Back Again

Ahhhhh - whenever I've been away too long it's almost guaranteed I have been super busy. I so wish I could have maintained my blog better and sooner. If that makes any sense. I wish I didn't have to back track (although I remember EVERY SINGLE day clearly) and just focus on now!! But I'll get to that soon enough.

I was on pins and needles the day of the surgery. Everything and everybody got on my nerves. I tried to smile and I probably did but I didn't feel like it. Of course watching Alejandro play as if there was nothing wrong did bring a real smile to my face. As always, he was my "pain medicine". I hope that when he's older he understands what a HUGE help he was to me.

The surgery didn't take as long as I expected and when they told us it was over, it freaked me out! I immediately thought something wrong had happened. I texted my friend Christina who is a NICU nurse in Austin and asked what could possibly have made the surgery so short. She calmed me down and assured me that it was probably a good thing. And it was!!!

When the surgeons came looking for Paul and I, I literally jumped over everyone's legs to get to them. I looked at their faces and waited for the news. He did great, they said and they were wheeling him to recovery...what a freaking relief!!!! Paul, who had looked pretty good the whole day, almost fainted. I finally took a breath and smiled a real smile.

When we finally went to go see him we thought he looked fabulous!! Which is really funny when you think about it. I mean the poor kid had tubes, wires and a chest that had been opened!! But we thought he looked GREAT!!! He was there and alive and that was all that mattered to us.

Every single day after that was great. Each day when we went to see him in the morning, one more tube was gone or one more machine had been removed from his bedside. Everyday was a gift from God. Then we started to really hold him. Which was really weird holding a baby with tubes and all...hey, but we loved every minute of it. He had such a weak little cry. Eventually, he finally had the opportunity to have real food!!!! Whoo hoo!

Luckily that happened the day before Paul had to go back to work. So, being the good wife that I am, I let him feed him. It was a little tricky because some heart babies have trouble feeding because they get so tired. Well, little Joaquin sure did take a little while to learn. He spilled all over the place because he was tired and didn't know how to latch on to the bottle. One of his wonderful nurses, Trish, taught us how to feed him. He started to do better. Then Paul had to go home. I know that was extremely hard for him but he had no choice. He left all three of us in Corpus to start a new position with Pepsi and move into our new home.

Luckily my mom was still there was with us...but not for long!! Shortly after Paul left they gave us the old heave-ho!! Which was a good thing. Joaquin was doing so good that we were moved up to the 8th floor and given a private room. But since he was released from PICU, that meant no more hospital guest room which meant that mom and Alejandro had to go back to Brownsville.

That was bittersweet. I was thrilled but my mom was leaving me. The last of my support system!! What was I going to do??? After dad came to pick up mom and Alejandro I was left with Joaquin in our room. It was actually kinda cool. And weird. It was the first time since July 9th that we were ALL ALONE. Bonding. We needed it. Being up on the 8th floor made me count my blessings too. We were on the floor where there were mainly oncology patients and boy it made me soooooo sad to see these little children walking around with IV's and no hair. But yet they were smiling. Their parents were smiling too but their smiles were different. Theirs were like mine the day of the surgery. There was pain behind their smiles. But not the kiddos...theirs were pure. Gifts from God.

I swear we only spent two days on the 8th floor!! Before I knew it, Joaquin's surgeon came in and told me, "Let's this guy released before he catches an infection in this hospital!". Yes!! We were going home the next day!!!

It took FOREVER to get released. I had to take a CPR class and Joaquin had to pass his carseat test!! Basically they asked me how long the drive was and that was how long Joaquin had to sit in his car seat while being observed. They needed to see if he would stop breathing at anytime. He didn't. And he passed. And I passed my CPR class and that was it!! The nurse came in and gave me all his follow up appointments and his prescriptions and then all we had to do was wait for Paul, mom and Ale.

It was great when they finally arrived. Ale finally got to hold his baby brother and he LOVED it. We packed up our stuff, put Joaquin in his car seat, said good-bye to the staff and we were gone. Off to begin our crazy new life...