A broken heart and therapy

By:Lynnet H.

Feb. 3, 1998 the stick showed two lines... How was I going to tell my husband that we were expecting our third child? After numerous surgeries for ovarian tumors, we were blessed with a boy and girl, then 5 & 6 and We didn't think we could have more. God had other plans. I started working immediately on this baby's book, writing him letters, trying to finish as much as I could as time would pass quickly, for this baby we prayed so hard for. The day finally arrived in mid Sept. and Connor arrived. The stadol they gave me during labor made me sleepy, so I don't remember most of what followed except the words of the pediatrician - "Your baby has what could be a fatal heart defect", at that moment our hearts broke. He was flown to AR Child. Hosp. and there we stayed for 17 days. We took 9 rolls of pictures of everything - daily pictures of him, the nurses, his room, visitors, him after surgery, holding him for the first time, etc. We designed several pages filled with each nurses picture and a place were they could write to him, and the baby that I feared would not have any pictures of him, soon had two scrapbooks filled to the brim.
I have been scrapbooking for about 5 years now, mostly to relax and more improtantly to document the tons of photos that tell the story of our family. I can get lost for hours doing this! But Connor's book has been more therapy through the heartache, something that we needed to do. Watching him improve, fight back, taking picutres of improvements, milestones, and victories. He has truly been a blessing and miracle, and now he has several books that he can look at when he's older and know exactly what happend and how much he was wanted and loved... Scrapbooking has offered a way to tell a story about a boy with a broken heart and how it was fixed, and how he became the person that he is.

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: I LOVE SCRAPBOOKING!, by By Jeannette, Virginia Beach, VA