Recieving the News!!

9th November 2010

I had been on the ward for a couple of hours by myself as Dave had gone to sort calls etc and get food. It didn't feel right as I was surrounded by other moms with their babies and mine was in another part of the hospital. I remember thinking that it felt so wrong and that I should sleep as he will be back with me soon.
 A cardiac consultant came to see us and luckily Dave was back by then. She was incredibly friendly and very welcoming so I felt quite comfortable with her. She then said she had looked at Benjamin and he did have a heart murmur but she also thought it was probably more than a simple problem. we were given several options
1. A heart murmur that he will grow out of as he becomes stronger
2. A heart defect that will require medication
3 A more sever form of heart defect that may require surgery

She told us she would like to send him to Bristol's children's hospital as they are they best people to tell us and that she would like to do send him that afternoon. Of course that was a shock as i hadn't even spent any significant time with him, he had already been taken away from me and now they want to send him to Bristol in an ambulance while we waited!
He was gone an hour later and we waited for news, thinking he would be back and i would probably have to stay in hospital for a few days so that he can become stronger.

18.00 The cardiac consultant came back to see us and told us that Benjamin had arrived safely and that he had in fact option 3 and that he had an illness called Truncus Arteiosis Type 2 and that he would need open hear surgery fairly soon. Shock wa ssetting in!!
She explained that in normal hearts you have 2 chambers( as such) that carries blood to the heart on one side and to the body from the other and that Benjamin only had 1 and that it was mixing his red and blue blood together. He was well at the moment but he wouldn't be well soon. He explained loads to us and that we could go to the hospital in Bristol , in fact they were expecting us.
I remember sitting there thinking that my whole world had caved in and this wasn't how things were supposed to be. Dave was a wreck, I was crying and mom and dad turned up at that point. It was the first day of many many tears.
Why was my baby so ill? What had we done? The pregnancy had been full of worries and this just seemed so unfair!
We finally got to Bristol at 22.00 that night and a cardiac registrar was waiting for us. He took us into Benjamin who was in a cot, in a little blue cardigan and hat and looked so well. He was attached to wires and monitoring tools but we could hold him. The registrar explained the problem and briefly the procedure an dlet us know a consultant would see us tomorrow.
 I held my baby properly for the first time, knowing he was going to have incredibly complex surgery and he was still so tiny.
Mom and Dad were allowed in and they held their grandson too. Everything was okay for that hour. The world and its cruel ways couldn't hurt us for now in that little room with my baby and my family for now.