What a Difference a Year Makes

A year ago today we became parents to miss Stella Grace Sridharan.

We did not know about her heart condition before she was born and we had almost 24 hours of normal "parenthood" before it became recognizable that something wasn't quite right. We would go on to spend many days in the hospital as Stella spent a week in the NICU, 11 days recovering in the CVICU at St Joes and almost 3 months at the CVICU at Phoenix Children's Hospital. As many of you know we have had a roller coaster of a year with many ups and downs. The gift of parenthood that David and I have received is one that thankfully most families don't have to experience and it is definitely far from normal. However, through our experience we have grown in so many ways that have helped us to recognize the blessing that we have received in our abnormal gift of parenthood. Today we had the wonderful gift and blessing of celebrating our baby girl turning ONE! This is such a normal celebration that many families look forward to as one of the many birthday celebrations they will enjoy. For us this day was an unknown for much of the time that Stella spent in the hospital. We were warned that her chances of making it through her second open heart surgery were very low and we spent many nights wondering if we would have one more day with Stella, let alone a whole year. While I always knew that God was in control and He had a plan that was perfect, I did not know what that plan was and there was no guarantee that God's plan was the same as our plan. 

The past 6 months we have seen that God has a BIG plan for Stella Grace and she continues to amaze us with her progress and her wonderful personality.

 

What a difference a year has made!