Faith
My husband and I are thrilled that our beautiful baby girl is finally here. It was a long, exhausting pregnancy filled with worry about the unknown but we are looking forward to putting that experience behind us and enjoying our two beautiful girls.
Throughout my pregnancy, supportive family and friends would tell me to have faith that everything would be all right with our little girl. At some point we decided that Faith was a very fitting name so that's what we went with. It also goes very nicely with her big sister's name so now we have Grace and Faith :)
One of the things that I need to do in order to move forward is to write about all of the feelings that I had in the last week. Writing is very therapeutic for me and always helps me feel better.
Our daughter was born via cesarean section but I was given the opportunity to watch her birth as the doctors and nurses lifted my head up right as she was coming out. With my pregnancy being so clinical, I appreciated the normalcy more than I can say. After a quick snuggle and kiss, she was whisked away to be checked out and started on a steroid that would keep a duct in her aorta open to allow the blood to flow through. A kind nurse took my phone from my husband and promised to take the first pictures of our baby girl for us. She came back to see us every few minutes to give us updates on the baby's stats and to let us know that she was doing very well. I will be forever grateful to her for the pictures, video and comforting words. She referred to me as "Mama" throughout my entire surgery and I will never forget the calming effect she had on me. I don't remember her name because there were so many people in the room but she was an angel in a nurse's uniform that day. Once I was taken in to the recovery room, the team from Sick Kids brought the baby over to see me so I could touch her and hold her hand for a minute before they took her for her tests. My husband went over with them and promised to return shortly with a full report on how she was doing. And just like that, I was alone. I was taken to the maternity ward to finish recovering. I was told that when I was able to stand up and use the washroom by myself, a porter would come and take me to Sick Kids to see my baby. Being wheeled into a room with other people holding their newborns and trying not to look at me once they noticed I was alone was extremely difficult. I wanted to tell them I didn't need their pity. My baby girl was going to be fine.
As soon as I was able, I was up and moving around. I was a mama on a mission and I needed to see my baby. She was on the cardiac floor of the Hospital for Sick Children and had a nurse watching her constantly. Besides the IV lines, she looked like a perfectly healthy baby. It was difficult to imagine something being wrong but the echo cardiogram done right after she was born confirmed her diagnosis of severe coarctation of the aorta. Later that day we were told that there had been a cancellation so her surgery was scheduled for the following day. Suddenly, everything was happening quickly and I had very little time to process it all. On the day we should have been celebrating a birth we were signing our consent for her cardiac surgery and were being prepared with the worst case scenario. When my husband and I were back in my hospital room, we found that even though it was after midnight and we were exhausted, neither of us could sleep. I remember looking over at him and just watching the tears roll down his cheeks. I couldn't say anything to make him feel better because I felt the exact same way. We set our alarms for an early wake-up call and settled in for the most restless night we have ever had. The next morning we got up and he helped me shower and get ready to head over to Sick Kids. My own recovery was not an issue. I simply couldn't lie down and rest after major abdominal surgery because I had a baby who needed me. A baby who spent her first night on earth alone in an incubator instead of in her mama's loving arms.
When we got to Sick Kids we found out that we had been bumped from 8am to 1pm. So we sat with our girl and held her and took pictures and just spent time with her. Shortly after noon they came to get her and I had to do the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life- I handed my newborn to a nurse who promised to stay by my baby's side the entire time. I could feel my heart shatter as we headed to the waiting room. Even with all the craziness of that day, my husband reminded me that I was still a patient so I allowed him to take me back to Mt. Sinai for my pain medication and to have something to eat. My mom, mother in law and sister were there and they promised to stay in the waiting room until we got back. Just remembering all the back and forth we did before I was discharged makes me tired. It was physically and emotionally draining. When we arrived back at Sick Kids the surgeon was making his way over to us to let us know everything had gone as expected and our baby girl was recovering. He said we could see her within the hour and that someone would come to call us once she was in the Cardiac Critical Care Unit. I was so caught up in the knowledge that she was doing well that I forgot to prepare myself for how she would look. There is nothing scarier as a parent than seeing your child hooked up to numerous IV lines, a feeding tube and heart monitors. I lost count of how many times I cried but I remember clearly how I broke down when I saw her following her surgery. She was puffy and bruised and looked as though she had been through hell. My poor baby was in pain and there was nothing I could do to help her. The night of her surgery, before I went to sleep I called the hospital to check on Faith and was told that she needed to have a breathing tube put in to help relieve some pressure on her lungs caused by a pocket of air. The nurse assured me that this was a common problem and would hopefully be resolved in a couple of days. I went to sleep that night hoping that this complication would be her last in a long line of struggles.
