THE BIG DAY!

It was January 8th 2016 at 6:00 am that we walked onto the 4th floor of the hospital. That floor is reserved for those who are going into surgery. Our little girl was going to have open heart surgery...ahhh!!! All I kept thinking was I should have a scar right down the middle of my chest where my little Eden was about to have one because it felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest through all of this. We waited and waited and finally it was her turn to go back... THE MOMENT! I wanted to cry as I handed her off to a woman I had met only once in my life for only a few minutes and for all the true mothers out there that is totally against your instincts! That whole afternoon I felt sick and just totally out of it, probably from the exhaustion emotionally and physically. Finally after about 4 or 5 hours her surgeon came up to talk to us and he said Eden did great and she was waiting for us in ICU! This mama could breath again, my baby made it and with flying colors! I attribute Eden's abilities and miracles to God and all of the people praying for her and us through it all.

Eden recovered very quickly and made a lot of friends in her short stay at the hospital. I'm glad it's starting to get a little more normal around here and we get to see our "friends" a little less and less these days lol. We are forever grateful for those who helped us cross that very very very long bridge in our lives.

Here's our little victor!

Where to start....
Well all of you should know that I am a mom and I am not the best at grammar so please forgive me and read on! I'd just like to say that my journey to be a mom started in a kind of crazy way about 1 year ago. I found out I was pregnant with my first child and I was very excited and nervous. Everything was just going swimmingly, then one day I got a phone call... duh duh duh!! The doctors thought something was wrong with our precious baby girl and suddenly my world went into chaos and panic, they told me to stay calm but that was easier said than done. About a week later I found out that my daughter had water on her brain, a large hole in her heart, the blood flow from my placenta to her was also flat lining and they thought she might not make it, and they suspected that she had Down Syndrome, I was devastated and I did not want to believe that this was happening to me. The TRUTH was it was happening to me and even if I loved God that didn't exclude me from the world that I live in. wah wah wah! We started a series of ultrasounds that went on from June through September starting one time a week and gradually having to go to the hospital twice a week.
   On September 14th, 2015 I went in for my weekly routine of being checked on and the nurse asked me if I noticed that Eden was not moving around as much as usual and I said yes but I thought it might have been just because we had a very busy week and we were both tired. Needless to say they decided to induce me that day at 37 weeks gestation! WOW! I had Eden after 54.5 hours of contractions and labor, I gave into the epidural after 49 hours and no shame in that lol! Eden was born on September 16th at 8:53 pm. She was and is beautiful and perfect in my eyes! She was doing great after delivery and got to stay with us the entire time, no NI CU!
The next day Eden had a brain scan and it came back normal. The doctors also did an ECHO on her heart and they did see a large VSD ( ventricular septal defect )  but she was still fighting like a champ! Over the next three and a half months of her life we had a lot of cardiologist appointments to keep an eye on her.
We quickly realized this little heart was probably going to need OHS (open heart surgery). As a new mom I lived three months of my life in complete fear of the unknown for my daughter, I'm still working on that! Our last appointment was December 21st and we were told that Eden would require an OHS in about two weeks. By that time I had made peace with one of the scariest things I've ever had to go through.

Eden does have DS (Down Syndrome) but listen people it isn't that scary.  Eden is a little girl who is going to do what other kids do, she just has an extra chromosome and that's okay to! And I am JUST a mom who wants to do what all the other moms are doing and talking about.

God Bless!!!