Second Verse, Same as the First!

Hello there!

Long time, no blog! It's been a busy couple of years :) What can I say?

Cecilia is doing great- she is hilarious and full of energy. We've been swimming a lot this summer and she's gonna be a fish when she learns how to swim on her own. She's not walking on her own yet but she is coming along at her Cecilia-pace. We are having so much fun with her and she's positively uplifting. Although, the other night she smacked me in the face with my iPhone and I'm pretty sure it chipped my tooth and bruised the crud out of my lip. 

Moving on now to the reason for the blog revival:

Well, here we go again! Cecilia is having her second surgery to fix up her heart. We will all be checking in at Randall Children's Hospital July 22, Wednesday morning at 5:30am! Talk about early! 

Many of you already know Cecilia had an open heart surgery when she was a young baby in 2013- She has a congenital heart defect which left her with poorly formed valves within her heart. They went in and made new valves with existing tissue and part of her pericardial sac. Unfortunately, the repair didn't completely restore her normal heart function. The left valve, the mitral valve, did not work properly. It should prevent back flow from the vessel that sends blood from the lungs, but it leaked causing regurgitation and slight enlargement. We've been monitoring it since the first surgery knowing at some point we'd need to go back in. Now is that time! 

We had an appointment on July 6 to decide whether or not to do it now or wait til next year. We knew after Cecilia's first surgery she would need a second to fix the mitral valve. The first repair fixed a lot of things and greatly improved her quality of life- this next surgery will improve it even more. 

It's definitely been a little harder for us to go into this again and that's part of the reason we waited to tell folks. We weren't sure if we'd need to do it now or wait until next year. After her surgery in 2013 we were hoping it would be something we'd need to do when she was 4 years old! Alas, we don't always get what we want. However, this is the best thing for Cecilia and we want to make sure she has the absolute best gear for running all over the place and raising hell!

Please keep us in your thoughts- we know how much everyone loves Cecilia and we will try our best to keep the blog up to date next week! We will celebrate her new heart soon!

XOXOXO
Mark and Sara