For Camille, a nurse at University Hospital, the Fetal Heart Center has also put all the consultations in one place, reducing stress and coordinating things.

Kelso routinely takes parents expecting a child with a serious heart defect on a tour of the intensive care unit, so they'll know what it looks like and what to expect. They talk to parents about the surgery — or surgeries — that will be needed and what will be done. In a very rare case, a baby had his surgery in utero.

In Baby Hood's case, they can't plan everything yet. Variables like how large the ascending aorta is make a difference. If it's a good size, immediate intervention may not be needed. Typically, the three-phase surgery for tricuspid atresia starts with a shunt when baby's pretty young to connect the aorta to the branch pulmonary artery, so blood can flow to the lungs. In phase 2, a Glenn shunt, the main pulmonary artery is tied off and removed, then the superior vena cava is connected to the right pulmonary branch artery, the unoxygenated "blue" blood of the upper body sent to the lungs without passing through the heart. At that stage, the earlier shunt is removed. The Glenn shunt reduces how hard the heart has to work.

Finally, in a Fontan procedure when the baby is 2 or 3, the blue blood from the lower part of the body will be sent to the lungs using the inferior vena cava, the right atrial wall and Gore-Tex material. It too enters the lungs without being pumped by the heart. The heart's job will be to pump red, oxygenated blood out to the body.

Besides Mom and Dad, the baby has a brother, Sam, who is 3.

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E-mail: lois@desnews.com