some house work help worked out and figure out what else we will need during that time.

Right now, we are ok. We need prayer. Prayer that the heart will heal itself and prayer that there are no other challenges or abnormalities for this little guy to face.

So many of you have offered to help. I’m SO thankful for you all, I can’t even explain how much the support, prayers, encouragement & offers to help mean to us. I even feel bad writing this in a blog to share with you all becuase I would rather call everyone 1 on 1 on the phone and talk to each person voice to voice and heart to heart but I haven’t even regained my composure yet to make those phone calls. I made 1 phone call and cried  on the phone and had a hard time explaining it. So please, I hope you understand how much we appreciate you all, our amazing support system and community, prayer partners and helpers, but this seems to be the easiest way to share updates. I am going to find out if there is a way that you can ‘subscribe’ to our blog so you are emailed with updates anytime that I post, I’ll have to ask Bo to help me with that one but I’ll try to keep all baby updates on here so there is only 1 place to look and share it on our FB pages as well. We are a little overwhelmed processing the news ourselves and spending family time together today so we’re turning our phones off to just focus on our family. I look forward to scrolling through the comments on FB and the blog post and messages and texts when I can’t sleep or have more time, but for right now, I wanted to get this update out to you all who are praying and thinking of us so you know what’s going on and we are focusing on the 6 of us right now as we let the news settle.

There likely will be a time when we need more help and I won’t be too stubborn to ask for it. If there is a need, we will make it known, ask for help and take you all up on your offers for various things. We aren’t there right yet though. Our only need at this time is prayer. Prayer for healing and no other complications at all. We will likely need help with childcare after he is born since he will be spending a lot of time at the cardiologist office leading up to and after his surgery if that happens. But for now, please, just pray for us. Pray for COMPLETE healing for this little guy and also for Bo and I. We process very differently and both desire to be there for one another but have such different needs, we are learning how we can help one another in the ways we each need. Our hearts are a little raw and we want to do the best we can for each other, for the 3 big boys and for this little guy inside.

For my sweet friend that showed up on my doorstep today with this beautiful, sweet smelling, bright arrangement of pure cheer and prayer for me, thank you! I so love bright flowers and I never buy them for myself but they are just so pretty! It amazes me that I’ve been thinking of doing this exact thing for you and the words you prayed over us are the exact words that I’ve been praying for you straight to God that just came right back to my heart from you as if God spoke them to you from my heart word for word. I love how He works like that. Thank you for this sweet gesture.

Thank you to everyone for the prayers, encouragement, offers, support and help. We WILL reach out when there is a need even if it’s just for emotional support because we need to talk or something. I will keep updates on this blog and find out about an option to subscribe to it as well and share on FB also.

Well, our journey continues with this 4th little man of ours. It was detected at our 19 week ultrasound that he may have a very minor, probably benign, heart defect. We were also told we should have an ultra sound every 2 weeks and get an echocardiogram (which first specialist couldn’t do). We scheduled a follow up ultra sound with a different specialist at her earliest convenience 6 weeks later to get a 2nd opinion and see about the need for an echocardiogam and further follow up. When we went to the appointment yesterday, the doctor had gone home sick so we were unable to have our consult with her and potential echocardiogram if one was in fact needed. We did get an ultra sound which showed this stubborn little guy is breech, facing my spine and absolutely refused to move so they could get good pictures. The tech did her best to get all the cardiac pictures and videos needed but said it was not likely that she was able to get a clear view and a good diagnosis and said we would probably have to return again for another ultra sound and the echocardiogram.

This morning, I got the call from the doctor who was out sick yesterday. She confirmed the suspicion of the first doctor and said that yes, it does appear that he has this defect but, in addition to that, she believes there may be something more significant going on and we need an echocardiogram to confirm. (This is starting to sound familliar….) She said she would be unable to do the echocardiogram because the condition she is concerned about will require more care throughout pregnancy and afterwards as well so we are being transferred to the Seattle Childrens Pediatric Cardiology Unit. We will get our fetal echocardiogram there and meet with a Cardiology/Surgical team to get a confirmed diagnosis and come up with a plan based on the results.

