I had gestational diabetes so my doctor did not want me to go past my due date. I was induced on the morning of July 23, 1984 with Mark being born at 2:56pm. Giving birth was the easy part.
I knew something was wrong immediately. Mark was crying loudly and the nurse took over to do his Apgar. He was very blue. They would give him oxygen and he would turn pink, but as soon as the oxygen was removed, he turned blue again. The nurse told me that I would not be able to bond with him just yet. He was having a little trouble getting started and they would bring him to my room as soon as he was stabilized.
I was wheeled past the nursery on the way to my room and saw at least 5 medical personal working on him. Several hours passed with no one bringing my baby to me. I kept calling the nursery to find out what the trouble was. I was told that they were giving him medicine to open up the vessels to his lungs.
Around 7:00pm the pediatrician I had chosen came in to tell me that he did not know what was wrong with him so he was calling in a specialist to look at him. He had specifically asked for a cardiologist.
The cardiologist came to see me at 10:00pm and said she had done an echo on Mark's heart but was unable to see the entire heart. What she was able to see looked fine. She told me not to worry, since the chance of the section she was unable to see being damaged was pretty slim. She was going to check him out some more to determine to try to determine what his problem was.
The cardiologist returned at midnight to tell me that the she was actually seeing Mark's entire heart in the first echo but his heart was transposed, which is why she thought she was not getting a good picture of the whole heart.
She said that she wanted Mark transferred to the Children's hospital in town. She felt they were better prepared to deal with his situation.
I said that I wanted to see Mark before he left. He was brought to me in an isolette. I could only touch him by putting my hands through the holes. His birth weight was 8 pounds 12 ounces, but he looked so tiny, laying there with all of those wires sticking out of him.
I hated to let him go because I was not sure if I would see him alive again. I was left alone while my husband followed the ambulance to the Children's hospital to admit Mark.
A nurse told me that she was going to ride in the ambulance with Mark and would come back to let me know that he got there O.K. Once everyone had left, another nurse brought me a sleeping pill. I took the pill but did not sleep until the nurse transporting Mark came back to let me know he arrived at Children's hospital.
Mark was born on a Monday and I was not actually able to hold him until Thursday, when I was released from the hospital. The ASD that Mark was also born with was ballooned so that he could get a mix of "good" blood until the surgery to correct the transposition could be performed.
Mark came home Friday of the same week that he was born. We were instructed to not let him cry very much until the surgery could be performed. The doctors were hoping they could wait until his was at least 6 months old.
In 1984, the arterial switch procedure was not an option. Instead Mark's surgery left his heart transposed but the blood flow inside his heart was re-routed to the correct ventricles. Mark was not able to wait 6 months for his surgery. His operation was performed when he was 8 weeks old and was successful. I was told by the surgeon that his blood was black when they opened him up due to so little oxygen. No one was sure if brain damage had occurred. We would just have to wait and see as he grew and started going to school.
When Mark was 4 years old, he had a second surgery to insert a second pulmonary outflow. Due to his transposition, his pulmonary artery was partially blocked when his heart pumped. It was explained that this outflow would need to be replaced sometime within the next 10 years due to his growth.
Mark entered elementary school and it quickly became apparent that he was gifted. So much for the brain damage. My husband and I decided that we wanted Mark to have as normal a childhood as possible. While he could not participate in stressful sports such as football and basketball, we felt that he needed some type of sport to play. Mark decided on horse-back riding. He started riding horses at the age of 6. He didn't just ride them in circles. He rode them over jumps. He has competed in several hunter/jumper competitions and received some ribbons. Mark has a horse of his own named Sabre which is an adopted mustang. Sabre will become mom's horse when Mark goes off to college.
The third surgery was performed during Christmas break when Mark was in the sixth grade. This surgery replaced the 2nd pulmonary outflow. Mark seemed to grow by leaps and bounds after this third surgery.
Mark is now a senior in high school and is trombone section leader in his high school band. He is very active in the drama club at school and is very active in the youth group at our church.
I look at this young man on the verge of being an adult and remember that little blue baby from 17 years ago. I don't know what his future will like, but I am so thankful that I was allowed to be his mother.
