Faye Kirschbaum

January 13th, 2021

This was the day we were referred to St. Mary's in Madison, WI to work with a pediatric cardiologist. This was the day that it was detected that our unborn baby had an issue with his heart. At first it was slow, then it was fast, then there were skipped beats. It was all over the place. From St. Mary's we were referred to take part in a study at the WIMR Center on the UW-Madison campus. Here they conducted in fetal MCG through biomagnatism (some pretty amazing technology). Through this study, it was deteched inutero that our baby had Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome, a syndrome that causes the heart to beat abnormally fast for periods of time and is caused by an extra electrical pathway in the heart. 

Crew Mathew was born on March 31st, 2021 through emergency c-section after a routine visit with our cardiologist at St. Mary's. During the appointment, it was detected that Crew was in SVT (heart beating extremely fast), and he wasn't coming out of it, so, emergency c-section it was. 

Crew stayed in the NICU for a few days and responded extremely well to the medicine. So we were sent home with our very own stethoscope and directions on how to administer medications and suppliments. 

We visited with our family doctor about 1-2 weeks after bringing him home. Time has eluded me, but it wasn't long after we brough him home. While at this appointment, Crew went into SVT so we were shipped off to Madison for another NICU stay. Want to know the real kicker here? On the way to Madison, I, the mama.. who just had a c-section, started feeling unwell. We arrived to Madison and got all settled and ate some dinner. Within an hour, the stomach flu took full force on me. I don't wish the pain of getting sick with fresh c-section incisions on anyone. To add to the pain, they told me I had to leave my newborn in the NICU and couldn't be around him, which totally makes sense. So, for the next few days, family members and friends.. such beautiful selfless souls, offered to make trips to Madison to drop off my milk for Crew. 

Want to know the worst phone call you can ever receive? 

2:30 A.M. "Hello, is this Faye the mother of Crew?"... Crew went into SVT again and I wasn't there to comfort him.. They couldn't get him out of it with any maneuvers or medications. Out came the paddles. They had to use defribrillation on Crew. My mama heart hurts to know that he had to feel that. Silver lining that hopefully he doesn't remember. 

Between the ages of 1 and 2, we had a couple handfulls of hospital stays including one med-flight. Knock on wood, from ages 2-almost 3 coming up here, we have had only 1 episode and I successfully got him out of it at home. We aren't out of the woods yet. He still has to take medicine every 8 hours and has routine visits with his cardiologist. When he turns 4, we will be having an ablation. He also has to be 40 pounds, but I don't think we will have much trouble getting there. 

Until then, Crew continues being the loving, rough housing, always on the go little man! 

The Children's Heart Foundation was founded in 1996 and is the country's leading organization solely dedicated to funding congenital heart defect (CHD) research. 

Our mission is to advance the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of congenital heart defects by funding the most promising research.