It was at our 12-week ultrasound when Meg and I learned that our baby boy had an abnormal nuchal translucency screening. Typically seven is a lucky number. In this case, a nuchal fold seven millimeters thick was more than twice the outer limit of a “normal” reading. After four long weeks waiting for our next ultrasound, we would eventually learn that our baby’s abnormally thick nuchal fold was caused by a rare and complex heart condition called single ventricle defect.

A healthy heart has four chambers: a right and left atrium and a right and left ventricle.  Our 16-week ultrasound showed that our baby’s heart had only three of those chambers. He was missing one of the two ventricles he would eventually need to properly pump blood throughout his body. Three quarters of a heart will get the job done in utero because the baby has his mother to provide oxygenated blood for him that he could not otherwise provide for himself. But until about 35 years ago, a baby could not survive more than a few days after birth with only one ventricle. Medical developments have since opened the door for children with this diagnosis to not only survive, but to also live full and relatively healthy lives.

This is the story of our pregnancy with a child diagnosed with single ventricle defect.  We’ve chosen to live our story with hope, optimism and two and three quarters of hearts full of love.

Why a blog and why now?

Meg and I decided to start a blog for a few reasons. First, we wanted to keep our friends and family up-to-date with the course of our pregnancy and the health of our baby boy, and we found this to be the most efficient way for us to do that. Second, we thought sharing our experience could be of some help to others. Hopefully our perspective provides others facing a similar path with reason to be strong and hopeful. Third, we decided to share our story for ourselves. Meg and I have each grieved — separately and together — and have previously found that healing and growing most readily occur through sharing with and supporting others. And fourth, we decided to start sharing our story now because we have made the decision to commit to doing everything we can to bring a healthy and full life to our first child, Theodore Patrick Becker (Theo to his mother, Teddy to his father).

We’re ready for this journey, acknowledging it will at times be difficult, and we hope you take something — large or small — from our story. Feel free to share it as you see fit. To many, it may have only marginal meaning; to others, it may strike a chord that changes a life for the better. We trust that it will find whom it is meant to find.

[Parenthood] is about raising and celebrating the child you have, not the child you thought you would have. It’s about understanding that he is exactly the person he is supposed to be. And that, if you’re lucky, he just might be the teacher who turns you into the person you’re supposed to be.

— Joan Ryan