A breif history con't.

...to continue where I left off before Jacob's stroke...
Jacob and Corinne were born at 4:00 AM on February 8, 2011. Jacob was whisked away quickly after a brief introduction. Corinne was kept in the O.R. with her mom and dad. I didn't even have a chance to take a photo of him. Christina was taken to recovery and I was put on ice. I wanted to see Jake but was told that he was being taken care of and was started on the medicines he needed to keep his ductus ateriosis from closing. If the ductus closed, he would die.
A few days later we got to take Corinne home. Jake stayed at NY Presbyterian. It felt as if I left a piece of myself behind. About a week later doctors Julie Vincent and Emile Basha performed a hybrid version of the Norwood procedure to begin treating the hypoplastic heart. He did well but looked like hell after the surgery.
He was recovering nicely when it was noticed that the hole between the atria was too narrow. In a normal heart a hole is a bad thing but Jacob needed it to stay alive. He was taken to the catheter lab for a balloon septostomy. This opened the hole called the atrial septal defect (ASD) so blood could flow freely to the lungs and body. After this procedure his next hurdle was feeding. Hypoplastic babies are notorious poor feeders. They would not discharge him until they were satisfied that he could take nourishment without vomiting. This kept him in the NICU for an extra week. At $10350 per day, that's an expensive hotel room. The nurses told us that he would probably go home on a feeding tube. We were trained how to insert the tube. It takes getting used to but you get over it.
Jacob came home after 27 days in the NICU.