transplant day

Every Thursday I look back at a specific day and time that was spent with my daughter Matilda as she waited for, received, and recovered from a liver transplant. She was in the hospital for 72 days and we remained in NYC until she turned four months old.

November 2nd, 2012 - transplant day

Tyler arrived back at the hospital before the shift changed with coffee for everyone, clean blankets and toys for Matilda, and a spring in his step. He was ready to take on this day and so was I. We felt good. The best way to describe it was a sense of relief. For the last five weeks, we had been contemplating, questioning, and deliberating over the idea of a transplant. But now, the decision was made, it was out of our hands, and, for the first time in a long time, we felt like we could breathe.

With Dr. Moon officially on his way to go assess and hopefully retrieve the donor liver, we felt it was time to call our parents with the news. Once we spoke with immediate family over the phone, I posted this on Facebook:

There are moments in life where time stops, and, no matter the outcome, time will stop for us today. Matilda has been offered a liver from a two week old who suffocated while at a hospital in a town close to where my mother was adopted from in Missouri. Today is a day we must join together in prayer knowing that God has a plan for Matilda and hoping that involves staying with us on earth. We can not do this alone, we need to lift Matilda in prayer!

Almost immediately people were organizing prayer groups and signing up for shifts so that prayer would be constant - people even volunteered to get up in the middle of the night to continue to cover Matilda in so much love and support. And we felt it.

We were able to let loose a little, to relax, and leave the heavy praying to those around us. We were able to spend time with Matilda and fill her up with a lifetime of love. Social work came back and we were able to get better casts of her hands and feet. We played Matilda's theme song (given to her by the nurses) and we danced. We focused on the joy, the love, and the hope.



With every worry, negative thought, or whisper of doubt that popped into my head, I pushed it out with all of my might. We were all-in. We believed that she was going to make it against all odds. we believed that this was not her last day with us.

We were all-in.