Monday morning Barbara Anne will have heart surgery with Dr. Vaughn Starnes, one of the best in the world. She is being treated at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.
Barbara’s aortic valve is a bit too small. She suffers from aortic stenosis, so they need to rebuild her valve. This will be open-heart, bypass surgery. In addition, they may need to fix another part of her heart which is suffering from coarctation. This is the less invasive of the two surgeries, but they may take care of both at once.
The twenty four hours after the surgery will be very telling, to see how Babs’ body adjusts to the changes in her heart. They will most likely leave the incision open for a few days, as that helps it heal better, and then stitch it up after that.
Full recovery in the hospital will be 1-2 weeks for Barbara. They also have little rooms here for Lucy and I to sleep in, so we are very close to our gorgeous baby.
Did I mention Lucy is a star, and was incredible during birth and postpartum? She is going through all of this having given birth less than 48 hours ago!