Earlier today, I read a blog post about hope. There was apparently a "hope challenge". Here is a link to this blog post: html?spref=fbhttp://sliceofhumble.blogspot.com/2012/08/humble-and-hopeful-hope-2012-blog-relay.html?spref=fb
The surgeon was very positive. He kept saying that "these babies grow" well, and often do fine with surgery. We found lots of kids online who were doing really well. My husband was a little doubtful, but he was willing to support our having the baby and then the surgery. There would a series of three surgeries over his first few years of life.
So this made me think about what I would write about hope. A disclaimer: this is just off the top of my head, so perhaps not all that well-written, but I am giving it a try.
Five years ago, I had hope. I had so much hope for the little baby growing daily inside of me. At this time five years ago, we'd just gotten the news that our (first) son had his great-grandpa's head shape and that he had half a heart.
The surgeon was very positive. He kept saying that "these babies grow" well, and often do fine with surgery. We found lots of kids online who were doing really well. My husband was a little doubtful, but he was willing to support our having the baby and then the surgery. There would a series of three surgeries over his first few years of life.
I was very, very hopeful for our baby. He was our first. I had wanted to become a mother for years, and finally, I was a mother. And we had so many difficult decisions to make, but in them all, I had hope.
I still had hope after he was born, and more and more issues were discovered. There were plenty of positives, too . . . despite everything, he seems to have excellent muscle tone, movement, brain activity, and so on. All of the hospital personnel seemed fairly surprised about all of this. His first surgery went well. We had hope.
When S was about a month old, and had successfully gotten off a stint of three days on ECMO, the baby girl in the next room was removed from her life support. Her family sat for hours in there, holding her and loving her. That's when my hope starting going downhill.
After S died nearly three months later, hope seemed to linger, but for me it was dimmed. For the next year, it was difficult. It was hard. How was I supposed to choose hope? And then TTC again was difficult.
Then when I had conceived, I suddenly had more hope . . . and I had to stay positive, even though that was hard. Who knew if this baby was going to be healthy?
When S was about a month old, and had successfully gotten off a stint of three days on ECMO, the baby girl in the next room was removed from her life support. Her family sat for hours in there, holding her and loving her. That's when my hope starting going downhill.
After S died nearly three months later, hope seemed to linger, but for me it was dimmed. For the next year, it was difficult. It was hard. How was I supposed to choose hope? And then TTC again was difficult.
Then when I had conceived, I suddenly had more hope . . . and I had to stay positive, even though that was hard. Who knew if this baby was going to be healthy?
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