Day 29: Recommended Viewing and More Progress

PBS just completed a three-part documentary series entitled Twice Born - Stories from the Special Delivery Unit. It follows several pregnant mothers who elected to have fetal surgery at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in an effort to improve the prospects of their unborn children. Here is a description of the show from PBS.org:

Step inside the groundbreaking medical frontier that is fetal surgery with Twice Born, a gripping PBS mini-series that takes an intimate, inside look at the Special Delivery Unit at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where rare surgeries are done on babies still inside their mothers’ wombs.

With exclusive access to the elite unit, (where the production crew was embedded for 15 months), you’ll live with the expecting parents who all face a gut-wrenching decision: should they take a leap of faith to repair birth defects with pre-natal surgery, even if it means they might lose their child? You’ll experience rarely seen, real-time footage of operations on the fetus. And, you’ll gain a window into the inner lives of an unusual team of doctors who have defied skeptics and chosen to pursue this high-risk/high-reward career path. Twice Born serves up both arresting human drama and astonishing medical science.

Viv's surgeon, Holly Hedrick, is one of the doctors who is profiled and most of hospital staff in the program are people that we have been treated by or have interacted with. The program shows all the places that we have been spending time over the past few months, including the Special Delivery Unit (where Viv was born) and the NICU (her current home). One of the moms profiled on the show was staying at the Camden Ronald McDonald House and they have some footage of her in the house and commuting to the hospital. Obviously we didn't have fetal surgery so the subject matter isn't entirely relevant, but there are definitely some parallels - the initial consultation, the testing, the uncertainty, etc. The series captures the reality of dealing with a birth defect diagnosis and showcases the amazing facility and team at CHOP.

The series is available at http://www.pbs.org/program/twice-born/.

Now onto Viv....

Our little lady had another great day! She's officially off of the CPAP and is now on a high flow cannula. Her feeds continue to increase every three hours and her morphine was weaned. Dr. Hedrick (her surgeon) stopped by to say hello and noted that Viv is exceeding everyone's expectations. We love our little overachiever! Not much else to report today...on to the pictures!

Sporting a super cute headband! 

"Stop taking my picture, mom!"