Emilia's (and our) Big Adventure

Starting Friday, August 5th Emilia slowly started to lose her appetite. By Saturday morning we were starting to get a little concerned. After talking to the after-hour nurses at Treasure Valley Pediatrics, we decided to just watch her for the afternoon. Around 5pm she was still not interested in eating, and she had not had a wet diaper since earlier that morning. We took her to urgent care to be on the safe side. The doctor at urgent care sent us to St. Luke's in Meridian just to be on the safe side. The fact that she had not peed was cause for concern that she may be dehydrated.

Once we were at St. Luke's, the nurses tried to draw blood and put in an IV so she could get fluids. Apparently it is hard enough to find a vein in an 11-day old baby, but poor Emilia was so dehydrated, finding a vein proved to be almost impossible. After poking and prodding, the nurses finally called two transport nurse practitioners who specialize in babies. These ladies were amazing, and I felt instantly reassured with my baby in their hands. They were able to place the IV, and they decided to keep us overnight to monitor Emilia. At this point Shelby and I assumed she had a tummy ache, and they would hydrate her and send her home in the morning. Shelby stayed home with the girls and Carson and I stayed at the hospital with Emilia. Around 2am I got up to try and feed her, but she still wasn't interested. The nurse that was taking care of her noticed at this point that her breathing was labored and called the respiratory nurse. He was stumped and called the on-call pediatrician, Dr. Koplan. She immediately made the decision to send Emilia to St. Luke's in Boise to see a specialist. It was not until this point that I got nervous that something was really wrong with our baby. The same nurse practitioners that took care of Emilia in the ER transported her to Boise. In Boise they determined fairly quickly that it was her heart. This was around 5am. I finally called Shelby, which I wish I had done sooner. Watching Emilia being stuck and poked and intibated was not fun to deal with alone. Shelby called his dad who more than willingly came down to stay with the other kids. A couple of hours later they determined that Emilia most likely had a coarctation of the aorta, which is a fancy way of saying her aorta is too narrow, and her heart was having to work too hard to get blood to the rest of her body. This is why she did not want to eat. It took too much effort for her body to digest the food. While the condition is fairly common, it is not a surgery they perform in Boise, so they flew Emilia and me to SLC while Shelby drove down. And guess who transported her to SLC? The same nurse practitioners. It suddenly occurred to me that they had been on shift for close to 20 hours at this point. I asked them if they work the longest shifts ever and they told me they had grown attached to Emilia and had requested to take her. This gesture was incredibly touching to me, and only one of many very kind things people have done for us during this crisis.

Once we were in Salt Lake, we were told we would meet a lot of people, and they were not lying! The doctors and nurses have been fantastic. Michael is the nurse who has been by our side the most. He has a light hearted nature, and seems very capable.

I told Melissa Millward what was going on and word spread like wildfire. Our ward has been amazing. They have taken over our garden, chickens and home more than willingly, all the while praying for us and Emilia and even putting her name on the prayer roll at the temple. Everyone truly loves us and is concerned for us.

My dad came down to our house the morning we left to get the kids. We only had an hour to get them and us ready for this trip, knowing we would be gone at least 10 days. My dad bathed and dressed the kids for us and took them to church for the day. It turns out we have more people willing to watch our kids than we have kids! We were going to send one to Sarah, one to Summer, and one to Chris and Felicia. Summer more than willingly took Carson, and then Sarah insisted on taking both Rachel and Lilly.

Nawlene and Cody drove down from IF to SLC just to be with us during this ordeal, and have taken great care of us. Cody got us a hotel room at the Marriott for our first night here when we had no place to stay. They would both be with us at the hospital every second if we needed them to.

Sara Fry about had a heart attack when she got my message telling her what had happened and that we were going to be in SLC for a while. She went out and bought us a huge amount of fruit and other fresh food, along with snacks for Shelby. Not to mention volunteered us a place to stay while we are here for as long as we need. My cousin Jade also offered us her home. In fact she went way out of her way to contact us and let us know she would help in any way she could. I even have a friend from high school that upon hearing about our ordeal offered us his relative's homes.



On August 9th, at 1pm Emilia went in for surgery. We are anxiously awaiting the results, but have every reason to believe she will come out of it without complications. We love this little girl and want nothing more than to take her home with us very soon. They anticipate a 2 week recovery and then she will be just like new.