Progress!!!

So its been a few days since I last sent out an update on our status here at the hospital. Since Monday it has been pretty much status quo for a few days. Amanda has been taken the beta blockers while also taking both oral and iv magnesium doses to keep her magnesium level up above 2.0. I am so glad we have each other to discuss everything going on becuase we have to constantly remind each other of priorities. I find myself getting so wrapped up in 'project' of research and possible corrective actions that I sometimes lose sight of the fact that it is my little baby girl's life that we are working so hard for.

Going to our daily fetal echo appointment each morning we are full of anticipation to see how she (baby) is responding to the medicine. We are always a little fearful that things could have gotten worse overnight and always extremely hopeful that things could have improved. The first few days of the week the echo continued to show pretty much the same thing. Baby's heart was much improved from early last week but still continues to jump up into the high rate for a few beats every so often. I try to remind myself to be happy that there have been no other adverse reactions to the irregular heart beat occurring, but always a little bummed that we arent seeing the remaining blips of tachycardia go away.

On Wednesday the doctors all decided that we should try and new medication in addition to the beta blockers and magnesium. It is called mexiletine and is an anti-arrhythmic that works by targeting the sodium channels. We were a little concerned initially because many of the doctors did not have experience with this medication, especially for the purposes of a fetus. After talking to them and understanding the risks/benefits we decided to go with their recommendation. They informed us it would take a few days to full kick in and see the expected results.

At todays echo ultrasound the pediatric cardiologist and perinatologist did not see one instance of the tachycardic heart rate. They saw mostly sinus rhythm (normal) with some AV block 2:1 rhythm mixed in but no tachycardia. The heart size all looks good and there is no sign of any fluid buildup indicating any sort of failure. It was by far the best day yet and we were extremely excited to see some progress. At the same time, we are hesitant to get too excited about it but it certainly felt good to see positive improvements. We will be extemely anxious to see if these results can continue.

On another note, we celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary here at the hospital on Wednesday. Avery and I picked up some sushi and brought it to Amanda's room and the hospital got us an anniversary cake too. Thank you to all that sent the very nice cards, emails, and messages.

-Mark