I cried when I got off the phone not having expected to hear that when she called with results. Then I called Bo and let him know. Then I remembered (when I was excused from being a TA in the class I was working in because apparently I looked a little worse than I thought I did having been crying and trying to pull myself together) that God has chosen this boy. God is making him exactly how He wants him to be made within me. Jeremiah 1:5 says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” so God already has a plan for this little man of ours. Ephesians 2:10 reminds me that our little boy is Gods workmanship. Isaiah 41:10 tells me not to fear because He is with me.

I have decided that until I have a confirmed reason, I’m going to stand on the fact that God is forming this little life inside of me and he is perfect, just like God makes. I could get myself all worked up and upset and worried about what potentially could be. But that isn’t going to help anything or anyone and just wreck my mood and likely everyones moods around me when I can chose to trust in God and His goodness and His promises and I’ll deal with what comes as it comes. No need to borrow trouble that may not be.

This could literally all just be nothing. It could be artifact from the ultra sound, it could be from bad pictures, it could be from bad positioning, it could be a lot of things from absolutely nothing to something pretty severe (including involving other genetic anomalies) but right now, we just don’t know. Even if it is the severe concern she has, there is a surgical option to repair his heart after he is born.

I’m praying that he is fine. I’m praying that if he isn’t fine, God will make him fine before our next appointment. That’s where I’m staying until our next appointment and if things change, we’ll deal with it then.

We would love for you to stand in prayer with us for a healthy baby boy! We don’t have any needs right now other than prayers for a healthy baby boy and we appreciate the prayers & good thoughts you are willing to send! We will update again after we have our next appointment (within 3 weeks). We even just had dinner delivered from our awesome and amazing co-op and their “dinners on a budget” class so I don’t even have to make dinner tonight! Thank you to the Acts North Co-Op, the “dinners on a budget” class for preparing it and to Sara for delivering it!

Here is a cute little shot of his profile you can remember in prayer. He’s got the cutest little nose and chubby little lips :)

When we lost  our little boy back in December, we realized just how badly we wanted that last little Bradshaw to be a part of our family and decided to try one more time to complete our family. We are now exactly half way through my 7th pregnancy (in 6 years) and things look great so far!

At 20 weeks, baby is measuring right on track and has the cutest little bones we were happy to see last week. All markers look great, I am doing well other than being utterly exhausted which my doctor reassures me is normal for my”geriatric or advanced maternal age” with 3 small children running around at home. No, he is not kidding, he does say it in kinder terms “well, with your age…..” LOL. Apparently it’s normal to be DEAD TIRED 100% of the time when you’re pregnant and almost 40 years old with lots of littles at home and it certainly doesn’t help that one of my side effects of pregnancy is that I lose the ability to sleep at night. I do remember the feeling of relief and refreshment we got after our babies got on somewhat of a sleep schedule within the first 8-12 weeks of life and I got 4 hour blocks of solid sleep. I look forward to that again! Anyways, we’re doing pretty great. There is a slight chance of a minor cardiac defect that we will be watching and seeing a second Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist to get another opinion on, but it should be nothing, completely benign and cure itself (if it even exists, they can’t even tell conclusively at this point) when baby is born if it lasts that long so we aren’t really concerned about it at all.

So …. what do you guys think? BOY or GIRL?? This has been a very typical pregnancy for me, the only symptoms that aren’t exactly the same as the previous 6 are that I’m not craving (and often can’t stomach) potatoes which is completely the opposite of all my previous pregnancies. Bo likes to joke about how I lived off potatoes previously when I was pregnant and tells people “She would eat all potatoes, potato chips, french fries, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, boiled potatoes, baked potatoes, broiled potatoes, barbeque potatoes, potato soup, potato salad, etc.” (like the joke from Forrest Gump about shrimp). Not so much this time. This baby is also positioned a bit higher than the boys were. Otherwise, status quo.

This picture is the back side of the right lower leg, ankle & part of the foot.

So… place your votes below, on the comments in the blog or on FB, do you think this Bradshaw will be a boy or a girl!? If you get it right, you win nothing other than bragging rights that you guessed correctly! My poor mother and mother in law, they know we have the envelope sealed up sitting at home with the gender results in it and it’s killing them! We will open it up soon, maybe that will be Bo’s birthday gift this year in a few weeks!

Prayers are appreciated for this little life God has blessed us with. 1 Samuel 1:27 sure rings true yet again… “For this child I have prayed and the Lord has granted me my request.”