Special Friends

I'm going to keep this post pretty short and sweet, but I can't post about CHD week without saying thank you to the man that has done so much for my daughter. This is my favorite picture from Sophia's Make A Wish trip and I think it sums up how her face looks everytime she talks about Felix. Felix Hernandez brought my little girls smile back. I know I have thanked him numerous time, but thank you Felix for putting this smile back on my little girls face.

Make A Wish

One year ago I received a phone call that less than a month after a "simple" cath lab procedure my daughter was going to have to have open heart surgery. Well, I didn't take that too well and I got really frustrated and upset, so I decided to try and see if Sophia would qualify for a wish through Make A Wish. Well, I wasn't sure that she would qualify. I decided to go for it and sure enough we found out that she was chosen for a wish. I asked her what she wanted to do, I told her that she could meet someone, go somewhere, do something, or be something for a day. Well, it didn't take her a long time to decide and she quickly decided that she wanted to meet Felix Hernandez from the Seattle Mariners. (We'll get to our special friend tomorrow and what he has done for my daughter) What I can say about our wish grantors and our experience is that is was incredible. We talked as a family a little after the new year and I was asking Sophia what she thought about last year, with her surgeries and trips. Honest to goodness when we talked she didn't remember much about her surgeries and talked about her wish trip and all of the fun we had while in Seattle. I thank the Seattle Mariners and Felix a lot for helping Sophia get her smile back, but it never would have fully gotten there without the Make A Wish Foundation. In 2014; I plan on paying it forward and volunterring myself with Make a Wish!

My Little Hero

I know that I did two blogs last year on Sophia being my hero, but as I look back on our lives the last year and look over pictures that I took last year, I am reminded as to how strong she really is. She has taught our family so much and she is such a little light to us all. There is another hero I will talk about later, but we'll start on my girl. As I looked back on the pictures I can't believe where my family was a year ago today. I was in a pretty dark place, now that I look back. It's not easy to go to Seattle for an appointment that takes a couple days and then be told that you will be coming back in the next 3-6 months for an open heart surgery and then get the news only a week after returning home that you will be back for an open heart surgery less than three weeks later. Looking back, I didn't deal with it well and I'm not sure I'm surprised, but this isn't about me, this is about Sophia. She actually did very well and that's why I continue to write about her strength. While she didn't know really what she was getting into she went into her surgery with the fight that I have seen since she was born. We have been very open with Sophia about her heart (kind of hard not to with a giant scar down the middle of her chest) She knows that she had to have surgery lsat year becaue her heart was sick and the doctors needed to fix it. She of course has questions about it, but handles is like a champ! Sophia was discarged from the hospital THREE DAYS after having open heart surgery! It was so hard, we pushed each other so hard, but I saw her do it. I saw her fight, cry, claw and get herself out of that hospital. And she just kept going, there was no slowing her down. She enjoyed her summer and played soccer and got to go on the trip of a lifetime (something I will talk about later too :) ) I have included pictures from our trip last year, some are on the blog, some are new, just to show everyone how strong she is. She goes to each appointment with a smile on her face and an open mind. She is the one that keeps me calm during her appointments. Sophia is still a fighter, she is still a firecracker and shows us everyday how precious life is.

Heart Mommy

I think most of you that know me, know that the title of heart mommy is something that I take a lot of pride in. It was almost six years ago that I learned that the beautiful baby girl that I was carrying was going to be born broken. That was an incredibly hard pill to swallow and it was terrifying. I had to rely on my faith to get through the fact that I was going to have my baby and she was going to be taken from me and then a week later someone was going to open her chest and fix her heart. Those were some difficult weeks and days and I have always tried to find a way to describe how I felt. How I fought and will continue to fight. I think this song, by another heart mommy, is a perfect description of the pain, fear, and determination of every mother I have encountered on Sophia's journey.

My Favorite Week of the Year

1 in 100...I think 2008 was the year of 1 in 100, because I know SO many children born in 2008 with CHD. I actually know two little girls born the same day, on minutes apart that were born with a CHD. I am honored to be a heart mommy and I am honored to help fight for awareness for something that is so close to my heart.

