My third child, Mohamad, will be two months old on thursday! As some of you know, i had a baby boy two months ago and i knew from the 18 week ultrasound about his heart defect - transposition of the great arteries, where the two major arteries in the heart are connected to the opposite places than where they are supposed to be. The operation, arterial switch, re-connects them to the proper places and is done within 5 days of birth. I had a normal labor and delivery thank God which helped me have a quick recovery from giving birth so i could go back and forth between the hospital and my parents house, where my other two kids were staying, for the two weeks Mohamad was in the hospital.

They took him right away and put him on prostoglandin medicine to keep the hole in his heart open - the one used by the placenta that closes after birth, but one hour after birth his oxygen went down and they had to do a balloon septostomy procedure. This needs anesthesia but no incisions are made. A catheter is guided up from a vein in the thigh that goes right to the heart. A balloon is blown up which opens a hole in the heart, then it is popped and taken back down the vein. The hole allows the blood to mix so he can be stable until the day of surgery. Then they tried to get him off the prostoglandin because usually after this procedure the baby doesn’t need it, but my son needed both to keep his oxygen at an ok level.

The first 4 days of his life he just had an IV, the stickers on his chest for the monitors, and the oxygen probe around his big toe. They let me hold him whenever i wanted but all the wires made it awkward. They also let me try to breastfeed but he wasn’t getting the hang of it and the 3rd and 4th day i was feeding him some breastmilk by bottle, but he was not allowed to be fully fed. Sometimes his hunger would make his oxygen go down. Being on the monitors, you get so nervous everytime you hold him or touch him or change his diaper. It would start beeping and the nurse would come running.  

My husband would stay with him at night while i took care of my other kids and then bring me during the day. I rented a pump so i could pump at my parents house. I was pumping every 6 hours, which turned out good because that made me produce enough milk for him after he recovered from surgery, but not too much milk. If you pump every 3 hours you will make too much milk.  

Emotionally, i was off and on crying. The first two days they wouldn’t let me nurse him which was so traumatizing for me. I was still in the hospital i gave birth in and the second night the nurse came to introduce herself and she asked me about the baby and i broke down crying when i told her they still wouldn’t let me try to nurse him. Then you hear the other baby’s crying and you realize that you’re the only one that doesn’t have their baby with them in their room. Pumping was so awkward and depressing too. My milk came in the third night and gave me a fever. I woke in the middle of the night shaking with chills and having the most painful cramps. I felt like i was in labor again. I put the heat up, put more blankets over me, and tried to force myself to stop shivering by holding on to the sides of the bed. Then i called the nurse to give me some pain medication. When i was discharged from the hospital, i couldn’t help being depressed that i was leaving without my baby.

The night before surgery we were told that Mohamad would be taken at 1pm the next day, a wednesday. I instructed the nurse to give him some breastmilk at 5 am so he wouldn’t be too hungry before the operation. They can’t eat the 6 hours before open heart surgery. Other surgeries, breastmilk can be given 3 hours before. Then both of us left and slept at my parent’s house. My husband felt that the baby was well taken care of by the nurse and there wasn’t much he was doing at night anyways and he needed to get some rest without machines and beeping going on all the time. And at that point i couldn’t drive yet so it was a hassle for him to drive me to my parent’s and then drive back to the hospital. And then in the morning to have to drive to get me and then drive back to the hospital.

In the morning, i called the nurse to see how the baby was doing, she did feed him as i told her too, but she said the surgery was moved up to 11 am! The first operation was cancelled so the surgeon made Mohamad’s surgery earlier. We were so surprised and shocked. We rushed out of the house and yes there was traffic, it’s boston after all, and we were so afraid we wouldn’t make it in time. I just had to see him before they took him for the operation! My mom came with us for moral support. We got to the room at 10:30! And my husband, who had to park the car, got there 10:45. It was so close. My friend Nesreen tried to call me that morning but i just didn’t feel like talking to anyone. But she left me the most beautiful message.

Before surgery, i held the baby and spoke to him. I told him how much we love him and how strong and brave he is. I read prayers over him and held him close. When they came to take him they let me kiss him and then they wheeled him to the OR. He was sleeping so peacefully he had no idea where he was going or what was going to be done to him. That made it easier on me to let him go. If he had been crying it would have been so hard. They assured me he wouldn’t feel any pain at all. Up until that point i had been so emotional and worried but after they took him this sense of peace came down upon me - my baby’s heart was going to be fixed and his life will be saved. I felt happy even. I could genuinely feel all the du’as you were making for me, to make this easier on me and give me patience. Tawakkul, as Umm Zaid reminded me, is the most important thing - trust in God. I felt complete trust in God. Whatever happened would be good. He was for God. And if things went well and God let him be with his mother for a longer time, that would be good. And if things didn’t go well then the baby would go back to God and be a bird in heaven, which would also be good. As Suhaa kept telling me, God will give us the best for us, but we don’t know what is best for us, only God knows. So we just pray that God gives us the best in this life AND the hereafter. We don’t want just what’s best in this life. May Allah guide us all and give us Jannah inshaAllah.  

to be continued…

Previous Posts in the Series: 

Baby Mohamad - The Pregnancy : Details on his heart defect and my reaction to finding out

Baby Mohamad - The Birth Story