October 11, 2007

A day that will live in infamy...for our family at least.  It felt as though the world should have stopped turning and focus should have been just on us for those days...but as we al know, that doesnt happen.  The world goes on, and you learn to live with your new reality.

The days leading up to my scheduled induction became very anxious for me.  I began having small panic attacks, but kept these to myself thinking it was due to my swiftly approaching due date.  I kept friends and family around constantly to take my mind off of the nervousness.  It helped, but something still didn't feel right.
The day came, and I began my induction. As a first time mom, this was scary.  Knowing a baby was coming out of me, that life was about to change forever, that now we were completely responsible for another person's life...those were daunting tasks.  Jacob held my hand (and my legs) through it all, and at 10:36 the next morning, October 11, 2007, our daughter Marin Avery Varnado was born weighing in at    8 lb, 11.6 oz.  She was beautiful....she looked exactly like Jacob, with blonde hair.  She was the picture of a healthy baby...and we settled into our first night in the hospital with her.  She breastfed well, slept well, and was the perfect child.
The next morning, the nurses took her to the nursey for a well-check before they would release us.  I was exhausted, and trying to catch up on rest while she was gone.  About an hour later, she returned with Marin, and she let us know that the doctor head heard a heart murmur and wanted to check it out, just to be safe. She reassured us that most heart murmurs are completely harmless and go away on their own. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case with Marin.
Intimidating medical words and phrases became a part of our lives from that day forth.  Marin was diagnosed with Double Outlet Right Ventricle and a Ventricular Septal Defect, two congenital heart defects that would require heart surgery in her first year to correct.  We were completely devastated.  Dr. Crapanzano, our pediatric cardiologist, explained her defects in simpler terms so that we could understand what would need to be done.  He apologized for being the bearer of bad news, and told us to follow up with his office in a week.  I laid in my hospital bed hurting, physically and emotionally.  Mentally, I was a wreck.  Always having been a pessimist and a "what if"-er, my mind immediately was immediately sucked into a dark hole of despair and depression.  Panic set in.  Jacob held my hand and tried to reassure me...but I knew things were bad.  I watched my brother, a doctor, as the echocardiogram was performed on Marin, and saw his hopes dashed.  He stared out of the window, silently angry with a higher power.  This hurt me almost as much as the diagnosis.  He and I had become so close throughout all he'd been through, and I knew he hated that we would have to endure this.  His later reassurance and optimism through the darkest days of Marin's life were crucial to my emotional survival.  He was a brother, a friend, a confidante, and now a doctor that I trusted with my deepest worries and fears.