That Sunday was Mother's Day(May 14, 2006). It was so weird for me, being so far away from my older 4 children and having to spend it in PICU with my very sick newborn. The night nurses had made lovely cards for the mums for Mother's Day, with baby's foot print on it. Very sweet! It was the only Mother's Day present for me that day.

On Mo. it was decided that Noah would have his operation on Tuesday, May 16. His due date!
By then we had been able to contact quite a few people and we knew that lots of people all over the world were praying for Noah. This gave me such a peace!
He went into theatre quite early that morning. By 1pm we got a phone call that he was safely off the bypass machine!

The first few days after the operation he seemed to do well and to improve every day. But by the weekend, his improvement slowed down and from then on, it seemed that with every step forward, there was one if not more steps backwards. His kidneys refused to kick back in for quite a while, he retained far too much fluid and all sorts of other things went wrong.
By the next weekend, his surgeon, Kirsten Finucane, was getting really worried about him. She told us later that she'd worried about him all weekend and studied his ultrasounds and x-rays.
She rang us on Mo.morning to say she wanted to talk to us. She'd decided to do another operation, as it turned out Noah had another, smaller VSD that was causing the trouble, together with his smaller left ventricle.
It was a shock to us that Noah had to have another operation, but we knew it was necessary. We were told at 10AM and by 11.30AM he was wheeled into theatre.

This time I had a much harder time coping with it, but by late afternoon Noah was back in PICU and the operation had gone well, his surgeon told us. It was horrible to see him so pale, hooke dup to all sorts of machines and drains again, just like after the first operation.
But by the next day we could already tell that he was recovering a lot faster than the first time! He only spent one more week in PICU and was then discharged to the Children's Heart Ward in Starship.
In the mean time he'd developed chylothorax after the second operation. This is a condition in which the fat from the breastmilk is draining into the chest cavity, due to some small damage in his tummy (belly). This happens to about 30% of babies after cardiac surgery. I was told Noah couldn't have my milk for a while. This was such a blow to me, after I had been expressing for weeks.
But because the chylothorax was discovered quickly, he would only have to be on a special low fat formula for about 2 weeks, instead of the usual 6-8 weeks.
So while in the Children's Heart Ward, Noah was on this formula (Monogen) while I kept expressing.

After 6 days in the heart ward, we were able to transfer back to Tauranga Hospital. But that day was a stormy day again (it's winter in this part of the world!) and Auckland suffered major powercuts that day. Starship had no power either, other than what they could get from their generators. It meant doctors couldn't get into computers or e.g. look at x-rays. It was real chaos!
Traffic in Auckland was chaotic too, as many traffic lights weren't working. We were waiting for an ambulance from Tauranga to pick us up and it turned up hours later than expected.
By 3pm we finally left Starship and got to Tauranga Hospital by 6pm.