One Year Norwood Surgiversary!

Today is Audra's one year Norwood Surgiversary!  Yes, one year ago today at 7:15 AM she was just three days old and had her first open heart surgery.  How far we have come!

This morning a year ago, we spent 5 AM - 7 AM cuddling and taking some early morning photos.  It was such a hard morning for my husband and I - one of the hardest of our lives.  We had to hand our little 3 day old baby over for surgery - signing a document that we acknowledged that death was a risk - and sit by with only our faith, hopes and prayers.

While the time that we spent with Audra that morning flew by, the time waiting in the waiting room went by excruciatingly slow.  We tried to keep ourselves busy but it didn't help much.  We settled into a small room in the back of the waiting room and waited.  I tried to read but couldn't do much of anything.

After hearing a positive update from the nurse practitioner, we were told that Dr. Bove would be up to see us.  Waiting for Dr. Bove seemed like an eternity.  While we didn't want him to rush, we were eager to hear his prognosis and move along with recovery for Audra.  I remember him giving us a favorable prognosis for Audra and it was so reassuring because Dr. Bove has been doing this for a long time.  In fact, Audra's surgery that morning was about his 9,995th open heart surgery - just a few days later he celebrated his 10,000th surgery.

Once we spoke with Dr. Bove we had to wait longer until we could get back to the Bay to see Audra.  When we went to see Audra in the Bay, it was very difficult.  She was just a tiny 8 lbs baby who was hooked up to all these machines that, at the time, were very unfamiliar to us.  I remember how overwhelming it was to see my little baby the first time after surgery.  But we stayed positive and it is easy to look past all of the medical devices.  She was still our beautiful little girl and her heart was on the way to recovering.

When Audra came back from surgery, her chest was not closed because of the swelling of her heart in order to keep pressure down.  The opening was covered with a simple patch and you could see her little heart beating through the patch.  It is so weird to think that this is something that we have seen but it has become part of our normal.  We will take it if it means spending this wonderful time with our little one!

I remember when Audra got the hiccups the first time after surgery when her chest was still open.  I had to call the nurse over to ask her if everything was okay.  It looked so odd because of the patch on her chest and I had absolutely no clue that she just had the hiccups.  It looked like she was having some sort of spasms.  Fortunately, my husband's favorite nurse quickly set me straight.  She was not one to BS around.

It is hard to believe that this was all just a year ago.  On one hand, this year has passed so quickly but on the other hand, so much has happened in this past year that it seems like it has been at least two years packed into the one!  We are so very thankful and blessed to be where we are now.

Today we were able to celebrate Audra's 1st Birthday and Surgiversary with family.  Both of our girls have stuffy noses (and hopefully nothing more) so they were pretty cranky when they got up from their naps.  But they quickly warmed up and had such a fabulous time.  My sister made a great heart cake and Audra got to smash a heart cake of her own.  We had a great time and would rather spend the day like this than last year without a doubt!

Happy Surgiversary, Audra!  We love you very much!!!