Jacob Paul

Jacob after Surgery

Jacob with Dad and Sisters (just before going home)

Jacob at the Lion Heart Festival

2006 Family Photo

Jacob was born in March, adorable, snuggly, starving, and seemingly perfect. It was a moment when nothing could possibly go wrong. He was ten days old, gaining weight and loved a good cuddle. I gave him one last big snuggle and then left him and two of his sisters with grandma while I took the other sister on a mommy daughter date. I had no way of knowing that it was the last time I would hold him for another 2 weeks, and possibly forever. Life was perfect and wonderful, then I came home. The first thing I heard as I walked through the door was my frantic mother-in-law saying something was wrong with Jacob. I rushed into his room and there he was in his crib, eyes closed gasping for breath, moaning, limp, and non-responsive. I remember thinking "at least he isn't blue yet". I have never been so scared in my life. I called my pediatrician and talked with our incredible nurse and was told to bring him in straight away, but if he turned blue to go straight to the ER. I charged for the car and zipped over to the doctor's office, only two minutes away.

I grabbed my boy and charged in with the blanket on his head to keep the wind off. He must have turned blue in the two minutes it took to get there because the nurse snatched him out of my arms and went charging across the street to the hospital ER. We pounded on the ER door and before I knew it he was stripped on a table with doctors swarming around him responding to a code blue, wait it was my son's code blue! What was happening? Bewildered and shocked don't even come close to the feelings that were charging in on me from every side. My pediatrician came in on his day off and my husband came rushing out from work. The Bishop from my ward (congregation) met us at the hospital. I'd like to say I was the picture of calmness and confidence and that I held it together so well, but I didn't. I was a basket case, sobbing, scared and praying my heart out. They stuck a breathing tube down his throat but nothing changed, and that is when they knew that he had a heart defect. We were grilled, any history of congenital heart defects, and they rattled off a few, to which we shook our heads blankly wondering what the jumble of words even meant. Then they were talking about transport to ICU in Emmanuel Children's Hospital, and I knew we were in for a ride. They called for ambulance transport but when it arrived it was 5:30 p.m. and they were worried that with the traffic he wouldn't survive the trip, in fact they weren't sure if he even had another 20 minutes, so life flight was called in and my husband and I watched as the helicopter landed from our car and then we took off.

When we arrived at the hospital we raced up to the ICU and stopped dead in our tracks. There was a huge sign hanging on the ICU doors: STOP! EMERGENCY SURGERY IN PROGRESS! We knew it was our son and so we let them know that we were here and went to wait for a nurse to come explain what was happening. We were informed that his condition was called Transposition of the Great Arteries (TGA). We were also told that they suspected he had a PDA and ASD which is what kept him alive and looking so normal for 10 days. They closed up on their own, which is when his major defect presented itself. They were currently performing a balloon septostomy to open a hole to allow the blood to mix. They had to do it in his room because he was close to death when he arrived and they didn't have time to set up the lab. Well it worked?he stabilized a bit and we had to wait until his body recovered from the immense shock it underwent.

Jacob had surgery to perform the arterial switch on Easter Sunday. We witnessed so many miracles and received countless prayers from all denominations, and people we didn't even know. We finally made it home after two weeks in the ICU, one week on the regular pediatric floor, and more scary moments involving collapsed lungs and low oxygen levels.

Jacob is now nearly 2 years old and doing so well, he is a joy to the whole family. There was a time when I though CHDs were rare and uncommon, I had no idea about how common they were.