One picture. One specific moment that makes me feel grateful. How can I possibly choose just one?
Today is not only Valentine’s Day. It is also National Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day.
For this full day (week) to bring awareness to something I am passionate about … I am incredibly grateful … this is what led me to my picture for Day 7.
Our sweet Nannie (little did we know it) was born with an Atrial Septal Defect.
For many parents this means nothing. For us, however, it was a diagnosis that changed our lives. A diagnosis that literally threw us into the overwhelming world of cardiologists, oxygen saturations, repeat pneumonias, failure to thrive and open heart surgery. Into a world of words that needed medical dictionaries to understand, knowledge of the human heart that equals that of surgeons ~ how it works, how it can fail …. how it was failing. Into a world of emotions that no parent should have to face, have to fight, have to believe and hope will not become their reality.
The picture I chose is the last picture we took of our sweet Nannie before I carried her down the hall, held her while she fell asleep and handed her over to a room full of people we needed to have complete faith in. Some we had met the day before, others we had never met. Within moments they would stop our sweet daughters heart in order to make her better... they would literally hold her small heart in their hands.
This picture, for me, is a reminder for what we have overcome with sweet Nannie. It reminds me how incredibly loved we are, how much we have to offer others with our experience, how incredibly grateful we are for our surgeon who helped heal Nannies heart. Who helped heal Nannies heart so she can be here, today, so she can celebrate Valentine’s Day with us, so she can live.
Grateful.
xo,
Steph
No comments:
Post a Comment