A letter to Martha Grace || August 2015

My Dear Beautiful and Brave Girl,

Your letter is a little late this month; I've not been able to bring myself to write to you. The last time I wrote to you was a couple of days before we took you to London for your review at the beginning of June.

Now it's almost two months later and we know the outcome of that appointment. My Baby girl you are on the Cardiac Surgical list and we are just waiting for the booking office to call us to confirm a suitable time. You need a CT scan first (don't worry - you'll be fast asleep) so they can get a better picture of your heart and arteries, then a couple of days later they will operate.

I am so scared. Not of the operation, I know you'll be fine - the Anesthetist will make sure you are happy and are behaving throughout the procedure and I know that the Surgeons have operated on your tiny newborn Heart - they have a little more room to play with now.

I'm scared of how you will cope with coming off the by-pass machine.

I'm scared of how your kidneys and liver will cope with the shock of being on by-pass.

I'm scared of you waking up while still on the ventilator.

I'm scared that your Heart won't cope with you breathing for yourself.

You see I know too much now. I started typing a list of all the things that went wrong last time that I'm worried might happen again, but it read like a really bad episode of Casualty...anyone would think that there is no way all of those things can go wrong with one admission.

But we'll get through it (I hope) If you can promise to do your very best to behave, then I'll promise to be brave and strong for you.

I promise you won't be left alone while we're there, I'll make sure one of us are with you at your bed space the whole time (unless we are asked to leave so they can perform a procedure) and I hope you'll feel safe with us there.

You know, we're letting you have this operation because your Heart needs it. Because we believe it's best that you have it. There are so many babies like you Martha who don't get this opportunity and I know their Mammi's and Daddy's would do anything to have a Surgeon offer them a chance like this.

We love you so much.

xxx