Where Are The Feelings?

Since the Sunday after Hannah died I have had no great feelings of sadness. I feel numb. Often it doesn't even feel like I had a daughter. It's like Hannah is just a baby we met while on holidays. I'm actually more upset that I'm not grieving more & am just getting on with life. I don't want to forget her. Is this God giving us an unexplainable peace & strength? Is it because I have accepted that it was God's will? 

I really struggled in the immediate days after her death with questions of "did we do the right thing?", "was a mistake made by the drs?", "what if....?". The big one was "Why would God so obviously perform a miricle & bring her back to life, only to take her the next evening?". But the answer I believe He has given to me is that He was showing me & most likely the Dr that He was capable of doing it if it was His will, but it wasn't. I've accepted this & am at peace with it. 

A Father's Speech

Here is Tom's speech from Hannah's funeral.

I sat down the day before yesterday and tried to write down what I wanted to say today. When I had filled 3 A4 pages I thought it was getting a little too long. The last 9 weeks have been very eventful and emotional and there are many things that link together and only make sense in the larger context.

Today we are together to commemorate Hannah, and Ally has talked about some of the things that we will remember her for. Despite her short life we have many memories that we cannot just forget. We have been with her ​​when she was all right and was smiling. We were there when it went bad and she lay crying. We have seen God do miracles, so even the doctors stood speechless. We were there when God took her soul home.

I have decided to put my focus a little different. Because the question I think we are all left with is, "why?" It's probably a question that we will never get a full answer for, but here are some thoughts that have helped me to see things in a slightly larger perspective.

As Christians, we believe in an omnipotent God who has everything under control, and in a loving God who wish us the best. It is these two characters of God that has helped me the most in recent times. It may sound strange so let me elaborate a little bit.

We read before from Psalm 139:

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together  in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

This means that God created Hannah while she was still a fetus. He knew her heart defect and allowed her to be born with this. Although I do not understand why, it has kept me up to know that God had a plan for Hannah and that nothing that has happened over the last 9 weeks, has been random. Especially Hannah's last day showed it maybe the best. You can not plan to have most of your  family gathered around you when you will die, but that’s what Hannah had, and that showed me God's timing in a unique way.

At the same time Hannah in her short life has affected more people than many people have done in a long life. If I could influence just half as many in the rest of my life, I'd die a happy man.

Yet perhaps you ask, "How can a loving God allow all this, could it not be done differently?

Yes, perhaps, but here it is important to understand that God's love does not consist in that we always have it good and never have  problems. We live in a fallen world where death and transience is a natural part of life and as Christians we cannot expect that we won’t have our share of the pain. No, God love is that He has given us eternal life!

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Our life here on earth can be short or long, but at some point we all go the same way. The question is whether it is to eternal damnation or eternal life. We know that Hannah with her Creator and has eternal life. We know that one day we will be together with her ​​again, if we believe in God's Son Jesus Christ. I know without a doubt that Hannah's greatest wish would be to see as many of you again on the other side and together praise an almighty and loving God.

A Mother's Speech

This is the speech I made at Hannah's funeral.

When I sit & look back over the 2 short months of Hannah’s life my mind doesn’t immediately go to the hard times, the pain & the suffering. It goes to the good times, the times when she smiled, when I held her, when I got to see her personality & when she opened her big brown eyes & looked at me with recognition. My biggest wish today is that you too could have had the chance to meet her & get to know her. Today I would like to tell you about my precious little girl.

She had such big brown eyes & such long fingers & feet.

She loved grasping hold of my finger & having her head stroked. There were many times when she was upset & the only way to settle her was to put my finger in her hand, my other hand on her head & sing to her. She loved music & being sung to as well.

She was not all that fussed on being washed, but absolutely LOVED when I massaged the moisturizing cream into her legs & feet afterwards. She would stop crying & completely relax. The other time she would completely relax was in my arms. The first time I held her she was all upset while the were getting her ready & moving her, then as soon as they put her in my arms she looked up at me, gave a contented sigh & snuggled into my chest. The nurses were always commenting on how Hannah’s vital signs would stabilize when she was with me.

Hannah was a very determined little girl. She had her own plan & schedule & did not like being rushed. As long as you took things quietly & slowly things were usually fine. Because Hannah was not able to take anything orally she would regularly have to have her mouth cleaned with a wet swab to keep it fresh & moist. This was something that Hannah DID NOT like. She would pull her mouth tightly shut in a very determined manner & it took quite a bit of coaxing to get her to open it again. One other thing she hated was having a dirty nappy. It didn’t matter if it was only a tiny little bit, she would cry until you changed it.

