It has been 365 days since I held Marshall and Michael & I walked as far as we could with him to the OR.

Then with a lump in my throat and lead in my chest, we handed him off for his Bilateral Bidirectional Glenn. 

Then I cried. 

And some warm lady in a lab coat distracted me with tales of her travels to Jamaica (?) I think.

I could barely breath all of that day.  I missed the boys first day of school.  And home.  And the comfort of family.  And friends.  

Living our lives.

So many people filled my day with all of those good thoughts and prayers and kindnesses but it was still a horribly terrifying day.

And then it was 10 hours later – around 11:30 pm – when we could finally see him.

I couldn’t recognize my own baby.
They’d had him on bypass for 206 minutes.  Then spent 30 minutes reinflating his lungs.   He was a mess of wires and skin and heart and hair and tubes and machines.

But he was there.  And he was fighting back.  They had to sedate him more by 2 am because he was trying to breathe on his own.

And then 12 days later the ICU doc who’d patted my back and answered my millions of questions stepped over to the floor.

“Marshall, you ROCKED!” He said beaming at our ginger miracle as we were leaving for home.

And here he is still rocking. 

And playing. 

And climbing. 

And running. 

And teething. 

And exploring. 

And eating. 

And growing. 

And laughing. 

And adventuring. 

Seems everything is an adventure with these four wild boys.

I am so, so, so thankful.  It has been ONE.  INCREDIBLE. YEAR.