Hello and happy Sunday, friends.
This chapter of Not What I Had in Mind: A Motherhood Origin Story is free for everyone! Please forward it to your two best friends who love a good back-from-the-dead motherhood story!
My children are back on sleep strike. On Thursday night, Vivienne made the walk from her bedroom to ours more than a dozen times between the hours of two and four o’clock in this morning. She could not have chosen a better night to leave me sleepless in Orlando because, as luck would have it, the girls and I were due on the stage of the Abbot One Structural Heart Conference at 9:45am that morning for a Q & A about the device in the twins’ hearts.
The girls both had little holes in their hearts between the two major blood vessels that lead to the heart. All babies have this, and it typically closes after birth. Theirs didn’t because their extremely premature bodies didn’t get the memo. To improve their oxygenation and prevent further complications, their brilliant and super kind pediatric cardiologist plugged the hole with a tiny device (made by Abbott!) called a piccolo. The surgery was done using a catheter. They have a tiny scar the size of cupcake sprinkle where the catheter went in, and their heart muscle grew over the piccolo, which the twins refer to as “the groovy button in my heart.”
We made it to the main stage with a lot of help from abuela. The girls were absolutely adorable and behaved perfectly. They also took a nap on the way to the hotel and on the way home. You know who didn’t take a nap? I’m sure you can guess.
Chapter 10: A Mother Cut in Half