Change of Venue

We will be officially delivering at the Children's Hospital. Despite what the surgeon originally told us, our cardiologist feels that as we cannot say with 100% certainty that Helena will be ok to breath on her own after birth we shouldn't take any chances and just deliver there.

I am relieved.

The more I thought about it the more I didn't like the idea of delivering at our local hospital for this very reason. Sure, she might be totally fine when she's born and able to breath on her own and getting enough oxygenated blood but if she's not, she'll need a procedure done that our local hospital cannot do. That'd mean a transfer 30+ minutes away to the Children's Hospital and then I would be at one place and she and my husband would be at another. I wouldn't be able to see her, or be involved in her first few days of care and it would make what I imagine is going to be a complicated situation even more complicated.

My blood pressure tends to skyrocket near the end of my pregnancies (full blown pre-eclampsia with My Big Guy, just really high BP with My Little Guy) and lord knows I'll already be scared and nervous about Helena's delivery - knowing that we're in a place that has all the care she could possibly need immediately available gives me a bit more piece of mind.

So next week I'm off to meet with my new high risk delivery team, and the pediatric cardiology team at the Children's Hospital and get them up to date on our situation. It's slightly annoying that my OB appointments will now be 30+ minutes away instead of 5, but it's a small price to pay to know that Helena will be born in the place she needs to be born in for the best care.

I looked up the doctors I'll be seeing and they are quite impressive, so that's reassuring as well. Everyone tells us that this hospital is THE place to go for pediatric heart issues - apparently it has quite the reputation for it. All these things bring us a bit more comfort in knowing we're doing all we can to help our baby.

But the best sign/omen/whatever you want to call it for us is that the high risk OB I'm seeing is named Helen. Seriously. It's like Helena has one of her angels watching over her already.