written by Gina, Gunnar’s mom

 

Gunnar. His name means Bold Warrior. He is our Bold Heart Warrior, a Heart Hero. 

 

I thought our oldest son, Deacon, was a girl throughout my entire pregnancy, so as to not be as surprised with my second birth, my husband and I wanted to find out the gender of our second child prenatally. We went into our 20-week ultrasound excited to get our child’s gender in an envelope to reveal later that week.

 

After the ultrasound, we got a call to take a closer look at the baby’s heart. The next day, and 3.5 hours later, we were told our baby had a heart defect called Ebstein’s Anomaly of the Tricuspid Valve. His heart was enlarged, and he may not live another week. We had our gender reveal the following weekend, and while we were thrilled our firstborn son would have a younger brother, we were so scared that I would stop feeling him kick any day. 

 

After six weeks of weekly ultrasounds, our baby boy’s heart was healing! His heart was still enlarged, but holding steady. His tricuspid valve looked better and it wasn’t leaking as much. 

 

Gunnar was born on November 9th, 2016 with an entire NICU team waiting for him, but our bold warrior was given right back to us,  beautiful and healthy! Gunnar has Down syndrome, and about 50% of babies with Down syndrome are born with a heart defect. He did have a small hole, an ASD, but there were no immediate concerns. 

 

We went in every six months for echos, and the first two looked great. When Gunnar was about 16 months old, we had another echo and were told he would need open heart surgery to close his Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). We couldn’t believe it. We had a second opinion that confirmed the placement of the ASD and that he would indeed need open heart surgery to close the hole. 

 

Gunnar had open heart surgery on June 7th, 2018. In only his amazing bold warrior fashion, he was out of surgery in less than 4 hours, and home from the hospital in three and a half days! He started four-point crawling the day he came home and always kept a smile on his face! 

 

We were thrown a curve ball at his six month post-op follow up when his cardiologist found that his sternum had not healed correctly. Gunnar went back in for surgery on November 28th, 2018. Again, our warrior was out of surgery quickly and was sent home the next day! He has also started walking since then! 

 

Gunnar has been through a lot, but has been such a warrior through it all. Our Heart Hero Cape reminds us that he is a hero, a bold warrior.

 

 

Gunnar lives in Centerville, MN with his mom and dad, older brother, Deacon, and hyper Black Lab, Pepper. He recently turned two and is walking! He loves dancing and trying to keep up with his brother!