8 Months 3 Weeks, and a bunch of smiles

So first off I will apologize for the delay in writing an update as this blog is titled "Pregnancy - Male point of view" and I found out that that sometimes means we are really busy with the kid!

So the second surgery is done (phew). Jen and I were expecting it to be another 4 week stay in the hospital and we were really surprised when they told us best case scenario is 6-7 days! I guess as they get bigger and stronger the body recovers easier... Jane made it home in 6 days which was amazing. She did really well this time around - from the smile she gave us as they took her to the surgery prep room to the first smile we got when she was recovering, the entire time she was a "best case scenario".

*** We want to give a special acknowledgment to Auntie Nicki, Oma, John Bowman, Cyvil, Lindsay King and all of the friends and family that donated blood and/or got their friends to donate. I think Jane used 1 unit post surgery and now there will be plenty available for all of the other kids (and adults) that need it.***

Getting her home after this second surgery was really cool, but it definitely took some new adjusting to because for the first time since her birth there isn't a surgery looming and the medicine intake for her has decreased heavily... Therefore Jen and I had to find a new groove and a new routine to carry us through the next phase; well it only took a little bit of time and we have it down now: Eat, Crap, Play, Learn, Sleep and repeat. Jane's routine isn't far off from that either ;)

We discovered that Jane loves the zoo. It's pretty cute to see her face light up at the animals she likes (meerkats, pandas, peacocks) and it's especially cute seeing the Mad Dog Mulligan faces when she sees an animal she doesn't like (hippo, sea turtles)... For those of you that haven't met Jane yet or don't know her she is definitely a very visual baby (as are most I assume), but anyways she takes in every inch of her surroundings and the zoo is no different for her. I will say taking her to the zoo takes much more time because of the amount of people that stop us to comment on one of the outfits Jen has her in or just to see her smile or whatever reason it may be. It takes longer, but it's fun to see people interact with her... except why do every single one of them try to touch her? That's something I never noticed before I had a kid for sure...

So now that we are in a new groove I will be able to update the blog more frequently; keep looking out for them. As for her health right now she is doing great... all the stuff they hoped would happen post surgery has happened: she is breathing easier... her eating doubled and continues to... her color got much better and the only thing we are waiting on now is for her to get taller... that's the only area she is behind in. Other than that things are really good and we are very relieved to have 2 out of 3 surgeries behind us. It's been the best 8 1/2 months of our lives and we have loved every minute of it with this kid.

Having a child with congenitive heart disease isn't supposed to be easy and we are fortunate enough to say that in relative terms Jane has made it "easy" for us. Her strength, humor, and positive disposition made it so that we could focus on what we needed to do to get this far and know deep down that this tough kid was just taking it all in stride - living my and Jen's mantra of "What are you gonna do? It is what it is." She amazes us daily and keeps us laughing non stop and I can tell you this: between the three of us our laughs we sound like a cackling bunch of animals.

Maybe that's why she enjoys the zoo so much?