School Starts and a Taylor Swift Concert

School started for Gabi at the end of August and Sophia started a week later. I cannot believe that I have two kids in school. It seems like yesterday, I was bringing Sophia home from Seattle. She was so excited and has done amazing in school. She comes home every Monday with her homework packet and gets straight to doing her work. She is amazing, I absolutely love this little girl. Gabi is in second grade and she is doing amazing. We have just filled out the paperwork for the Ignite program for her, that's the gifted program. I am very excited for her, she is such a studious little girl. She loves school so much and it is so honoring to be her mother. Over Labor Day weekend we took a quick trip to Seattle. I had promised Gabi that I would take her to Austin to see Taylor Swift. Well, two trips to Seattle for Sophia's surgeries kind of threw us for a loop and I learned that she was playing in Tacoma over Labor Day weekend. So, as a family we flew to Seattle and I took the girls to the concert. It was incredible and I had so much fun with my little girls. We then went to a AAA Tacoma baseball game and that was a lot of fun. My girls are becoming little baseball fans and I love being able to see the world through their eyes!

Make A Wish

So I will openly admit that I really have sucked at blogging, but in my defense we had the first ever most beuatiful summer in as long as I can remember here in Anchorage, so when I got off of work, I spent the majority of my time outside. We had an incredibly busy summer and I feel like I have SO much to update on, so you will be inundated with so many blogs today :) Sorry in advance! The first and very big moment of our summer was Sophia's Make a Wish trip. I REALLY struggled with sending her in for a wish, but with two heart surgeries in 27 days, I felt that my baby girl was due. So in between Sophia's two surgeries I asked her if she could have wished for anthing what would it be, I told her that she could wish to go anywhere, meet anyone, or do something. Well, Sophia looked at me and said that she wanted to meet Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners. I thought it was a long shot or that we would wait at least a year, but I thought, what the heck...I'll give it a shot. Well, our wish grantors picked up Sophia's application quicker then I thought and got right on her wish. In what seemed liked no time at all, we were told that we were heading to Seattle to meet Felix Hernandez. Jason and I learned about it right before we went to Seattle for her open heart sugery, so the evening before her surgery, when we took her out to dinner, we presented her with a pink Mariners jersey and told her that she was going to get to meet King Felix. To say that my daughter was excited was an understatment. We weren't exactly sure of the dates, but at elast we knew that her wish was going to come true. Fast forward a couple of months and we were on our way to sunny Seattle in mid June. I can't leave out the awesome send off that we got here in Anchorage. The Anchorage Bucs, the minor league team here, did a little send of for Fia and it was a lot of fun. We had our closest friends and family there with us and the day couldn't have been more perfect. We were on a plane to Seattle a little while later that evening and Sophia and Gabi were on cloud nine. They were so excited about the limo that picked us up from the airport; they have never been in a limo before and they thought they were the coolest kids in town. We stayed right next to Safeco...which is nice for night games and we settled in after an early flight to Seattle. Well our first day, Sophia got to have her wish and meet King Felix. It's almost been three months since our trip and I still can't beleive the expierience we had. Jason and I have been Mariners fans for as long as I can remember, and as a Mariner fan that grew up in a house with Giants fans, I have always felt that it is important to let your children chose the teams they are going to like, if they chose to be sports fans. (which is REALLY hoped our girls would be) We have been lucky enough with baseball that the girls are also Mariner fans and I can't begin to describe how amazing the Seattle Mariners organization is. Before we made our trip over to Safeco we learned that Kyle Seager, who has a similar condition as Sophia, wanted to meet her. (Kyle Seager was a special player in our home, because we knew about his heart condition and of course that is something very special to our family) Sophia was outfitted up with her own Mariners jersey and she was in HEAVEN. She definitely started off very shy but anyone that knows Sophia knows that you just need to spend a little time with her and she will warm straight up to you. The players and the Mariners organization were incredible and made not only Sophia feel special, but they made Gabi feel special. All of the players that we met that day were incredible and Sophia still talks about Felix today. What I love the most about her innocence, is that to Sophia, Felix is just a friend of hers that happens to play baseball and is on TV every once in a while. It's beautiful. The second day we had dinner at the Space Needle, which was amazing and the girls had so much fun. We went to another game on the third day there and again the girls were in heaven. Seattle is our happy place again. It was a place from 2001 until 2009 that we got travel to and watch baseball games and go to Pike's Place and have fun. After Sophia was born, Seattle became a place we only went for surgeries. This trip broght Seattle back to our happy place. Jason and I made the decision to go back to Seattle at least once a year to watch a baseball game, no matter if Sophia has a surgery scheduled or not. The girls had so much fun and it was the first time in a long time that I saw both of them really smile. Thank you Make A Wish and Seattle Mariners!