Surgery Day Comes To A Successful End...

Janice and I cannot believe how fast today went. It seemed like an eternity to get to this point, and what a relief to have this first hurdle over. We just left the hospital a little while ago. Jenna is being kept comfortable with little movement for obvious reasons. They are planning on weening her off the vent slowly over the next few days. As she comes around, she will again be a handful I'm sure!!! We just cannot wait to hold her again.

We got the preliminary report today from University Hospital, where her chromosome test was sent. It does look like Jenna has Turner's Syndrome. The Clinic is doing its own test and those results will be more comprehensive.

Doing a Google search returns over 3,000,000 sites with info about this syndrome. We have already been warned about what is out there, and we wanted to pass this along to you. Some sites are very good, other portray worst case scenarios. The doctors are going to recommend a few sites to us and we will pass them along in the blog to those who may be interested. In a nutshell, Jenna may be shorter than others, may have hands and feet that are swollen and may have a lower hairline in the back than others. Physically, these are about the only differences.

Internally, we have to be careful of infections now that she has had heart surgery. We have to watch for urinary tract infections because of the horseshoe kidneys. She will have more testing than others but only because she has been diagnosed and this was caught so early. Some tests that are never done on other for minor things may have to be done on her as precautionary measures. Many girls (this syndrome effects 1 in about 2500 females and only females) are not diagnosed until their teen years when they are a little shorter than others, or take a little longer to hit puberty. Because we know this so early, there are things we can do to minimize these effects, like hormone therapy if we choose. We are a long way from that, and do not have enough info to even determine if this is a course we want to take for her... Once the heart is healed, we'll deal with the rest.

Developmentally, there does not seem to be any issues. We can deal with physical and I'm sure we would deal with mental issues if there were any. It is just one less thing for us to worry about.

What we find most puzzling, as do the doctors, is despite the very positive outlook these baby girls have, between 90% - 95% of babies with this syndrome result in miscarriages. So this tells us one very important thing about our Jenna... she's a fighter, and going to have the horns just like her brother!!!

Thanks again for all the messages and prayers. Janice and I feel so good reading your posts and hearing from you all. We hope to have her home next week, and will continue to keep you posted daily.