Cold Feet

I am about to reveal to everyone that I am not made of steel!  It's true. I try not to ever show weakness especially when facing something hard or scary.  The last few days have felt very hard and scary and I have felt my toughness cracking a bit.  My heart has been heavy and I have been having a lot of doubt about Tatum's upcoming surgery.  I have been really second guessing myself.  Then two days ago, we checked her oxygen saturation and she was having a hard time keeping it where it needed to be, so we gave her a little oxygen, and that helped a lot.  But I didn't want to accept the fact that maybe her lungs were getting tired.  After going back and forth for the next 24 hours, oxygen on, oxygen off.  We now have her on a low level  of oxygen.  Which means another tube on her face! Yuk.

 This really worried me about her surgery.  I started to get cold feet.   I went down today to have a "conference" with our pediatrician and the nurse practitioner who have cared for all of our kids.  They both were there for Trevin's whole life and so I really love them and value their opinion, and they are very respectful of parents and their intuition.  We had a good discussion and as I left the office, I really felt comforted.  I love them!  So, the surgery is on like Donkey Kong! (as we say at the Walker home) There is risk in everything that we do with her, and her doctors really think this will improve her quality of life.  That is certainly our goal.  She is such a delightful little spirit.  Everyone who meets her is drawn to her.   We are so lucky to have her in our family forever and especially for this very special time here on earth.  She has been such a little trooper through all of this so we have coined her a new nickname: Tough as nails Tatum!  Such a funny name for a little 13 pounder.  Yes, today, Tatum finally broke the 13 pound mark.  Big milestone for her.
Tonight as I was getting ready to go to our Relief Society gospel class I had this overwhelming feeling that the Savior has such compassion for what our family is going through.  I have felt my heart breaking these past few days.  I know that He has taken upon Him our suffering and pain and it just felt a little lighter knowing that He understood and did not think I was weak for being so sad.  He is sad with me.  Even though He can't take the pain away from us, He (as Brother Eastmond said tonight) will stand with us.  I truly know that, because I feel it.  So grateful for the Atonement. Grateful to our little Tater Bug for all of the lessons we are learning from her.