Click here for Part 1 of the story. 
*Trigger warning: Baby health issues including a surgery account with a photo. I added this heads up because my own story still triggers me a little bit.

Monday had come.

Leo and I arrived at Children’s Hospital at 6AM with a sleepy but happy baby–blissfully unaware! God gave Hollis peace that morning in her tiny hospital gown. We weren’t allowed to feed her after a certain time, so it was surprising she wasn’t having a meltdown. We held our little 5-month-old close and waited.

Our hearts were beating about as fast as Hollis’s as we met the surgical team. They kept beating fast as Leo prayed over them. They kept beating fast when the nurses came in to take her. They kept beating fast when we kissed our baby and gave her to the nurse. Our eyes brimmed with tears before the door shut behind them. That was pain point #2.

We cried. We prayed. We waited.
And we had supernatural peace in the waiting.

Handing her over was a physical representation of a spiritual reality. We couldn’t control what was about to happen. We couldn’t go with her. But God could go and He could allow anything to happen in there.

That didn’t mean He would do what we wanted. It meant He would do what He wanted. This is what gave us the supernatural peace–that our Father who knows all, sees all, and is good is the One in control. His ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55:9), because again–He’s literally God. And “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

He would act and we trusted Him.

The plan was to place a metal device across the large Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) and it would stay there for life. The open-heart surgery would take anywhere from 2-8 hours. They updated us throughout:

• 8:00 – She’s prepped for surgery and handling anesthesia well.
• 8:30 – The incision has been made.
• 9:15 – The procedure is complete; they are sewing her up and will move her to the CV-ICU.
• 11:15 – She is settled in the CV-ICU. We can come see her.

CV-ICU
Pain point #3. It’s an image burned in my mind. I was told about all the things that would be hooked up to her, that she would still be under anesthesia, that it would be very awful to see. And it was.

The room was filled with rhythmically beeping monitors. You could hardly see the miniature hospital bed behind machines, screens, wires and tubes. If you followed those wires and tubes, they led to this tiny, limp baby in the middle of the bed. Our baby–the one we know and hold and love. The last time we saw her she didn’t look at all like this. Looking at her now made it hard to stomach that we signed her up for this. The contrast was too much.

Hollis was asleep from anesthesia but occasionally her eyes would open really wide and she looked scared. We held her teeny and still hand, played familiar music, and stroked her head. Hours passed nonsensically.

God kept providing. This time, it was through the nurses at Children’s Hospital. 

I literally knew three of the CV-ICU nurses. One of them brought me a thoughtful gift after learning it was my birthday. And one of them was assigned to Hollis for this first and second day. 

She spoke tenderly to Hollis and comforted her. She gently closed Hollis’s eyes each time they opened wide in her sleep. She answered questions thoroughly, patiently, and compassionately. She was very skilled. I remember Leo and I watching in awe as she expertly switched over tubes and machines. She ran tests, made adjustments, managed medications, monitored vitals, and much more. Her ministering to Hollis ministered to Leo and me.

Over the next several hours, Hollis woke up more and more until she was pretty alert that night. But with this came increasing awareness of her breathing tube.

Pain point #4 replays in my mind like a short video. She was breathing well on her own, so a team came in to extubate her. We were given the option to leave the room. We stayed. She was alert, angry, and afraid. I couldn’t comfort her or explain things to her. I could tell she was “screaming” but because there was a tube down her throat, she wasn’t making a sound. Red faced, tears streaming, tiny body shaking, a look of terror, but silent. Awful. Maybe we should’ve left the room. It’s one of the many reasons I’m grateful she has no direct memory of this.

The tube was out. Her voice was so hoarse that she still hardly made a sound. She had a lot of coughing to do, which was very painful considering her chest had just been cut open. They held a small vibrating machine on her back to make coughing easier. She settled down and slept. What a day.

They continued to monitor her very closely and she did well overnight, considering. 

CCU
Sometime during the second day she moved to the cardiac step-down unit (CCU). The chest tube had to stay in for longer than hoped for, but once it came out her countenance changed for the better and she was feeling good. She kicked her legs and smiled more and more. 

Her recovery in the hospital was seamless. After only 3 days, our little heart warrior was cleared to go home. Praise God.

HOME
Recovery at home looked like 6 weeks of not picking her up under the arms while her sternum healed. It would take another 6 months to a year for full recovery. 

Once home, Hollis never wheezed again. She never vomited again. The chronic cough was gone. She finally had the energy and appetite to eat. She gained weight at a better pace. The swelling in her heart diminished. Recovery was slow but steady.

Around a year old, her cardiologist became suspicious of pulmonary hypertension and she had a heart cath to test. Thank God, the results were normal and this gets to be a short paragraph.

God could have said no to any of our requests. He knows what is best even if we don’t get it. He also loves to give good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11). I’ll list some of those things:

• God said no to an easier path of healing. It broke us in ways that healed us. He united Leo and me as we went through it together and increased our trust in Him. This post wouldn’t exist otherwise.
• God kept Hollis alive in those first weeks of her silent struggle.
• God decided that Hollis would be born in a time and place where this surgery was possible.
• God helped us through the weeks leading to surgery by supporting us mentally and emotionally. He enabled us to get it done.
• God moved hundreds of people to prayer.
• God allowed the VSD to be in just the right place for them to do the type of procedure they did without having to use the heart-lung machine.
• God gave us peace and trust. 
• God gave wisdom, skill, and compassion to her medical team.
• God answered yes to many specific requests during recovery.
• God kept her from illness and complications after surgery.
• God sustained her and us all along: from the first weeks to the months of treatment and appointments, through surgery and recovery, and still.
• God didn’t just hold my hand–He all but literally picked me up and carried me through my first year of motherhood.
• God has allowed her heart to function like a normal one with this device, which means she plays and runs and is expected to live an active life.
• And this last point is a blanket statement for all of the things God did that we don’t even know about.

NOW
At the time of writing this, she is 3 years old. She makes up funny songs, wears a tutu almost daily, and loves stuffed animals and cars. She is sweet, smart, and very much a 3-year-old. She loves her younger sister and her friends. She is healthy. And she is a blessing. We can’t help but wonder what her life would’ve looked like without the surgery. Not like this. 

She knows all about this story. We show her pictures and videos of everything.

She’s got a long scar from the incision and another from the gnarly chest tube. They’re hers to bear. The scars remind me of two traits we pray our children have: tough and tenderhearted. We talk about how the scars represent God’s watchful eye on her, His love and involvement in her life, and the tough things He has already brought her through.

She seems proud of it.

At her most recent cardiology check-up, she had the most endearing expression of determination and courage on her face through an x-ray, EKG, and echo. And her heart is looking good. She will have annual check-ups for another few years and then the hope is that they become less frequent.

This is God’s story. He loves us. He hears us when we pray. He hurts with us. He is with us through the valleys that living in a broken world brings. And not a thing gets past Him unnoticed.

Thank You God for protecting and healing Hollis. 
And thank you for taking the time to read about it.

Maggie

P.S.
This story took me over a year to finish writing because it’s equally as hard as it is amazing. Obviously this story is about God and Hollis. But for me, I still have a trauma-type response to certain memories from that time. I can hardly look at pictures of her from the first 7 weeks when we didn’t know something was wrong.

I have no fear in talking about this story with people, it’s just that I notice my heartbeat when I do. I’m not sure if that will ever change, which is okay. God will redeem my scars, too. 

Verses referenced:
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9 
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:11