An incredibly intense day

I'll start by saying thank you all so much for the support and prayers I got in response to Monday's doom and gloom post. I felt like absolute crap Monday and clearly there was no hiding it. I think the culmination of everything hit me square in the face. And as many of you mentioned, I'm not alone in feeling that way and it's actually good that I acknowledge and feel these feelings as they come along. While I don't feel overly chipper today, I definitely don't feel like bawling my eyes out like I did on Monday. That's certainly a marked improvement!

While not related to infertility, yesterday was an incredibly stressful, emotional and surreal kind of day. As mentioned Monday, Kevin's mom had open heart surgery yesterday. Kevin's dad passed away in 2005 from cancer leaving his mom as his only surviving parent. His sister, Jennifer, flew in from NYC to be here as well. Her surgery was planned for five hours and started off by going very well. We got regular updates every hour and every update included "she's stable" until about the fourth hour when the updates were no longer positive and reassuring. They had run into complications getting her heart to start working again and her blood pressure had been dropping. They ended up putting in a balloon pump. When the surgeon had finally stabilized her after the eighth hour of surgery, he came out to talk to us and let us know what had happened and answered questions. He mentioned that this type of surgery is very serious - even more serious than bypass surgery. We knew it was a serious surgery, but I think all of us had underestimated the seriousness of it all. I am still in shock that she went through something so intense and life threatening. I am grateful she made it through it but those final hours of surgery were grueling and it felt like time was standing still.

Many hours after that, we finally got to see her in ICU while she was sedated with with tubes hooked into her. My heart just ached as I saw Kevin look at his mom as the nurses were buzzing all around her. I've seen this look on his face before and it was sheer panic and horror. He was trying to use his medical background to make sense of it all and to try to fix it. But of course, he couldn't. It was sensory overload for a son to witness. Being there brought back memories of when my mom was in her terrible car accident in 2007 and I had to see her unconscious and hooked up to tubes in the ICU in a very similar way. Many of the sounds, sights, and smells of this ICU were the same. It's not a place anyone wants to see their mother. Just awful.

We had been at the hospital since 5am and were exhausted. We finally left the ICU last night with instructions for the nurse to call Kevin if she crashes so we could rush to the hospital. And as you can imagine, we were on edge all night waiting for that phone to ring.

But I am grateful to report Kevin's phone did not ring last night which means she made it through the night! And according to the surgeon, the first hours and days after this kind of surgery are the most critical. Every passing hour where she remains stable is more reassuring than the hour before. We're waiting until they take her off of sedation and can remove the balloon pump so we talk and interact with her again. We can't wait for that moment!

Thanks for your prayers, our family could use them right now. It's a very scary time!