We are excited to announce the birth of our son, Joshua Tyler Heygood! He came to us 2 weeks early, which was a welcome surprise since he was growing & quite active, punching/kicking Mom non-stop. J.C. went into early labor sometime last week but didn’t even notice that the contractions were anything different than all of his movements which were becoming so very strong lately. Finally, we ended up at the National Naval Medical Center early in the morning on August 7th. The doctors decided to do a c-section due to J.C.’s history of the pelvic surgery.

Joshua was born at 2:44pm with a strong set of lungs on him. Unfortunately, he began having breathing difficulties in his first few minutes & was rushed to the NICU. An echocardiogram revealed that Josh has Transposition of the Great Arteries, which basically means that the 2 arteries that pump blood away from his heart were backward. One artery was pumping oxygenated blood from the lungs to his heart & back to his lungs, which the other pumped deoxygenated blood to his body. Joshua also had an atrial septal defect, which is a hole between his right & left atria which allowed some blood to mix. This second condition, which usually bad on its own, actually helped him to get some oxygen to his little body.

We are so grateful to the wonderful care Joshua received by the entire medical team at NNMC. Joshua was rushed by ambulance to Children’s National Medical Center in DC within 4 hours after he was born. Mom & Dad were able to go into the NICU for a short visit, which meant the world to us that we could see him first while the team got him ready. J.C. even got to hold him for 10 minutes. While the news of Josh’s condition was very scary, & a complete shock to discover since it was never diagnosed before he was born, we were so very thankful that he was going to such a leading hospital to be treated & would have one of the world’s top pediatric cardiac surgeons to look after him.

Erick spent much of the next day with Joshua in Children’s Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU). He met Josh’s surgeon, Dr. Richard Jonas, & was reassured that he would have a good recovery following his upcoming surgery. Joshua underwent an interventional procedure to open another hole in between his atria to allow additional blood to be oxygenated before leaving his heart. This procedure went very well & the plan was set for his open heart surgery on the 10th.

J.C. was discharged from the hospital on August 9, after convincing her doctors that she was better off staying with Joshua than spending another day at NNMC. We both spent the remainder of the day with Josh in the CICU & were able to meet many members of his medical team. Dr. Jonas explained the surgical plans to switch Joshua’s arteries & repair the holes in his little heart. At some point, we hope to add links to websites that describe more about Joshua’s condition so that everyone can understand what’s going on, since neither of us were familiar with it (although we’ve since discovered that it’s actually the most common congenital cardiac birth defect).

We will update this website as often as we can to let you all know how Josh’s condition is doing, & how he’s growing (in addition to posting as many photos as we can take!). Since we aren’t able to call everyone, this will let us get the word out. Please bear with us as we spend time with Joshua at the hospital, but hopefully he will be home soon. Thank you for everything.

All our love,

J.C. & Erick