The Marten Family

Tucker Marten is an identical twin to Thielen Marten born on 3/29/2019.  Tucker was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome at our 20 week anatomy scan.  His twin brother, Thielen, is 100% healthy.  Since Tucker's birth he has undergone his first open heart surgery (4/1/2019).  During his lifetime he will have a minimum of 3 open heart surgeries before the age of 5 years old.  During this first hospital stay and after his first open heart surgery, we have had many bumps in the road that is keeping us in the hospital longer than expected.  Tucker has his sano shunt placed and that was all healing nicely.  He has had prolonged chest closure because of fluid and swelling.  His chest closure took 4 different attempts before they were successful. 

Since the 1st of April, Tucker has gone back down to the OR four times, had a shunt revision, been on bypass twice, has been vented since April 1st, had a massive stroke, brain bleeds, and many seizures as complications to all of this.  He is one tough cookie for being only 3 weeks old and him and his brother miss each other fiercely.  We are looking forward to the day that we can bring Tucker home to be with the rest of the family.  

During this hospital stay, I have been 3.5 hours from home, going back and forth to the hospital, with Thielen in tow.  My husband had to go back to work because he was no longer getting paid. He travels back to Rochester (Mayo) every weekend with our 3 girls so I can get a couple of days with them, and so Eric can get a couple of days with his boys before we start are weeks apart all over again on Sunday evenings.  We have been doing this escapade since March 9th, 2019.  I had to move to Rochester, MN early just in case I went into pre-term labor with the twins.  I needed to be at the hospital that would perform our son's first open heart surgery.