UPDATE

Here we are...back at St.Joes, our old familiar friend, Our home away from home, our other family. The morning started off as well as it could seeing the alarm went off at 4am...Note to everyone...don't go to bed at 1:30 and expect to wake up at 4 in a cheery mood...yeah...lets just say I was not my normal peppy self this morning, I think nerves had a lot to do with it also, on top of lack of sleep but still....yeah....anyways, we got up and Lily was starting to fuss, poor baby girl has never gone more hen 3-4 hours without a bottle,(We starve her, thats for sure, you can tell by her the size of her generously porportioned things) We gave her, her binki, she was ok with it at first( keep in mind I say at first) she continued to be her cute cheerful self. All smiles and giggles,(she is her fathers child in the mornings not mine, you would never catch me smiling before the sun rises. There is a time to be up and a time to sleep....being happy that early just isn't normal....to me at least) I finished packing everything, and we loaded her up in her car seat and the smiling continued...we walked down stairs to the car and off we headed....4:40am...(wow I sometimes miss the days of having only one child...there would have been no way we would have all been ready in 40 mins if it would have been all 5 of us.) By the time we took the 15 min drive to the hospital , I opened the car door to pull her out and she looked as if she was alseep...Was I wrong, I started pulling things ou and I start to get this feeling someone is wawtching me, so I look up and low and behold, my beautiful little girl with her innocent eyes are staring at me, just watching what I was doing. I said good morning beautiful girl, and that got me the biggest smile of the monirning...made mama feel good.

We grab everything for the car and head into the hospital. I haven't been to St.Joes that early in a long time, so I forgot how empty it can be in the morning when you are there...at the butt crack of dawn mind you...but still...the hospital never sleeps. We checked into preregistering, filled out all the dandy paper work, and then headed up to pre op. It was empty like it was the first time around,(well I should mention it was for the TEE, what led us up into the 2nd OHS). We were given a bed and were told that the nurse would be right with us. Not more then 5 mins later one of our PTCICU Nurses goes, Oh my gosh, look how big she is getting." It was Brenda, she is a lovely nurse and is wonderful at her job. I was quite shocked to see her in Pre OP...but she told me she transfered down there because it was less chaotic...I can understand that. It was great to see her, I will post pics later,(yes...I know...when dont I post pictures) She had to stick her to draw blood and hopefully start an IV...Lily has never been an easy stick so I didnt hold my breath. Oh my, Lily cried so hard, I choked backed my sobbs and my baby cried in pain and there wasn't a thing I could do about any of it but say,"Its ok Lily, mamas right here honey, mama's right here, I am not going any where love." Chris stood back at the end of the bed...there was no room for him by her. We got the blood for the labs, but the IV didnt take...*I did mention she is a hard stick...she has a lot of scar tissue from all her previous IV's* Daddy took her and comforted her after all of it...she didn't want me, I was an acomplise in the matter of all of it...from that moment forward she kept an eye on Brenda and didn't trust her when she was near....poor Brenda, Lily does love you....

We were finally taken over to the cath lab where we waited for Dr.Pophal to show up and explain the proceedure to us....I already knew how the proceedues worked....but he went into great deatial of what could happen if things went wrong....I know that he has to tell us things like that...but I really didnt want or need to hear it. I already knew all of it....He told me what we were trying to succeed for, and that is hopefully that we could just balloon the valve and relieve the problem...I pray it is as easy as that...I wont know for a little bit longer. He said that there was always a possibility that she could have them membrane layer around the valve that wouldnt allow him to do so, and that it would require surgery to remove it. I am praying that is not the case. He of course mentioned the, "If we blow through the valve, then it will require imidiate OHS...." Lord please let that NOT happen...If you think i came unglued with the second Open Heart surgery, it would be nothing compaired to this.

So right now, it is a wait and see type of matter. I have wanted to cry all morning, but i have not allowed the tears to fall....I will only allow them to fall once this is over, come good or bad news, the tears will fall.

I will update as soon as I have more!!