4 Months Old

Dear Abby,

You are 4 months old today! I prayed that today I would be able to tell you that things were so much better, but I can't do that yet, sweet baby. 

Since last month, so much has happened. You have had three surgeries and your daddy, puppies, and I moved to a new house. We also celebrated your first Thanksgiving! Though you were still in the hospital, and recovering from open-heart surgery, we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade together and you got to meet some more of your aunts and uncles. 

Some truly scary stuff happened too though, Abby. The day after Thanksgiving I thought we had lost you. The doctors were trying to help you when your lungs weren't working very well, but instead of fixing the problem, your heart rate and oxygen saturation plummeted. I remember looking frantically between your face turning blue and your falling heat rate on the monitors and being overwhelmed with a single thought. She's dying.

Almost in response to my thought, the doctors hit the code alarm while a nurse all but dragged me out of the room. I was trying to call your daddy, but I couldn't figure out what to do. The nurse called him while the social worker took me by the shoulders. She asked someone to call the chaplain, and I panicked, "not the chaplain, anyone but them, the chaplain only comes when something terrible has happened." 

I cried and cried while doctors and nurses were running around, calling out different instructions. At one point, somebody yelled for quiet, and the whole pod instantly fell silent. I remember nothing between that and one of the residents coming out to tell me that you were still alive. There had been a point where they couldn't find your pulse and had administered chest compressions, but you were alive. 

It was terrible, Abby, truly terrible, but I am so thankful that you made it through.  If I didn't treasure every moment with you before, I certainly do now.

You were kept on the ventilator from then until two days ago. The doctors prepared you as best they could to be taken off the ventilator, and everyone was very hopeful that this time would be a success. But, as we've come to expect, nothing is ever that simple. You are still struggling with one of your lungs collapsing. It's difficult to pinpoint the root cause, but lots of measures are being taken to try to get it to inflate again, and avoid a repeat of what happened a week and a half ago. I won't lie though, when I walked back in the room yesterday to find them doing lung treatments again, my heart dropped. Not again, please not again. Luckily, so far you're doing ok with them. You're struggling through withdrawal from all of the sedatives they had to have you on when you were intubated, but it seems like like little by little you're getting more comfortable. I think these next few days will be very important in understanding your healing process from here on out.

Though this month has been so so hard, Abby Wren, I am more thankful than ever to get the opportunity to love you. Yesterday marked the one year point from first finding out you were going to be joining our family, and though nothing has happened the way I would have anticipated, I look at your beautiful face each day and am reminded what a blessing you are - an absolute miracle.

I love you, Aberdeen. Keep fighting, baby bird.

Love,

Your Mommy