We have been on the east coast (at sea level) for two months and I am giving that the credit for how awesome Maelyn is doing. Her color looks better, her oxygen saturation is back in the 80s and you would never know anything is wrong with her. She is also becoming more and more of a two year old girl every day, if you know what I mean... the sass and personality are coming out!
Maelyn had her first cardiologist appointment with CHOP this week. Instead of driving two hours to Philly, we are able to go to a satellite clinic in Lancaster, which is about 50 minutes from us. It is not much longer of a drive than we had in Colorado. Because it is a satellite office it's also much smaller and feels more like a doctors office than a hospital. With CHOP's cardiac clinic, we are able to see any of their doctors, we are not assigned to one. This is good, because it gives us more flexibility but we miss the intimacy we had with her doctor and nurses in Colorado. I think, no matter how good the doctors are at CHOP, we will always miss her team in Colorado. They will always have a special place in our hearts, having walked with us through pregnancy, birth and surgery. I will never take for granted how blessed we were to have Children's Hospital Colorado for all three years we needed them. The doctor we saw at this appointment told us she looks great. Her oxygen being in the low 80's is just fine and as long as Maelyn tolerates it fine, the plan will be to let her grow and get bigger before surgery. He said that we will start thinking about surgery next year and in the mean time do four month follow ups. Hopefully this will give us time to welcome the baby home and adjust to life with 4 kids before we jump into another major surgery.
We are quickly settling into life here in Pennsylvania. It's been great catching up with friends. I can't believe how, other than a few more kids and a new house/neighborhood, it feels pretty much the same.
