Heart to heart is a monthly link-up for heart families to share stories about their journeys. My eldest daughter Jessica has hypoplastic left heart syndrome and I started blogging about her heart journey a few weeks before she was born. Since her arrival, we have got to know other heart families, in person through our… Read More
The two photos below were taken three years ago today. They capture some precious moments with Jessica as we prepared for her to go to theatre for the second time since she was born. I remember it like it was yesterday. The anxious waiting, not wanting to leave her cot for a moment. Wanting to… Read More
Heart to heart is a monthly link-up for heart families to share stories about their journeys. My eldest daughter Jessica has hypoplastic left heart syndrome and I started blogging about her heart journey a few weeks before she was born. Since her arrival, we have got to know other heart families, in person through our… Read More
One of the things I find challenging as a heart parent is dealing with people’s assumptions about my heart child. While many of them are well-meaning, they can be frustrating. Here are some of the assumptions that we have encountered. 1) “Oh don’t worry, my friend’s brother had a hole in their heart… Read More
Our journey as a heart family began just over three years ago at a routine 20 week scan. We arrived at the scan that morning as excited parents-to-be, looking forward to seeing our precious baby on the screen. We left the hospital with our world falling apart around us. Being told that our child had… Read More
Six long weeks of not being able to give Jessica my milk due to a chylothorax felt like an eternity at times. Six long weeks of continually expressing to keep my milk supply going. Hoping that at the end of them, Jessica would be able to go back to the breast. I counted the days,… Read More
Sitting next to the hospital cot in the early hours of the morning, with my four month old daughter blissfully breastfeeding, I wanted to freeze the moment and hold it forever. This would be my baby’s last feed before she had to go off for open heart surgery. I gazed at her, watching her eyelids… Read More