I can't help but use phrases like "long road" when talking of the time between Jane's first surgery and leaving the hospital after her second. As Jane has taught us repeatedly, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on what is planned. What was to "only" be open heart surgery became a series of procedures including abdominal surgeries for malrotated bowels and hernias. It was an imperfect storm, including a bout of pneumonia, that stretched what was to be a relatively brief hospital stay out to six weeks. Most of those days you could find Erin and I huddled in the ICU trying to ignore the bells and whistles of too many machines, doctors, nurses and technicians, trying to pretend that Jane wasn't repeatedly a moment from not being alive. In the midst of all of this, I was desperately trying to finish a remodel of our humble house. We weren't even, when not in the hospital, living in our own home. It has been a difficult year.
But today, our impossibly tough Jane is thriving. She's only had a small window of time to just be a baby and she's making the most of it. Smiling more than any baby should, let alone one with a zipper like scar running from from the top of her sternum to just above her navel, she's eating, laughing, pooping, deciding which toys are the best toys, and, of course, telling us with her simple and raucous vocabulary when she's not happy. She is, in other words, being a baby. Did I mention that she's more than a little cute?
It is a long and rough and hazardous road. We're very thankful that we're still on it. We're thankful for the friends and family that have so generously helped us stay sane, solvent, and alive and still able to laugh at the absurdity of all of it. I hope you and yours enjoy this day. We are. Thank you. Thank you.
We will be starting a "Jane" blog in the next few weeks.
And now, a few of the photos:
After months of battling feeding issues, Jane was ready. A few days before the second surgery...
A day or two after that surgery.
Nearly home, we thought...
She made it home for most of a day before things turned for the worst...
It's a surreal life in the hospital. "Quality" time with the baby...
Finally, more than a month later, Jane seems to come out of it. A big smile for her mother...
Does she understand what she's been through?
Headed home...
Being a baby...
Oh my...
Jane says "Thank you" in her own peculiar way
There are MANY more photos are available in Jane's smugmug gallery.
Thank you.
