A coarctation is a closing of the aorta. Colleen was born with an undetectable birth defect of her heart. Her cardiologist at St. Vincent's Hospital explained that when babies are in the womb, they have an artery that attaches to the aorta and goes to the umbilical cord. Its purpose is to bypass the lungs, since they aren't working yet, and get the blood to the mommy for her to oxygenate. When baby is born, her first breath gets the process going of closing that artery (and several other holes in the heart). In Colleen's case, when the artery finished closing - which it does around 3-4 weeks of age - the muscle helping it to close clamped around the aorta and shut down her blood flow. Her heart was working overtime to pump through a tiny little opening and eventually failed.

Colleen's first piece of mail ever came from the fire department thanking her for using their ambulance services.

The condition was not noticeable until at the last few days before it happened. So, even though she had had a "well baby visit" at the pediatrician's office just 10 days before and was seen by a nurse for a weigh check just two days before, she had no symptoms that either the doctor or the nurse could have seen. The cardiologist said based on the symptoms I told him, it was likely that in her case it wasn't even diagnosable until the last 24 hours before it happened. A coarctation can present itself very fast.

Fortunately, we have an awesome pediatrician who had us come in when I called about some initial signs. I noticed that she was cold and clammy around midnight. Thinking that the extreme humidity outside and the cold air conditioning inside was the culprit, I dressed her in another layer of clothes and double-wrapped her in blankets. Colleen is normally a very warm baby, so to me, this was extreme measures.

She ate normally until midnight, then fell asleep. I put her to bed, expecting to be awakened at least by 2 a.m., which was her typical sleeping/eating pattern at the time. Some nights, she would be awake at 12:30 a.m., 1:30 a.m., 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., wanting to eat every hour! On this night, I woke to some restless crying and checked the clock. 4 a.m.!!! "Wow," I thought, "this kid is going to start sleeping through the night!"

I picked her up, expecting her to be ravenous. At that point, she had missed at least two feedings and, on a hungry night, four. We settled on the couch to nurse. She didn't eat nearly as well as I expected and zonked out within a few minutes. This was definitely unusual.

Having had four hours of sleep - the longest stretch for me since before she was born - I was wide awake and a little worried. Her skin under her clothes was still cool to my touch, but not moist. I thought I would try taking her temperature. I broke out our new, unused baby thermometer and tried it out. The temperature was 97.0. I thought that was odd, but figured the thermometer could be broken. I read the instructions and found that for an underarm temperature I need to add 1.0. So, her temperature was actually 98.0 - well within the range for normal. "Ok," I thought, "you are just being a paranoid mom."

However, this sleeping too much and eating too little thing was bugging me. I sat on the couch and watched her sleep next to me for an hour. I figured she would wake up any minute and be ready to eat. After an hour passed, I decided to wake her myself and make her eat (my breasts were begging me to do it by that point). I messed with her feet and tickled her face. I succeeded in getting her awake and mad, but when I tried to feed her, she made a few half-hearted sucks and went back to sleep.

The noise woke Troy up and I told him I was a little worried about her. Together, we tried to take her temperature a few more times and still got the 97.0 or 96.9 temp. I decided I was fussing over nothing and maybe we should all go to bed and enjoy our sleep.

Around 9 a.m. she was awake again and gave another attempt at eating. What I didn't realize through all these nursing attempts was that she was having trouble eating. Sucking requires a lot of energy from a baby - especially breastfeeding - and the nursing was wearing her out. Her heart was not getting the oxygen to her muscles, so, after she would try to nurse a few minutes, she would have to stop and take a nap.

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