Another good check-up

Jessica had her paediatric check-up at Wexham Park this morning and all was well.  Her sats were great again – staying around 85 at the moment which is really good for Jessica – and the team are happy not to see her in the paediatric clinic again until April next year which is good, although we do have a cardiac clinic appointment booked for late January. 

Jessica was a little unwell with a sick bug over the weekend but thankfully this was short-lived and we didn’t repeat the experience of having to go to hospital as was the case last time she had a sick bug.  Sadly it meant though that she missed going to a friend’s birthday party and stayed at home with Daddy whilst Mummy did another fundraising coffee morning at church for Little Hearts Matter (thank you to all who came and helped us to raise £60).

Other than the little blip of being unwell though, we’ve had a nice month on the whole – Jessica has enjoyed another day out at Legoland, going blackberry picking, helping Mummy bake scones and biscuits and lots of time just enjoying the nice weather we’ve been having recently and making the most of the sunshine before autumn takes hold.  

We’ve entered Jessica and Sophie to be Little Tikes Tiny Testers – if you can spare a minute to visit the Little Tikes website and vote for them both (voting closes on 1st October at midday), that would be fabulous.  You can vote for Jessica here and for Sophie here.

Happy 3rd birthday Jessica!

Our little miracle has been celebrating her third birthday today.  We have had such a lovely day at home with visits from godmummy Katy, Great-Auntie Marls, cousins Meryl and Elisabetta, Nanny, Grandma, Grandad, Auntie Fizz, Auntie Loraynne and Uncle Pete.  Jessica was very excited to see her birthday card being read out on CBeebies this morning and loved her birthday cake in the shape of Mr Tumble’s spotty bag.  She has had lots of lovely presents including a camera from Mummy and Daddy (we have had lots of interesting photos – mostly of people’s knees and the sofa!), a doll’s pushchair from Nanny and a bicycle from Grandma and Grandad.  Sophie has also enjoyed playing with Jessica’s new presents too!

  

It has been a lovely day and we feel very blessed to have been able to celebrate Jessica’s third birthday. It is amazing to think that this time three years ago she was having her very first open-heart surgery and everything was very uncertain and very scary – we are so very thankful for all the wonderful medical staff who have looked after Jessica since that day (and before she was born too!) and have helped her get her today.  What a blessing it is to watch our beautiful little girl running around and having such a wonderful time on her birthday.  Thank you too to all our wonderful friends and family and everyone who has been there for us on our journey.

Jessica has also featured in the Little Hearts Matter newsletter which arrived on our doormat this morning – with Michael’s reflections on being a heart dad being one of the featured articles. 

Here are a few photos of Jessica enjoying her birthday:

Happy birthday beautiful little Jessica.  Mummy and Daddy love you so very much and are so very proud of you – you bring us so much joy and we thank God every day for you.

CBeebies Land, challenges and community nurse checks

We’ve had a lovely few days away as a family recently and have ticked a few more of the Paralympic gold postboxes off the list now – bringing the total up to 33 Paralympic gold postboxes.  We were originally hoping to finish off the Olympic ones with a trip to the Isle of Man but unfortunately couldn’t get a ferry crossing for the dates we were going away so will have to do that one another time.  Jessica and Sophie have been enjoying their trip around the country – this time taking us to Norfolk, Lincoln, Nottinghamshire and the Peak District and around Birmingham.  

Whilst we were away hunting the gold postboxes, we also took a trip to Alton Towers and Jessica and Sophie particularly enjoyed their day at CBeebiesLand.  We got to see Mike the Knight, take a boat ride and see the In the Night Garden characters, ride in Postman Pat’s van and visit Mr Bloom’s Allotment and had a fabulous day out.

Our other challenge for the summer has now come to an end as we have now found all fifty of the book benches around London.  We’ve really enjoyed exploring various areas of the city whilst doing this although our final trail around Bloomsbury was an unexpectedly emotional one as it took us around the vicinity of Great Ormond Street Hospital.  It brought back a flood of memories of that day where we were told that Jessica’s chances of survival were incredibly low as two of the book benches were situated very close to places where we stopped and made phone calls and generally tried to get to grips with the devastating news we received that day.  The photo below is the bench where we stopped to call close family and friends – what a blessing it was to be there with Jessica more than three years on, knowing that we were given the miracle that we prayed for that day.  Thank you God for answering our prayers that day – we know how very, very lucky we are.

It is amazing to think that in less than a week, Jessica will be three years old.  That time has gone by so very fast and it is wonderful to see how Jessica has grown and developed and become such a wonderfully happy chatty little girl.  She had her check-up from the community nurse today and is continuing to do really well  - her sats were in the mid 80s again which is very good for her, and she has had a little growth spurt in the last couple of weeks and now weighs in at 13.25kg.

 

It has also been a blessing to have recently met another heart family who live in our village and to be able to get together with our children and share stories and concerns.  The community of other heart families that we have got to know during this journey and the love and support of all our other friends and family has really been what has helped keep us going at times – thank you all for being there for us along the way.