Last night I was laying in bed, thinking about why it had been such a difficult day for Stevie.  Was it because he started his new school?  Was he mad at us for leaving him in an unknown place?  Was he tired?  Was he frustrated about something else that he couldn’t tell us about?  Are we just doomed with a bratty kid?  How was I going to get up and do this all over again tomorrow?

When I glanced at the clock – 11:00pm – a flood of memories came over me.  About this time of night, 3 YEARS AGO, was when Paul and I were getting the phone call that a bed had opened up and Stevie was being transferred to Children’s Hospital for emergency open heart surgery.  We had come home to get some rest, but it felt so weird.  A house full of baby stuff that was somehow completely empty.

The play by play of those couple days began to repeat in my brain.  The night before it all went down, Gadoo was paying extra close attention to the 2 week old.  He had never done this before, so we thought he was finally warming up!  He circled around the blue boppy on our bedroom floor and kept sniffing Stevie’s little head. Now, in hindsight, I feel like he knew something was wrong.  He had a bad feeling that this baby boy was going down.  Then I remembered the pediatrician appointment where he looked cyanotic.  Then our trip to the ER, where we took our time getting there, because we were sure it was no big deal.  Once we got to the ER, all hell broke loose.  The image I can’t shake is of me.  Holding my tiny boy, as they connected him to all sorts of wires and monitors.  “We’re not getting an oxygen reading!” the nurses would shout.  Everyone scurried around me, while the baby was screaming.  I held him helplessly looking over at my husband, who carried a weight I had never seen before.  Flash forward to his open heart surgery where they ran into complications.  The waiting was the worst part.  They said the surgery would take about an hour.  And two hours later… nothing.  Waiting waiting waiting.  This was the end.  I was certain.  I began to grieve.  But the doctor came in suddenly and told us, although it was difficult, they had saved his life.  He went through the details, but I just sat there thanking God.  Smiling.  Hugging my husband’s arm.  Pretending to listen but just anxious to see my son.

Three years later, I don’t think about this day much.  Stevie’s heart issues have surprisingly become the least of our worries.  These stories are just memories now.  But memories that have shaped our family.  They remind me to be grateful.  And while we have so many hard days, we could also be living a very different life right now.

Happy Heart-iversary to my boy.  Your second birthday.  You second chance at life.  I still thank God that day worked out the way it did.

Stevie heart journey started here.

By the way, we usually go to Disneyland on the heart-iversary and I really tried again this year, but Stevie’s behavior has been so rotten, we are not in the mood to force him to have fun.  Another time perhaps.