A year into the journey

It has been exactly a year since we first found out about Jessica’s heart anomalies and this journey began.  A year ago today, we went in for our 20-week scan, feeling excited about seeing our little Sprout on the screen, and moments later our world was turned completely upside down when we were told that it looked like our baby had some serious heart abnormalities.  Later on that day, we had the first of many appointments at Oxford where this was confirmed and we also discovered that we were expecting a baby girl.  We were scared and devastated, but we knew that we had to give our baby every chance that we could and that the journey ahead would be dark and difficult.  In the days that followed, we were overwhelmed by how much support we had from everyone and we have been so very blessed to have such wonderful friends and family.

The last year has been the most wonderful, terrible, scariest and most amazing year of our lives.  We have seen God work the most amazing miracles and are so unbelievably blessed to have our little girl here with us now.  We have gone from being told at 22 weeks that surgery was unlikely to be a viable option to pioneering in-utero surgery just six weeks later.  Despite all our fears and worries, we were still able to enjoy the months before Jessica arrived and make the most of every moment. 

The moment when she finally arrived on 6 September 2011, pink and crying and more well than we had dared to hope for was the most joyful moment of our lives.  Jessica had her first open heart surgery at just eight hours old and then a further procedure a week later.  We were finally able to take her home at 4 weeks old – another milestone moment that we could hardly have dared dream would happen. 

Since then she has done amazingly well.  She has got through another two open-heart surgeries and two cardiac catheter investigations.  She is the most wonderful, smiley, happy little girl and brings so much joy to our lives.  We are amazingly blessed and every day we thank God for giving us such a precious gift.

We know that there will still be many dark and difficult days ahead, that Jessica’s future will always be uncertain.  All we can do is take every day as it comes, enjoy every beautiful moment with our amazing, beautiful daughter and trust in God to strengthen us when the journey is hard.  We have been so very blessed to be looked after by such amazing doctors and nurses and cannot thank all those who have helped our daughter get here enough – especially Mr Impey, Dr Wilson and Mr Haw whose surgical skills have given Jessica the chance of life.

We have also been blessed to have amazing friends and family.  Over the past year, we have had so much support via this blog, some of it from people we have never met.  Thank you so much to everyone who has kept us in their thoughts and prayers and God bless you all.