Crap, crap, and more crap...

I'm sure you can tell by the frequency of my posts just how much time I have. Every single day feels like a replication of the last, with a few variations thrown in here and there. At the moment we have a system, though, which consists of someone being near the girls around the clock. This has proven to be a good thing since all of them have refluxed through their noses to the point of choking. Had we not been present to pick them up and suction them, who knows whether or not they would have recovered. We honestly have very few moments throughout the day when we can just enjoy the girls. Rather, we are constantly caring for them as if they are still in the hospital. It's a very clinical experience most of the time and we look forward to the coming weeks, during which we can transition into more of a family mode.

Our crappy and crappiest news revolves around our visit to the cardiologist yesterday. Olivia had a CT of her heart, the point of which was to provide a more detailed map of its structure in order to determine how to repair the problem areas. Unfortunately the CT showed that Olivia is missing her main pulmonary artery. Combined with her other heart issues, she essentially has one of the worst forms of Tetralogy of Fallot and thus her condition is more serious than we would like. She likely has only one functional lung as a result of the heart defect, which is fine; she can live with one lung. The very sad part is that in order to correct everything, she will need an open heart surgery. In fact, because the body often rejects the parts used to correct the problems, she will need multiple surgeries. Apparently some people have surgeries every few months and others as infrequently as every 5 years until adulthood, when the surgeries can decrease in number. There are so many more details, but these are the main highlights. Overall, she has a very very very long road ahead.

Makenna received some pretty bad news yesterday, too. She has an Atrial Septal Defect, which will also require open heart surgery. Fortunately there appears to be no rush at the moment. So long as her heart remains in good condition, she will not have surgery. Once it begins to enlarge, they will move forward and repair the problem. This surgery should be pretty straightforward, but it's still major surgery. Our cardiologist said that most children with ASD have a repair around age 2.

So FANTASTIC...we have two daughters with heart conditions. How exactly does that happen? It was not a result of the triplet pregnancy, not a result of prematurity...it wasn't even genetic. It was all completely random. I'm having a hard time believing that and a very hard time wrapping my brain around all of this. I absolutely cannot even fathom the fear and pain they will experience as a result of these surgeries. I cannot even begin to relate to these poor little girls, yet I will need to be there to comfort them and to reassure them that everything will turn out just fine. For now, I suppose the first step is to convince myself.