Asher at the beach (Summer, 2005)

Asher's first surgery (July 2002)

Asher in the fall of 2002 (about 2 - 3 months post op)

Spring of 2003

Our son, Asher, was born at noon on a sunny April day after only about 5 hours of labor. He was big and beautiful, and healthy! He scored well on his APGAR and as a result, we were able to bring him home right away. Asher had a healthy visit back to the hospital where they did his heel prick and his hearing test. He had healthy one week and two week visits with our doc. He actually gained back his birth weight—plus a pound! Our doc's policy is to see a patient at 2 weeks, and then again at 2 months if the child is healthy. So, at our "healthy" 2-month appointment, we were shocked to hear that our doc heard a murmur. He had the foresight to get us into the Heart Center at Children's Hospital here in Milwaukee the next day. That night my husband and I were franticly researching heart murmurs and actually felt pretty positive about it, as we read that 90% of heart murmurs are innocent. Well, his murmurs ended up being the least of our worries!

Asher was diagnosed with Taussig-Bing Anomaly, which is a combination of DORV, TGA, and a VSD. It was the VSD that had been keeping him alive up until this point. His sats were in the 60's (Yes - how DID we not know something was wrong!!!). Asher had his 2 month check up on Monday, his heart appointment on Tuesday where he got diagnosed, and his first cath procedure on Thursday. What a week! In his first cath, they opened up an ASD, so that his sats would improve, which they did. He came out of the cath lab with sats in the 70's which for us was incredible!!!

Asher's open-heart repair was scheduled for 8:30 on that next Monday—less than a week from when we got diagnosed. I held him in my baby sling, and tried not to think about how badly he wanted to nurse all night long. I remember taking tons of pictures of him just looking at me. The hardest picture to look at is the one of us looking at him right before we handed him over to the anesthesiologist. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it!

His first surgery was long but successful. They did a full repair. Asher was on the vent for five days, but nursed again within seconds of "waking up". We were well on our road to recovery. After an incredibly short hospital stay (Asher actually gained weight in the week that we were in the hospital - and he didn't eat for five of those days!!!) we were able to take him home. He had an unprecedented recovery - he was so big compared to all of the newborns, and he already had mastered eating, since he was 2.5 months old.

We came home on a Monday (1 week after his surgery) and on Friday Asher got a fever. I took him in, and our cardiologist recommended that we stay, assuming Asher had an infection. On Sunday they did a CT scan, and then an echo. His echo showed that the patch that they put in Asher's heart had failed. His anatomy is really quite funky and the patch has to lie directly beneath his aortic valve. As a result the blood flow hits the patch at a 90 degree angle before making the shift to go through his aortic valve. So, once again, Asher was scheduled for surgery the next day (Monday again!).

Asher's second surgery was less risky, but much longer. They took him from us at 1:00 PM and we didn't get to see him until 11:30 PM, and another hour before we could be with him. It was really hard doing it a second time—as many of you probably know. It was not a "been there, done that" kind of deal for us!

Asher had another short stay in the hospital and made another remarkable recovery. We were so thrilled and thankful for our experience at Children's.

Asher left the hospital with some aortic insufficiency, and was put on meds to help with that about a year ago. We are hopeful that the meds will slow any future deterioration of his aortic valve! Asher is a beautiful, healthy, happy, and wonderful 3 year-old now. Asher and his sister, Aviya (5 years old) are the lights of our lives.