I turned around and there was my son, joyfully, gently, and affectionately canoodling with a red headed Pomeranian in the Hobby Lobby shopping cart of a very kind gentleman who was standing in front of the Christmas tree display. “Her name is Elizabeth”, he informed me. 

“I have a daughter named Elizabeth, and her hair is a little more copper than your Elizabeth’s.” 

We smiled at each other behind our masks. I turned around and continued looking at ornaments when I heard my son ask the gentleman, “Are you a veteran?”. The kind man said he was and then my son said, “Thank you for serving”. Wow. No prompting required. No nudge in the side with my elbow reminding him how he should thank our veterans. All on his own, he honored a veteran. That’s my son.

When Jeffrey and I found out we were expecting our first-born child, we were stunned. I had been told many times by my physician that it would be very hard for me to conceive. Jeffrey and I had talked about this and we were prepared for much disappointment as we assumed the years would go by childless. However, as God is more all-knowing and more all-powerful than physicians, it did not turn out to be the case for us. You see…nothing can thwart the plans of God. We conceived almost immediately upon being wed, hence our shock upon learning of my physical state.

The pregnancy went on fairly normal until about the 4th month. I was beginning to swell and retain a lot of fluid and my blood pressure was getting higher than my physician was comfortable with, so he put me on bedrest. I know now that lying on your left side on the couch eating mexican food every day is very bad for your health. It really doesn’t matter how amazing Rosa’s Cafe and Jorge’s and Taco Villa are, they should be consumed in small, infrequent quantities. Hindsight.

Around the 7th month I called the physician’s office and informed them that I was not feeling right. My hands kept going numb. I couldn’t get it to stop and I was worried. They told me that I should come in for an examination to determine if there was anything going on with the pregnancy.

At that appointment, my OB did an ultrasound of the baby. He said there was probably nothing wrong, but he wanted to rule everything out. After the ultrasound was complete, he said he thought that he saw a pyloric stenosis, which is a narrowing of the small intestine at the junction of the stomach. It was a very simple operation after birth, but he wanted to get a second opinion from a specialist. So, he sent me to a specialist in Odessa, where we were living. 

I met with the specialist and they did a very thorough ultrasound and after about an hour the physician came in to discuss his findings. He did not see a pyloric stenosis, but rather he believed that there was something wrong with the heart. He would then send us to see a pediatric cardiologist in Dallas to get confirmation. 

We got that confirmation. He had a congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. What did that mean? We were not medical people. I had taken anatomy and physiology, but we didn’t cover this. My Aunt Carolyn had joined us at the appointment in Dallas because she had extensive experience with heart disease, and she could help us sort out the details and knew what kind of questions to ask. I was so thankful she was there because we were stunned speechless.

The cardiologist went on to explain that the left side of the heart had not developed. Our son only had the right atrium and ventricle. In addition, he had both the aorta and the pulmonary artery coming out of the right ventricle. He would require 3 open heart procedures in order for him to live.

We were blessed though. We had support, we had prayers being lifted, we had modern medicine. The cardiologist told us that 20 years prior, the doctor would have sent him home with us and told us to love on him until he died. We were blessed, because now, they can intervene with a very high success rate. 

Shock, disappointment, disbelief, anger, hurt. They all swirled around us for the next 2 months as we prepared for his birth and impending surgery.