Holding On

"I wonder how bad she was," my dad asked, as he watched Princess cram another noodle into her mouth. "I'm sure she didn't have much longer to live."

I'd never actually thought about how close Princess must have been to death. But I'd never seen a baby with heart condition struggle to hold on to life. My dad had.

He was with me when I went into cardiac arrest. I was born with Transposition of the Great Veins and had open-heart surgery when I was 6 weeks old. It was my first and last surgery.

Princess was born with Tetralogy of Fallot. While not as complicated as Transposition, it can still be fatal if it's not surgically corrected. In the United States it's corrected shortly after birth. Evie lived with it for two years. She probably turned blue and had a hard time breathing. Combine that with her cleft lip and palate, her poor weight gain, and life in an orphanage, it's a miracle that she survived.

I will always wonder who held her when she had a Tet spell? Who got her knees up to her chest so the blood would start flowing again? Who decided this child with two significant special needs, should get life-saving surgery to correct her heart in hopes that a family would adopt her?

Someone was with her in those early fragile days. Someone had to love her. Without love and human contact, it's not unusual for sick babies to give up.

Princess fought. But she couldn't have done it alone. What angel did God place in that orphanage to care for her until we got there? I wonder if she's still there tending to the sickest, to the least of these? Is she helping other babies hold on for just a little bit longer until they can finally come home.