The Diagnosis

Mom and I were excited to find out we were pregnant with our second child. We looked forward to teaching our daughter how to be a big sister.

We went to the normal 20 week ultrasound to see how things were going and hopefully learn if we were having a boy or girl. We found out it was a boy but our doctor noticed that something didn't look quite right with his heart. "There was too much white" near the heart. He said it may not be anything but he wanted it to be checked out further. So we set up an appointment with the "High Risk" OB to get another scan a week later. The doctor also noticed that things weren't as they should be and had us go get an echocardiogram with the pediatric cardiologist.

The echocardiogram is just like an ultrasound but much more sensitive, they were able to zoom in and show the 21 week old heart full screen. They were able to show the blood flow in and out of each part of the heart. From this scan they were able to diagnose Solomon with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). Hypo = less and plastic = tissue. So Solomon has less tissue on the left side of his heart. There are some links on the side if you want more info on HLHS.


We were told that HLHS is uniformly fatal in children that receive no intervention. We were given few options, none of them easy choices. Through prayer, scripture study, fasting, and research we are making the hard choices.