Twice the Fun Plus One

We took Ellie to the cardiologist a couple of weeks ago so they could check her PDA.  Her last appointment was in December of 2009.  At that time, they said the PDA was still there but it was tiny.  This time was even better.  The Dr. told us it is still present, but it is so small they really can't do anything to fix it.  She actually said that it is, "tinier than tiny!"  The PDA could still heal on its own, but there is no concern of it causing her any problems even if it doesn't go away completely.  The tech who did the ultrasound said he would never have seen it if he didn't know to be looking for it.  We will continue to monitor everything, just in case, but the Dr. didn't even tell us any symptoms to watch for.  Our next appointment won't be until summer of 2013.

We got some slightly disturbing news about Ellie yesterday. She has a PDA. I did a search on the internet to get a better idea of what that means. Basically, as far as I understand, a PDA is a connection between the pulmonary artery and the aorta that did not close itself off soon after birth. If left untreated it can result in congestive heart failure when a baby gets older. The doctor told us it isn't something to be overly concerned with at this time. Ellie is not exhibiting any symptoms (difficulty breathing, problems with weight gain, among others) so at this point they are just going to continue monitoring her and hopefully it will close on its own and we won't have to look at other methods of treatment. PDA is fairly common in premature babies and while they don't like to administer too many medications or perform any kind of surgery on babies so small, they do it quite frequently. We are asking for your prayers for our little girl once again. I have seen the wonderf...