Heart Cath ... from Harper's mom

Tuesday, we brought Harper back to see her cardiologist due to her breathing becoming a lot more rapid and little more labored. The Dr decided we should go ahead with a heart cath just to get a better look at things and to determine what our next plan of care should be. She is out growing her pulmonary band previously placed and the coarctation of her aorta has recoarcted which means that the blood doesn't really know where to go, if it trys to go back into in the lungs it can't because of the band and if it trys to go to the rest of her body it can't because of the narrowing in the aorta. This is causing her to breath faster and heavier. Hopefully, during the heart cath they will be able to put a balloon in the narrow area of her aorta to open it up and allow the blood to feed her lower body. They will also take a look at the entire anatomy of her heart and have a better understanding of what we are dealing with, from this they will be able to tell if we need to go ahead with open heart surgery or if we can continue to grow and get stronger before we have it.
We came back to UAB yesterday and will probably be here through the weekend. I will try to keep updates coming. We appreciate everyone who takes the time to read this and all the prayers. We walked her down to the surgery doors at about 9:15, so now we are just waiting...