The days following Faith's surgery are a blur of speaking to doctors and nurses about her recovery, food court visits and walking the halls of Sick Kids. My husband and I talked a lot about how lucky we were and also cried together when we felt the need. No one in the world understood what I was feeling except for him and seeing his vulnerability helped me. He's a pretty strong guy who doesn't like to show his emotions but he's also a father and that trumps tough guy every time.
Although our hospital stay was difficult, it was nothing compared to what other people were facing because we would soon be bringing our little girl home. There were so many parents who were not as lucky. It was not uncommon to see people in the food court crying softly as they ate but, unlike any other hospital, we didn't wonder if it was over a lady at the end of her life. We knew that it was a family member overwhelmed and sad about a sick child. I can't possibly put that feeling into words but I can still feel that pit in my stomach when I think about it.
Since Faith's homecoming, she has been doing remarkably well. We are working on her feedings and have several follow-up appointments scheduled in the next couple of weeks. We are also settling into a new normal. We are a family of four now and I am enjoying watching my girls interact. If this experience has taught me anything it's to be grateful for the little things. So I stop and watch my toddler "read" a book to her sister and let them have their moment. Or I catch my husband singing nursery rhymes and smile when he messes up the words. Our lives are far from perfect but that simply doesn't matter. What matters is that my heart is full and the light has come back in my eyes. The heaviness that I carried with me throughout my pregnancy has lifted and I am ready to move forward with my husband, Grace and Faith <3
Throughout my pregnancy, supportive family and friends would tell me to have faith that everything would be all right with our little girl. At some point we decided that Faith was a very fitting name so that's what we went with. It also goes very nicely with her big sister's name so now we have Grace and Faith :)
One of the things that I need to do in order to move forward is to write about all of the feelings that I had in the last week. Writing is very therapeutic for me and always helps me feel better.
Our daughter was born via cesarean section but I was given the opportunity to watch her birth as the doctors and nurses lifted my head up right as she was coming out. With my pregnancy being so clinical, I appreciated the normalcy more than I can say. After a quick snuggle and kiss, she was whisked away to be checked out and started on a steroid that would keep a duct in her aorta open to allow the blood to flow through. A kind nurse took my phone from my husband and promised to take the first pictures of our baby girl for us. She came back to see us every few minutes to give us updates on the baby's stats and to let us know that she was doing very well. I will be forever grateful to her for the pictures, video and comforting words. She referred to me as "Mama" throughout my entire surgery and I will never forget the calming effect she had on me. I don't remember her name because there were so many people in the room but she was an angel in a nurse's uniform that day. Once I was taken in to the recovery room, the team from Sick Kids brought the baby over to see me so I could touch her and hold her hand for a minute before they took her for her tests. My husband went over with them and promised to return shortly with a full report on how she was doing. And just like that, I was alone. I was taken to the maternity ward to finish recovering. I was told that when I was able to stand up and use the washroom by myself, a porter would come and take me to Sick Kids to see my baby. Being wheeled into a room with other people holding their newborns and trying not to look at me once they noticed I was alone was extremely difficult. I wanted to tell them I didn't need their pity. My baby girl was going to be fine.
