It begins...

The day of surgery was so tough. I recall the drive to the hospital, as agonizingly slow, it seemed everything I looked at along the way was new to me, as if I never really took the time to look before. I remember just wanting to scream and burst into tears, but not wanting to scare my husband half to death.

When we got to the parking garage my stomach started to turn sour, I didn’t want to face this day and I certainly didn’t want Ryleigh to, but without the surgery she would not make it. It had to be done and the time was now. We walked into NICU prepared for changes, but she was as we left her the night before, sleeping restfully. When the nurse came is she asked how we were and we both in unison said good, it was so trite and cliché but what else could we really say? None of it was good or normal. She then asked if we wanted to give her a bath, which we both agreed to do with her help. The monitors, IV lines, and bed setting did not make it comfortable to do it alone.

So we finished that and held her for a while each before the nurses came in to transfer her to her transport bed. We each gave her a kiss as they explained what would happen next. The moment had arrived, it was almost a week to the moment since birth that they put her in her transport bed and began to wheel her out of the NICU and off through the white halls to prepare for surgery.

Our job before surgery was complete, we kissed her, hugged her, loved on her, fed her, bathed her…priceless moments that we were very lucky to get, not to mention developmental moments and monumental moments that would increase her chances for a fast recovery. The team let us walk a bit with them as they wheeled her through the bowels of the hospital floor. She was sleeping, I was weeping, and her daddy looked on with great concern and admiration – he was being strong for us all.

We came to a cross road and her surgery team told us this was it, they would go one way and we would go the other, this was the realest anything had ever felt in my life! I watched them take her down the hall until she could no longer be seen, we were walked to the waiting room and were told the first we would hear of anything would be when the surgery was about to get underway, then another update when it was done, and the final update would be when she was being transported to the PICU, which is a critical time as they change over all of the life support systems to mobile ones. It was going to be a long day!

We got the call at about 10 am that surgery was about to begin, so here we go. Hoping for the very best, that is my sweet girl in there!