The day finally arrived, Jesse and Sarah were in the operating room (OR) watching their daughter’s birthday come together in a rather unusual fashion.
“There were probably 40 people in the delivery room not including my wife and future daughter – it made things very real,” Jesse said.
“This wasn’t some medical TV show, but I felt like I was on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’,” Sarah quipped.
After a swift and successful C-section delivery of 3-pound, 14-ounce Aria, she was whisked to the Children’s Minnesota pediatric OR for immediate lung surgery. During surgery, Dr. Lillegard clearly saw that Aria’s lung mass was not a CPAM, but instead an even rarer condition called bronchopulmonary sequestration (BPS). This was great news, as BPS is a far less threatening condition that can be easily corrected by removing the nonfunctioning tissue. This diagnosis meant Aria has two normal and fully-functioning lungs.
Once Aria recovered from lung surgery, she spent weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) growing to 6 pounds to make her eligible for cardiac surgery to correct the coarctation of the aorta. The cardiac surgery was performed by Dr. David Overman, chief of the division of cardiovascular surgery at Children’s Minnesota, and it was a success.
“I wasn’t even concerned that there would be any issues with the heart surgery,” Jesse said.