For anyone that isn't aware of the details around our current standing I will attempt to summarize. Around five weeks ago Amanda went in for a routine perinatal doctor checkup. At that time the Doctor recognized an irregular heartbeat that he thought deserved some further inspection by the cardiologist. He sent Amanda to give blood and then directly over to the pediatric cardiologist to look into it further. They found that our baby's heart had what they call 2:1 AV heartblock. This is a condition where the heart's upper chambers (atria) are beating two times to each one beat of the lower chambers (ventricles). The atria rate was holding steady at around the normal 130 range and the ventricle range was operating at about a rate of 70. In the majority of cases where the doctors see this it is due to an auto-immune disorder in the mother causing the deterioration in the baby's heartrate. Amanda has tested negative for these auto-immune disorders both times so that is now ruled out. We were to continue with weekly perinatal doctor appointments and pediatric cardiologist appointments every few weeks to monitor the baby's heart.
Amanda and I would look so forward to our weekly appointments to see what was going on because we have been so worried. During the week between appointments, outside of the baby moving around so much, we were left to only wonder what was going on. The heart was holding steady in that 2:1 AV block every week until this past Tuesday May 11th. When we went to our weekly perinatologist visit the baby's heart rate was beating very fast, between 230-280, and holding up in that range constantly. It was a very scary sight to see on the ultrasound. The ultrasound machines are unreal as you can clearly see each chamber of the heart working. On this day the heart just looked like it was going crazy. The good news is that we have found out a baby in utero can actually withstand a heart in tachycardia (very fast rhythm over 200 bpm) for weeks. He had us go to the hospital right away so we could continue to be monitored and medicine administered to try to stabilize the baby's heartrate.
At that point we had no idea if we would only be there a couple of days, weeks, or even if we would have to do an emergency c-section that day. I will follow up with the week's progression in my next post.
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