Hannah was a special little girl & our lives will never be the same. Our prayer from the very start of this journey was that God would use her life to bring glory to Him & we believe He has done that. While it's hard to understand why she had to go after fighting so long & hard, & seeing God answer so many of our prayers, we believe there is a purpose. May we never forget the lessons we have learnt.

The Funeral

I don't know what I expected the funeral to be like, but it certainly didn't end up the way I expected. I thought seeing the coffin & seeing it lowered into the ground may have been hard, but it wasn't. I was expecting to have to explain things to Joshua, but he didn't ask. He just quietly took things in & played with his cousins. He didn't ask what the coffin was or what was in it. He was interested to look down after the coffin had been put in the ground, but he didn't ask why.

It was a very peaceful day & the weather was perfect. This was something I had been praying for. I wanted it to be a sunny day, not rainy & dreary. One thing both Tom & I had said was that we wanted the day to be a celebration of her life, not a mourning of her death. In holding with this I placed the bears she had had with her while in hospital in front of the coffin.

We held a short service at a old, quaint little chapel in Varde & then proceded out to Janderup Cemetry where we sang a hymn & the coffin was lowered in the ground. Then all  were invited back to our house for a light lunch.

It seems our car was a little overwhelmed with the day & when we hopped in it to drive from the chapel to the cemetry it just would not start. So we quickly scrambled into a couple of other cars where there was place.

Safe in the Arms of Jesus

Thursday afternoon Hannah went to be with Jesus where she is free from pain & suffering, in a brand new perfect body. She will be sorely missed.  <br>
 <br>After coming back from death's door on Wednesday night & remaining fairly stable over night, they decided to open up her chest again a bit & see if they could find out why the stuff going into the CVC seemed to be coming straight out the drain. They found a small hole in one of the suture lines from the op & repaired it. However they then noticed that her pupils were uneven sizes & a scan showed that she had suffered a massive bleed in the brain. There was nothing more that could be done for her & it was just basically the medicine & machines keeping her alive. So the decision was made to stop treatment & let her peacefully pass away. <br>
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It was all very calm and peaceful. I got to hold her during the process, surrounded by all our family. We had the CD "Hidden in my Heart" playing & as she took her last breaths, we switched to the song "Holding You" by Matt Hammitt. After she has gone a few of Tom's family prayed & a couple of people spontaniously started singing a couple of hymns. Then all our family left & Tom & I got to sit alone with her. We also got to wash her & dress her after they had removed all the drain etc & closed up her wounds. Then I got to hold her one last time & move about the room freely. Although she was dead & it really was more like holding a doll, I was so glad to be able to do it. <br>
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Joshua was there through it all & was quite affected. He could see everyone was upset, but couldn't understand why. He didn't know what to do or where to go. It also didn't help that he was quite tired. A couple of times he climbed up on my lap with Hannah, but didn't stay there very long. Eventually he settled & fell asleep in his cousin Daniel's lap. Although it was perhaps quite traumatic for him we felt it was important he was there so that it wasn't like Hannah had just disappeared & that when he does ask about her we can refer back to it & explain. We of course tried to explain it to him in simple terms at the time, but we are not sure exactly how much he understands. Despite the fact that he went  to see Hannah everyday & was quite attached to her, he has not mentioned her once yet since her death. We wonder if he sees our time in Skejby as being on holiday & Hannah as part of that.  So now we are home...<br>
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Not Good

Don't have the energy to go into detail now, but just want to let those of you who are following us here know the latest. <br>
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At 7pm last night we were called to the ward & told that Hannah had taken a turn for the worse & was not responding to any treatment. There was nothing more they could do for her & she would die in the next few minutes. She has rallied & is holding on by a thin thread. Only a miricle will get her through, her body is tired.

A Long Day

Today was a LONG day. I didn't have to meet up at gyn ward til 10am, so went up to have a quick visit with Hannah first. She was happy & had her eyes open, I think she even gave me a smile. Then I went up to the gyn ward where I had to wait until 1pm before going into theatre (I had been fasting since 11pm the previous night & hadn't had anything to drink since 8am). The procedure it's self didn't take that long & I was discharged by 1630. 

