Jacqueline was born 9:17 am on December 9 2001. It was amazing because it was her actual due date. And not only that, labor started at exactly the stroke of midnight. By 12:30 am I knew that it was time!
The first few weeks we really enjoyed getting to know eachother, and she was eager to meet the rest of the family. Caitlin, Jackie's older sister, was thrilled to have a baby sister.
When Jackie was 4 weeks old, she still was jaundiced, wasn't gaining weight very well, and wasn't eating well. We took her to her pediatrician's office that Friday morning and they did some bloodwork on her. That was the beginning of a really tough battle for Jackie.
Within a week, she had met with a GI doctor, was diagnosed with Biliary Atresia and met with an awesome surgery office at St. Christopher's. She had to have a surgery called the Kasai procedure. Because in the disease Biliary Atresia, the bile ducts to the liver are blocked or damaged, there is no or little bile flow. The Kasai procedure is an attempt to restore bile flow by connecting the small intestine to the liver and bypassing the bile ducts.
Her surgery was successful, for a while anyway. She was hospitalized in January and in February with an infection called Cholangitis. It took 7 -14 days of IV antibiotics to clear up the infection. After that she was doing great for about 3 months!
Then towards the end of May 2002 Jackie wasn't eating very well and eventually they put her on an NG feeding tube. It was scary to see her with it and scary to learn how to do it, but we got through it. Jackie was also having problems with Ascites ( fluid collecting in the abdomen) in July and August. She was listed for a liver transplant in July 2002. During all her hospital stays, it was suspected that Jackie had a clot in her portal vein, but noone was 100% sure.
By the end of August, Jackie's ascites appeared to be even worse, and the transplant team began evaluating me to be her living donor. We had the surgery set for Oct 4 2002. I was a match and was very excited to be able to do this for her!
It was a good thing her surgery was scheduled, because she began to look more and more yellow (to me anyway) and I was getting anxious. In fact, I did everythng in my power to avoid catching a cold!
Fianlly the day arrived and Jackie got her new liver!
She was doing pretty good for the most part for about 2 weeks, but then her ascites came back ans she had to be moved back to ICU because it was interfering with her breathing. A few days later they tried doing a tap in her abdomen to drain the fluid. (They got 1500 ccs!!) but it came back with in a day or two. We were pretty worried at this point. But then the surgeon told us that her portal vein was clogged and that they needed to bypass her portal vein and use a cadaever donor vein. After another long, extensive surgery,that thankfully that did the trick. Finally she was able to come home on Nov 19th! We were all so excited! She was hospitalized twice for dehydration in December 2002 and Rotovirus in February 2003.
During mid-October 2005, we were beginning to fear the worst: that there wouldn't be a liver available for Jackie in time. It was always in the back of our minds, but each day that passed made the possibility more real.
Finally, midnight October 15, 2005 we got a late night call. THEY HAD A POSSIBLE LIVER FOR JACKIE! And she's been smiling ever since...
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