lisaholloway

Brave Heart

February is CHD awareness month. For those of you who have healthy heart children and do not understand why so many of us heart moms post so much about our mira...
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February is CHD awareness month. For those of you who have healthy heart children and do not understand why so many of us heart moms post so much about our miracle babies, just try to imagine what we are going through for just a second.

Our babies have had their chest cut open, their sternum cracked in half, and their heart stopped for hours on end while surgeons try to correct their walnut sized hearts.

Every second that they are in surgery, we are shedding tears or fighting them back with all our might.
When they are finally done, they come back to the intensive care room with a machine breathing for them and tubes coming out of every place the doctor's could possibly find to stick one - IVs, ET tubes, NG tubes, chest tubes, art lines, pacing wires, catheters, etc. They can't talk, cry, or even move.

You are helpless as you watch them lay there looking so pitiful. You stare at the pumps and machines, overwhelmed at everything they have going to keep your baby alive. As he (or she) starts to wake up, they moan and cry in pain. They can't move, talk, or express what they are feeling. As a parent, you just want to scoop them up and say that everything will be OK. But the fact is that you can barely even touch them, let alone hold them. And how can you tell them that everything is going to be OK when you simply don't know yourself?

It is one of the most helpless, awful moments of our lives as parents and only a portion of the battle.

This is Sylvie, my CHD warrior. <3

To see more of my work, please visit my website at www.ljhollowayphotography.com.
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