Li'l Miss Swiss Cheese Heart

Hannah and I bundled up today and went to see her cardiologist.  I'm happy to say that may be one of our last visits!  That's because Dr. C said he sees no reason to put off her surgery any longer and he will be presenting her case to the surgeons for consideration at their conference on Tuesday.  Hooray!  I felt a little weird during the appointment when I was getting excited about her surgery.  I'm sure at some point it will hit me and I will get scared and nervous and cry again, but for now I'm relieved.  

So here are the answers to some of your questions:

-Hannah breathes fast.  Like 80 breaths a minute when she's awake.  This is pretty much her norm and has been since birth, but she's going to start tiring out soon.  Fixing the holes in her heart will cure that.

-Ready to get your Google on: Hannah has an atrial septal defect (ASD) which the cardiologist said is more like a patent foramen ovale (PFO), two ventricular septal defects (VSD) one is kind of in front of the other, and a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), these are the holes the surgeon will close.  There are some other little variations in her heart that the doc said are like little oddities that they don't need to fix and won't affect her at all.  I can picture the surgeons getting into her little chest and going, "huh, look at that..." 

-Her heart was enlarged a little at the last appt in September, it's working harder to pump the blood thru her body, it's a muscle, therefore it grows.  Now the left ventricle is starting to enlarge as well.

-She is not gaining weight as fast as she used too, she was 6 lbs 14 oz today with a wet diaper on!  She should be 7 lbs or more if she was following her growth curve.

-Once the surgeons decide it's time to do surgery it should only take a week or two to get her on the schedule. 

-She will probably be in the hospital for a week or maybe two after her surgery, it all depends on how well and soon she can start eating again. 

 

And lastly:

-It's open heart surgery. That one took me awhile to wrap my mind around.  There are some other complex details that I'm probably forgetting for now, but that touches the surface.

So I'm happy.  And excited to get this all over with and behind us.  I'm nervous about surgery, but I've already had a chance to roll some of that around in my head for awhile, so I'm not as freaked out about it.

So be praying that the surgeons accept Hannah for surgery, that we can schedule it really soon and that she stay healthy so she can have surgery when it's scheduled.  I think I'm going to go buy a Costco size bottle of hand sanitizer and slather the other two kids in it daily.  You can email me questions, thanks for reading!

Back to the grind

Yesterday was my first day back to work.  I must admit that I really didn't want to go back, not in the least bit, not at all.  But I had to go back, and it really wasn't that bad.

Don't get me wrong, I love my co-workers, my friends at work.  For the last few weeks leading up to Hannah's birth when I was so stressed out everyone took care of me.  They listened to my worries and assured me that she would be okay and that whatever happened they would be there for me.  When Hannah was born they all came to celebrate and congratulate!  They decorated my postpartum room for me, everyone came in to visit, I felt immensely loved!

Then I went home.

I missed my friends at work for the first several days.  I spent the first 3 weeks or so of my maternity leave texting my work buddies.  I felt a little lonely, a little left out of all the excitement at work.  Eventually it wore off.

I live in a weird world.  I desire to be a stay at home mom, yet I desire to be at work.  I'm sure there are several thousands of women out there just like me.  When I'm home I'm happy, I've really learned to embrace my home and my family and my roles as a wife and mother while I've been on maternity leave this time.  There was no stress of, "I have to get all this done today because I have to work tomorrow and then have a ton of stuff to do the next day" stuff.  I didn't worry about how little sleep I was getting because it's not like I had to wake up before the sun and go be responsible for 8 perfect strangers for 12 hours.  When I'm home I'm only responsible for my family, and it's okay if I'm a little tired, cranky, foggy, late.  Theres's laundry and cooking and cleaning and kids, but there is no charting.

Man I hate charting.

When I'm at work I'm happy.  I have my friends, some of them like family.  We chat, we catch up, we help each other out, we suffer together when it's tough.  There are wonderful families that I get to take care of, they welcome me into their lives for a brief bit of it and I enjoy it, most of the time.  Sometimes I get to be present at the birth of babies, that is probably my favorite.  It's exciting, terrifying, emotional.  We may be extremely busy some days, I get tired and I really don't want to do another delivery, but then I go and I watch a new person take their very first breaths and the parents cry and it's worth it.  It's fun to spend time with the new parents, watch them learn to care for their new baby, answer their questions and teach them how to change a diaper, feed and burp their baby, it's fun, except for the charting.

Sometimes I feel like I have two personalities.  Well, not two different personalities, but there are two halves of me.  The work me is better organized, more disciplined, generally more professional and courteous, the home me is more laid back, lazier, easily distracted, ditzy and sometimes a little cranky.  But I'm happy at both places.  And I'm fun at both places.  I use humor at work to make it through the day, I use kid humor at home to make it through the day.  I do thrive on being around my work friends, you can tell when I've been off for several days because I talk non-stop, I need to be in on every conversation, I'm a little starved for adult interactions.  I also need quiet time at home, not talking to everyone about everything, just sitting on the couch cuddling my kids or folding laundry.

I wrestle with this from time to time, wondering if I'm doing the right thing by working.  I'm a good nurse, I'm good at what I do, am I as good at being a mom?  I feel like I'm learning to be a good mom, it's a constant work in progress.  It's easier to be a nurse than a mom.  For one thing, I had four years of training to be a nurse.  I had to pass a test, I'm licensed.  I have proficiencies and skills I need to keep up to date at work.  I'm just kind of winging this whole mom thing.  It's more like on the job training.  But it's the most important job I have, being a wife and mother.  And I'm learning to work as hard at that as I do at work.  So maybe this whole work thing, this whole being a nurse thing can help me be a good mom.  I guess maybe that's why I work.  I like work, I love being a mom.  And at home, there is no charting.