Planning for surgery

It's hard to put into words if Kora is doing well or not. She is really struggling with weight gain and only gaining less than 50 grams a week (less than 1.5 Oz). The normal weight gain is supposed to be 140-200 grams (5-7 Oz) a week. Her medication and heart condition is not helping. She burns more calories than she can get in her feeds. We have been put on a fortified formula for her and are hoping to see some improvement as we want to avoid an NG tube (nose feeding tube). She is finally taking a bottle again after a 2 week long refusal. She is a tiny baby who weighs less than 11 lbs at 3 months!

On the flip side, she is hitting all her other milestones. She's become the happiest baby and loves to talk, giggle and smile. Her big sister is her whole world and gets the biggest smiles! Kora has discovered her feet, rolls from tummy to back and can roll from back to her side! She loves to be held and loves her soother! She sleeps about the same but has occasionally given a 5 hour stretch at night so I can't really complain!

We finally got put on the discussion list for surgery at the weekly meeting with Edmonton. We now have a plan for what the next couple months looks like. Kora will be getting a Glenn Shunt put in. This is to help ease the strain on her heart and divert blood flow from her upper body directly to her lungs so her heart doesn't need to work so hard. This will be done at the end of January/early February. Prior to this, we will be going for a heart Catheter procedure in early January to get the best possible images of the heart to make it easier to plan for the surgeons in Edmonton! We hope to have more infomation in the coming weeks as to what this will all look like but we are hopeful these procedures will make her heart less stressed day to day.

I will updateas frequently as I can (two very busy girls makes this tough!) and as we get more information.