Thursday, June 10, 2010

Birthdays

This post is a little out of order given everything that's going on, but I did want to commemorate Sweet Pea's first birthday! I made him a cake and we gave him one gift, and it was a special night. He has a ton of other gifts (because I went a bit crazy), and hopefully sometime we can reschedule Daniel's first birthday party.



He is walking and babbling like mad. Such a cutie!

Happy birthday to him and hopefully we'll get to


-- Post From My iPhone

Pain

Tomorrow Husband and I will journey to Richmond to say goodbye to my father. After that, his doctors will remove him from life support, and my stepmother and I will begin to plan his service.

I'm still somewhat in shock. My father went into the hospital on May 25 for open heart surgery to remove a huge aneurysm in his aorta. The surgery went well, but his recovery was slow and complicated. Then, a week ago, he finally started feeling better and was having a good day when the doctors took him for a routine test. During that test he fainted and his heart stopped. It took them 20 minutes to get his heart beating again and it ultimately took manual stimulation.

Amazingly he made it through surgery and that night. And the next few nights. They closed his chest on
Monday and were encouraged. Unfortunately, yesterday they determined there was no brain function and confirmed it today.

Tomorrow we'll be on our way to Richmond.

It just still seems so unreal. The surgery was supposed to be routine and now my father is brain dead. Daniel's first birthday was last week. I has sent pictures of him digging into the cake I made him, a cake made in an heirloom cake pan my farher's grandmother had made MY first cake in. Unfortunately my father wasn't up to seeing those pictures, and now it is too late.

While I regret that Daniel will not get to know my father, I am thankful that my father met him and knew we had been successful in our quest for a baby. And thanks to Daniel, I saw my father twice as much in the last year as I typically did.

It's just so unbelievable and sad. And I am sad. I didn't ever expect to be losing a parent, well, any time soon.

-- Post From My iPhone