Tomorrow.

After five months of knowing it was coming, and a six weeks of having the date on the calendar, I can't believe that David's surgery is TOMORROW. It is actually here. It's felt so far away for so long, that it feels surreal to think that we'll be getting up around 4:30 tomorrow and getting ready to head downtown and hand our baby over for surgery.

I spent most of the last five months trying not to really think about it. It was pretty easy, since David seems like a normal, healthy baby--aside from the crazy eating schedule, which I have just gotten used to and don't really think about anymore. Even all the nurses we've seen over the past months have always commented on how he doesn't look "sick" at all, and how you'd never know about his heart unless you listened.

Today is the last day I will hear the "whoosh" of his heart murmur when I hold him in a quiet room. Starting tomorrow it will be a while before I hold him again in a quiet room at all.

They told us that they have seven and a half hours set aside for David's surgery. (His case is a little more complicated than just a regular Tetralogy of Fallot repair, since he is also missing his pulmonary valve and needs to have that fixed, along with the size of his enlarged pulmonary arteries needing to be reduced, which I imagine is tricky work as well.) That seven and a half hours is not including the 30-90 minutes that it will take initially to get anesthesia going and set the many lines that will be needed for the surgery and the days after. That is a LONG time to wait. That's longer than any of my labors! And honestly, I think I'd rather be going through labor again than waiting 8 hours to hear that everything went well and our baby is out of surgery. What are we even going to do during all that time? I can't even imagine.

Today I'm keeping busy cleaning, grocery shopping for the kids' meals while we're gone, doing laundry, and packing. I'm thankful for our weeklong stay in the Cardiovascular unit in May because I was able to compile a list of things that I wished I could have packed, had I known it was going to be a weeklong stay and not just an overnight one. Although I know the next few days are going to be like nothing we've ever experienced before, I'm thankful that at least I know a long stay is coming this time, and that it will be in a place that now feels familiar to me.

And most of all, I'm snuggling our little chunky, precious boy, praying over him, kissing him, and dreaming of the day when this is behind us and we are once again home as a family of five, just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon.

What I keep coming back to is the sure knowledge that God gave us David. As the verse says that hangs above his crib, I prayed for this child, and God heard my prayer. God has David's days all written already, and has big plans for him. He holds David in His hands, and holds us all in His hands during this scary time.

When we were in the NICU, my cousin posted the words to "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" on my facebook wall, with David's name written in. It brought me to tears then, and still does every time I sing it to David as I rock him:

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got itty bitty David in His hands

He's got itty bitty David in His hands

He's got itty bitty David in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands

When Oceans Rise

In the past year or so, you pretty much haven't been able to go to a church service or listen to a Christian radio station without hearing the Hillsong song Oceans. I have heard and sung it countless times. I even helped lead worship to this song at our church while I was pregnant with David, so that meant lots of listening to it beforehand to make sure I really knew it. The kids started recognizing it and yell out, "Oceans!" every time they hear the first few seconds of it start on the radio.

Whenever I heard or sang it, I appreciated it as a beautiful song. But honestly, it never reached me deeply. When I first heard and learned it, I was pregnant with my third baby, the one I had prayed for. I was having another easy, routine pregnancy. Life was good. When I sang Oceans, I sort of just felt like it just didn't apply to me right now. Things were going smoothly and just kind of flowing along.

Last week while I was driving, Oceans came on the radio. It was the first time I had heard it in a while...or maybe just the first time I really listened to it in a while. Instantly, the tears started to fall. 

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters, wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior
And I will call upon Your name, and keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise, my soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Ever since that moment when we were sitting in the hospital room with our day-old baby, ready to be discharged as soon as he got his hearing test done and they told us that the results of the "just in case" echocardiagram looked just fine, and the pediatrician and midwife walked into the room with that look on their faces and started to talk, this song suddenly became very applicable to my life.

First of all, David is such an incredible blessing. I am so thankful that his heart defect is something that can be repaired and that he should live a completely full, normal life. I know that there are many others who deal with much more life-altering, stressful, and serious things.

But this journey has been, and continues to be, difficult and scary. Trying to balance the needs of two young kids and a baby who nurses nearly ever hour is hard. I have often felt like I'm not the mom I want to be for Joshua and Annika because I'm so consumed with David's needs, stressed about keeping him healthy, and short on patience. Recently, our days have been even more full with doing David's breathing treatments to get rid of his wheeze before surgery, and PT for his neck muscles to stretch them out so that hopefully the flat spot on his head doesn't get worse, especially with recovery from surgery coming up.

And then there is anticipating the surgery itself. First, there are the "what ifs". But even without those scary thoughts that pop up in the moments when I'm letting my worries run wild, there are the certainties, and those are scary enough. There is the certainty that I will have to hand my baby over for surgery. The certainty that his little chest and heart will be opened up. The certainty that he will be in pain after surgery. The certainty that I will be unable to pick him up and comfort him for a while after surgery, and I will have to just stand back and see him just lying there hooked up to all of those machines that make strange noises and do things I don't even want to think about.

With surgery so close, I have been struggling so much with just trusting God and not letting the stress and worry take over. So when that song came on for about the millionth time this week, this time it hit me straight in the heart and soul.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters, wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior
And I will call upon Your name, and keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise, my soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

We never would have chosen this for our baby, but I know that God is with us. He is leading, and He will keep me from being lost under the waves of uncertainty. With eyes on Him, I can rise above, be strengthened, and even find rest in the midst of everything going on around me and within me. Through this whole experience, I know that our faith is being strengthened, and I continue to pray that this experience isn't only used to draw us closer to Him, but others as well.