Faith Anne was born on January 28, 2002, 6 days early weighing 9 lbs 1 oz. She was in ICU for 2 days because she was having breathing difficulties and making moaning noises in her sleep. At her 1 month check up the pediatrician. heard a heart murmur and sent us to a pediatric cardiologist who confirmed she had a large ASD.

This was our worst fear as her brother also had an ASD diagnosed at 20 months and surgically repaired at 22 months, 4 years ago. Faith is doing well now, alert, active, happy. We are concerned though because she is not gaining enough weight each month and we need to monitor her development closely.

We were told that if all else is well, Faith's heart will be repaired anywhere between 3 and 5 years. However, in her case, because the hole is so large and her weight gain is so slow we recently were told she will probably need the surgery sooner—between 1 and 2 years.

February 24, 2004 Update

Faith Anne is now at the point where we are waiting to repair her ASD in 8 days. She will be having open-heart surgery. We were hoping the hole would close on its own, but each time (every 3 months) we visited the cardiologist, the hole was getting larger. It is now 2cm. She is very small for her age weighing 23 pounds at 24 months, is tired a lot of the time, has a poor appetite , and tells me her chest hurts. We are very nervous awaiting the surgery. Last week while spending the day at the hospital doing all the pre-op she was very brave.