Ephram did super well after surgery. Woke up earlier than expected the following morning. And not even 6 hours later, was moved to the ICU, for monitoring. It was like a hotel room in there! He had a flat screen tv facing his bed and an Xbox to use whenever he wanted :)

We stayed in the room with him for the first time since he’d been transferred, but it was nearly impossible with all the beeping going on with his oxygen and blood pressure monitors. Thankfully, he was recovering so well, he was sent home after 3 days.

At 7 days old (new?), Ephram had surgery to correct the co-arctation of his aorta. Fabulous doctors, sweet nurses. It went so smoothly. And we felt so lucky that his surgery/case was one of the easiest in the PICU. We saw so many other little boys and girls that were not nearly as lucky as Ephram.

If you ever have extra money you’d like to donate to a good cause, find your nearest Children’s Hospital. These little people haven’t done a single thing wrong in this world yet and are dealing with more than many adults have. So sad.

You better believe that it made me cry to see him hooked up and sleeping like this. But our awesome nurse, Christy, made me feel so much better.

Family photo after surgery. He didn’t wake up until the next morning.

For 3 days, this was Ephram’s spot in the NICU. I posted a bunch more photos on Flickr.

Thanks to our amazing doctor, she realized that Ephram’s breathing was not getting better even after being treated for pneumonia. Still nothing was showing up on his x-rays, but his oxygen was plummeting. So we were transferred to the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital for further diagnosis. Ephram had his first car ride in an ambulance with a team from Children’s and we followed behind in our car.

This was probably the hardest day of our life. Waiting while they ran tests and took ECGs of Ephram’s heart. When his cardiologist came to speak with us and give us his diagnosis, I think my heart skipped a beat. The poor guy had coartcation of the aorta. According to the nurses, it’s the heart conditions you’d want to choose if you were given the option. It’s very curable with surgery and survival rates are extremely high.

But, he would need the surgery. At just a week old.

Here’s our awesome doctor I mentioned before. She came in every single day to check up on him. I know from some of my friends who live closer to the Twin Cities, that their babies were delivered by whichever doctor was on-call at the time. In Northfield, all of the doctors try to come in to deliver their own patients’ babies. I never saw another doctor throughout my pregnancy or in the hospital. She even ran over to the clinic while I was in labor and then came back to deliver Ephram.