Monique's Story

This is Monique's story. Here are the events minus all the frustration, fear and confusion that I felt. If i were to write about me and what Monique went through, I could fill a novel.

Monique, my daughter was born on July 15th 2003. She looked like a perfect little baby with all 10 fingers and 10 toes but the problem was that I could not see inside. The day after she was born, she was sent to the IWK by life helicopter because she had a large murmur. I was told that it was probably nothing but the doctor wanted her checked just to make sure.
She flew all by herself to the IWK. I was not allowed to ride with her. I was a mess! We drove 3 hours to Halifax, not a small endeavor after giving birth 24 hours ago! When we arrived at the IWK we were escorted to the NICU. Here, all the babies looked so fragile and Monique was what looked like a healthy 6 pound 9 ounce bundle of joy in her incubator.
We met with DR Chen and he told us that it was probably nothing major and that we would be sent home the next day. That was not the case however. This was the beginning of a month long stay at the IWK.
On July 17th 2003 Monique was diagnosed with Truncus Arteriosus Type 2 with a VSD. After a long explanation of what this was and what this meant I was numb. I had so many questions but the one tht stood out was "Why did they not see this during my ultrasound? Did the technician even look properly?"
So... now what? We were admitted. I soon discovered waht heart failure was and what it looked like. Monique never turned blue but was a very sleepy little one. I was lucky to get her to feed more then an ounce and a half at a time.
She had surgeryon July 30th 2003, thanks to Dr. LeBlanc who flew in from visiting in Quebec. He was from BC but made the trip for us. Otherwise we would have needed to go to Sick Kids in Toronto for surgery. The surgeons had never operated or seen a case like Monique's so they were not comfortable operating. The surgery lasted 3 hours, 2 hours less then I had been told.
Monique spent a week in Intensive Care, then we were moved to a ward for another week.
I was finaly able to bring Monique home on August 15th, at exactly a month old.