As soon as I was able, I was up and moving around. I was a mama on a mission and I needed to see my baby. She was on the cardiac floor of the Hospital for Sick Children and had a nurse watching her constantly. Besides the IV lines, she looked like a perfectly healthy baby. It was difficult to imagine something being wrong but the echo cardiogram done right after she was born confirmed her diagnosis of severe coarctation of the aorta. Later that day we were told that there had been a cancellation so her surgery was scheduled for the following day. Suddenly, everything was happening quickly and I had very little time to process it all. On the day we should have been celebrating a birth we were signing our consent for her cardiac surgery and were being prepared with the worst case scenario. When my husband and I were back in my hospital room, we found that even though it was after midnight and we were exhausted, neither of us could sleep. I remember looking over at him and just watching the tears roll down his cheeks. I couldn't say anything to make him feel better because I felt the exact same way. We set our alarms for an early wake-up call and settled in for the most restless night we have ever had. The next morning we got up and he helped me shower and get ready to head over to Sick Kids. My own recovery was not an issue. I simply couldn't lie down and rest after major abdominal surgery because I had a baby who needed me. A baby who spent her first night on earth alone in an incubator instead of in her mama's loving arms.
When we got to Sick Kids we found out that we had been bumped from 8am to 1pm. So we sat with our girl and held her and took pictures and just spent time with her. Shortly after noon they came to get her and I had to do the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life- I handed my newborn to a nurse who promised to stay by my baby's side the entire time. I could feel my heart shatter as we headed to the waiting room. Even with all the craziness of that day, my husband reminded me that I was still a patient so I allowed him to take me back to Mt. Sinai for my pain medication and to have something to eat. My mom, mother in law and sister were there and they promised to stay in the waiting room until we got back. Just remembering all the back and forth we did before I was discharged makes me tired. It was physically and emotionally draining. When we arrived back at Sick Kids the surgeon was making his way over to us to let us know everything had gone as expected and our baby girl was recovering. He said we could see her within the hour and that someone would come to call us once she was in the Cardiac Critical Care Unit. I was so caught up in the knowledge that she was doing well that I forgot to prepare myself for how she would look. There is nothing scarier as a parent than seeing your child hooked up to numerous IV lines, a feeding tube and heart monitors. I lost count of how many times I cried but I remember clearly how I broke down when I saw her following her surgery. She was puffy and bruised and looked as though she had been through hell. My poor baby was in pain and there was nothing I could do to help her. The night of her surgery, before I went to sleep I called the hospital to check on Faith and was told that she needed to have a breathing tube put in to help relieve some pressure on her lungs caused by a pocket of air. The nurse assured me that this was a common problem and would hopefully be resolved in a couple of days. I went to sleep that night hoping that this complication would be her last in a long line of struggles.
The days following Faith's surgery are a blur of speaking to doctors and nurses about her recovery, food court visits and walking the halls of Sick Kids. My husband and I talked a lot about how lucky we were and also cried together when we felt the need. No one in the world understood what I was feeling except for him and seeing his vulnerability helped me. He's a pretty strong guy who doesn't like to show his emotions but he's also a father and that trumps tough guy every time.
Although our hospital stay was difficult, it was nothing compared to what other people were facing because we would soon be bringing our little girl home. There were so many parents who were not as lucky. It was not uncommon to see people in the food court crying softly as they ate but, unlike any other hospital, we didn't wonder if it was over a lady at the end of her life. We knew that it was a family member overwhelmed and sad about a sick child. I can't possibly put that feeling into words but I can still feel that pit in my stomach when I think about it.
Since Faith's homecoming, she has been doing remarkably well. We are working on her feedings and have several follow-up appointments scheduled in the next couple of weeks. We are also settling into a new normal. We are a family of four now and I am enjoying watching my girls interact. If this experience has taught me anything it's to be grateful for the little things. So I stop and watch my toddler "read" a book to her sister and let them have their moment. Or I catch my husband singing nursery rhymes and smile when he messes up the words. Our lives are far from perfect but that simply doesn't matter. What matters is that my heart is full and the light has come back in my eyes. The heaviness that I carried with me throughout my pregnancy has lifted and I am ready to move forward with my husband, Grace and Faith <3
Your family is truly blessed my friend. You have this amazing way of writing! I could read your blogs for ever! While I was reading what you wrote I felt like I was right there with you! I could picture it all in my mind's eye! I could feel the emotions as you expressed them and I could feel the tears you and your amazing husband shed! Faith is strong and a gift! She is a great blessing and a gift to all that will meet her as her life continues on!
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