Best Birthday Ever…

This year we have something amazing, and extra special to give thanks for. This year we won’t be celebrating thanksgiving at home all together, but we are okay with that.

On Sunday, after we got ready for church, we got a phone call from our cardiologist asking how Paisley was doing. We chatted for a bit (I chatted for a bit), until she cut me off to tell me “there is a heart for Paisley. Do you want it?” 

Do we want it????

Of course we want it! This is completely and totally unexpected…tiny P has only been on the list for a little over two months. It is kind of unheard of for a kid who is status two to get a heart.

But God…

God knew that Paisley was failing. Her little heart was not going to keep up for much longer, and we could see her diminishing day by day.

Our baby was dying. But now she is alive! Her old heart was very large, gray, and scarred. Her new heart is perfect, pink, and healthy.

We are feeling so blessed, and sad, and joyous, and grief stricken…so many emotions, all at the same time. We are feeling so much joy at the gift of hope our daughter has been given, but also our hearts ache at the thought that this gift was given at a VERY high price. Someone’s healthy baby died tragically, and in a time of intense grief and pain, that mama, a mama just like me, chose to give. What a costly gift! One that we will be eternally grateful for, and humbled by forever…thank you could never be enough.

Tiny P went into surgery Sunday evening, and her transplant team worked through the night, for eleven and a half hours, to put her hero heart in. She loves her new heart…her lips, fingers, and toes are pink and warm for the first time ever! So far, with a few scary little glitches, she has done amazingly well. We will be in the hospital for a while, of course, and tiny P will have her first post transplant cath on the tenth. They will take a biopsy of her new heart to check for rejection.

I don’t know that we will ever get over this shock, or if we will ever get to a point where we can look at our baby, and not well up with overwhelming joy, and gratitude. Adoption, especially adoption of a medically complex child can look so scary and high risk, and of course it is! But there is also something more beautiful…hope. This beautiful hope is bigger than everything scary, because we know where our hope comes from.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
~Ezekiel 36:26