Claudine got to pee into this jazzy little cup to test blood sugar levels and her risk of gestational diabetes.
Her overall risk percentage is thankfully low and everything seems to be progressing well.
My parents had a 1-2% chance of having a baby with a congenital heart defect like the one I was born with. Our baby will have a 5-6% chance of having the same defect because it shares my genetics. (I will be happy for it not to take after my gimp heart and to instead develop my stealth like wit and magnificent prowess of the human condition. Kidding…I hope our baby is a ninja.)
Whilst these low risk percentages are not particularly gobsmacking or nerve rattling overall; the cardiologist team at Toronto General has scheduled us to do a Fetal Cardiac Echo around the 18-20 week mark at Sick Kids Hospital on November 10. They will peek into the tiny forming heart chambers of our growing baby to look for the beginning of any anomalies that might develop into the same cardiac illness that I had. It is baffling to grasp the advances in technology that can now diagnose and potentially fix a heart condition in utero instead of out. We have full faith that all will be well. And even on the 5-6% chance that it is not, we know that we are in some of the best hands in the world.
SickKids Hospital in Toronto is the very place my family brought me so many years before when I was a 5-year-old with an unwell heart. The way that life can be so cyclical is fascinatingly daunting…
Xray of my enlarged heart prior to surgery in 1983
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