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Lavrans Nyland

The pregnancy was a wonderful period of my life and I really enjoyed every single day. I was in 13 hours of labour before Lavrans decided to be born. He was a big boy, 3750 grams and 50 cm, looked very dark purple at first, but after a couple of minutes he was baby-pink 9 hours later he turned blue and got irritated whenever anyone touched him, he was put in an incubator. They took every test possible and everyone was just fine and normal. They didn't think it had anything to do with his heart, but on Monday the PC came back from a holiday and examineted Lavrans with ultrasound. It didn't take him long to find out what was wrong.

Lavrans had a very serious CHD. We were not too surpirised actually, Lavrans's father has an ASD and Lavrans' cousin has TGA, he even has one cousin that got aborted halfway in the pregnancy because she had a CHD that (at that time) was not consistent with life.

We went to Oslo by a special ambulance-airplane with Lavrans in the incubator that evening. A closer examination at The National Hospital showed that he had coarctation of the aorta (CA), hypoplastic left ventricle, a defective mitral valve, one or maybe two ventricle septil defect (VSDs) and one atrial septil defect (ASD). When he was 6 days old he had his first surgery where they repaired the CA, put a banding on the pulmonalis aorta and tried to repair the VSD.

They didn't succeed in repairing the VSD, but the surgery was very successfull after all. The last thing the surgeon said to us before going into surgery was:"You have to understand that you only have borrowed him in life till after this surgery." But Lavrans was a real little fighter! When he was 6 weeks we finally could bring him home and start to be a real family. I think it was in february 1999 we first heard his diagnosis, Shones complex. Later we discovered that the PC had given him this diagnosis already the first time he examined him, 3 days old. We tried to find out about SC, but even the internet was "silent" about it.

January 21. 1999 - the PCs and surgeons at The National Hospital decide that Lavrans' left ventricle won't manage a repair of the heart and goes for the fontans.  Not good news we think, but both the PCs at The National Hospital and at our local hospital says the expertice in Norway is just as good as the best elsewere. The PC said that thinking the left ventricle could make it was like believing in Santa Claus. I just wanted to yell at him - "I do believe in Santa!" :o)

March 25. 1999 - The Hemi-fontan or the Glenn-procedure are taking place. He needs a Damus- Kaye-Stansel too and we are told that that makes it more difficult and dangerous. But again Lavrans shows us that he wouldn't give it up! The surgery took ap. 4 hours and was just as successful as the first one. We stayed in hospital for 5 days before we went back to our local hospital. This was Eastern, few nurses and doctors were at work and lots of children. So many children that they decided Lavrans was doing so well we could go home that day!

Now it's July 1999 and we're waiting for the complete fontan to take place some time before March next year. Lavrans is getting bigger and healthier every day. Now he is 71 cm and 9 kilos. He is a huge smile all day long, eats quite well and are very active. He doesn't crawl yet, but I think he will before his first birthday. He is on Captopril 3 times a day, but seems to have got a cough of it so we'll talk to the PC about it on the next checkup. Compared to some other parents with children with CHD we feel very, very lucky since he after all is a quite healthy child. This autumn he's going to kindergarten and mum is going back to work again - both looking forward to it and hate the thought of it... :o)