As we didn't know when I'd be out, nothing had been arranged for dinner, so we decided to have it up at the hospital canteen. While we were on way up to ward after dinner we got a phonecall that Hannah wasn't doing well. We didn't get too worried as she often went up & down, but that changed when we walked into the room & saw the faces of the drs. We were told her BP & HR had dropped suddenly & was not responding to treatment. They said she had been given the maximum amount of adrenaline that they could give & she only had minutes to live. We began to fervently pray to God that he would intervene. Suddenly without explaination her heart rate stopped falling & started picking up again & her BP started coming up again. The drs were speechless. 

Having had that scare though we were unwilling to leave her & so spent the night up at the hospital with her. Tom had rung his parents & they had driven up straight away. We had called my parents to also come up with Joshua when told she didn't have long. The nurses were wonderful. They organised for a couple of beds to be brought up & put in the empty room next door to Hannah's & we had a couple of recliner chairs in her room as well. They organised for jugs of coffee, tea & juice to have in the room. They did all they could to accomodate us & make us as comfortable as possible. Hannah stayed stabile, though on a HUGE dose of cardiac meds, the whole night.

No News, Good News

Been a few days since I posted here. But things have been going well, just no great big chamges to report. Hannah has been stable the last 2 days (had a little trouble with plumeting BP Friday night after they partially closed her chest). They have been able to slowly reduce all her cardic support meds & hopefully today they will be able to completely close her chest. She is still sedated, but I'm hoping they'll wean her off that soon too. <br>
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In other news, it will be me (Alison) heading to theatre on Wednesday. I am still bleeding after the birth & they now think there is still a little placenta left behind. So Wednesday morning I go in for an D&C.

Wobbly, But Good

Hannah continues to be a little wobbly with her BP dropping quite low now & then, but overall she is doing quite well. They were able to already close her chest a little today. Both Tom & I think she look a little better today. She is still sedated & paralysed, but only just. Her arterial line stopped working last night & it took them nearly 2hrs to get a new one in. This is an important line as it allows them to constantly measure her blood pressure & react quickly.

Back to Square One

Although the operation went well & so far it seems that her heart & circulation are better than they were, to look at her it just feels like we are back where we were after the first op & we've lost all that ground we had gained. Her chest is sitting open again & she's heavily sedated & paraylysed, she has 3 drains coming out of her & 3 different IV sites with six different infusions, plus she's still on dialysis. But so far she has been stable & we pray that this will continue.

So details of the operation...

Things went smoothly & as planned with no big surprises. She was stable under the whole procedure & as mentioned last night, although they had to take their time (hence the reason it took so long to get her back to the ward), she was able to come off the artifical heart pump & her own heart is coping well with doing the work all on it's own.

It was discovered when they came to reapir the valve that Hannah was actually born with a malformed tricuspid valve, so it is possible that it would have malfunctioned on it's own anyway despite the operation. They were able to repair it & although it is not completely sealing properly the leaking has been reduced considerably. I am still to find out if more will need to be done in the future or what.

As we had expected, when they came to join the Superior Vena Cava to the Pulmonary Artery they were still the size of a newborns & had therefore too high of a pressure in them, so a BT shunt was placed instead. This means that she will have to have another operation in 3-4mths time to do the original procedure of joining the Superior Vena Carva to the Pulmonary Artery.

Now begins the road to recovery again. Hopefully this time it will be less rocky, faster & not come to a halt. Thank you once again for all your prayers & words of encouragement.

Back on the Ward

So she finally came back to the ward at 10pm & we have just been up to see her. She has been stable up until now, but became slightly unstable the last hour or so. They have been able to stabilise her again, so we just pray she continues to have a stable night. The next 24hrs are very crucial.

I will write tomorrow with more details, but one praise point right now is that she was able to come off the artifical heart pump before coming back to the ward.

One Day At A Time

One thing we have learnt with Hannah's situation is to take one day at a time. Last night we were told that it was planned to do the operation on Thursday, but this morning at 8:30am we recieved a phone call to say that they had decided to do it today & were taking her into theatre in an hour. Wow! Ok! So we quickly got dressed, as we had just got out of bed, & hurried up to the ward to see her one last time. She was still awake, though slightly groggy, & we were able to sit with her until they took her to theatre at 10am. <br>
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After we came back to the house & had some breakfast we headed off to the shopping centre for the day, returning at 3pm. They rang at 6pm to say that the operation was finished & it had gone well. We are just waiting now for her to return to the ward so that we can come up & see her.