It’s been a while since we’ve posted any updates and as Nick reminded me, that’s such good news! We haven’t really posted because there hasn’t been much to report other than Delia is growing, she’s healthy and her numbers continue to look great. She will continue to have quarterly doctor’s appointments with her Stanford Liver team at OHSU and at her last one in March I realized she’d grown another inch since her appointment the time before that in November. We saw my lovely, height challenged childhood friend, Beth, a few weeks ago and she walked up to Delia while Delia was sitting and said to her, “are you taller than me yet?” and then Delia stood up in this comically perfect way to reveal that she was almost half a foot taller than Beth. She’s also passed up Lainey, much to Lainey’s frustration, and is well on her way to passing up my 5 foot 7 self.
She’s growing in her sense of personhood too. She is becoming more confident and out spoken and even was able to be bribed into answering a direct question the doctors asked at her last appointment. (Although she had ZERO problem speaking up to snarkily correct me whenever I said something that wasn’t literally accurate according to her specifications).
The biggest news update we have for her is that we’ve been referred to the Make A Wish Foundation. I’ll admit, this was a little difficult for me initially since I thought it was meant for children who were making their last wish, but apparently that’s a common misunderstanding that I will correct for all of you as well. Make A Wish is a lovely organization whose purpose is for granting wishes for children who have been through a traumatic medical event, which we most definitely qualify for. I am not sure yet what Delia will choose and I am trying to navigate her people pleasing, loving heart to figure out what she wants and not what the rest of the family wants.
Yesterday, Easter Sunday marked her three year Liverversary. Three years since her transplant. Nick and I have complicated feelings about her transplant. We are so, so, so grateful that we’ve had the last three years with our baby but that fact can never be separated from the fact that some other parents out there have spent the last three years without theirs. I am eternally grateful to them for making the choice that they did to give life to others when their own child passed and I hurt for them and grieve for them while also rejoicing for us. As a believer, I am left in awe of this tangible example of someone giving up their life so that my child has life. A reminder that life comes out of death and it’s just that much more heavy, lovely and as my friend Johanna says, brutiful on Easter Sunday.
