Confirmed

We're back from the scan with the specialist, and, as expected its not good news. It turns out that Caitlin is definitely missing one of the sections of her heart, and this is about as bad as it can be. 

The specialist wanted to do some genetic tests to see if there are any other complications, but we refused. Her reasoning was that this sort of problem can have an underlying genetic basis, meaning that there may, potentially, be other problems (ie Caitlin wont necessarily be a healthy baby with a bad heart) & thus cause complications for future procedures - however, we rejected the tests. Not only does it come with a small but noticeably higher rate of miscarriage, but the only reason to do these tests would be to determine whether we want a termination. C & I, after discussion, do not want an abortion - Caitlin is ours and is perfectly safe where she is at present, so she's staying put.

We have taken some comfort from the fact that there are, as grampus points out, treatments available, so we might be able to salvage some life for her from this catastrophe, but we are also aware that we have to ensure that she has the best quality of life she can have. The one thing that we dont want is to force her to endure painful operations because we are too selfish to let her die in peace.

So, if the worst comes to the worst & the doctors tell us that there is no chance, we might have to forego the possibility of operations and just allow her to go in her own time. 

S