Introducing Violet Mariela Geeves

Violet Mariela Geeves was born on March 26, 2012 at 9:49 am via C-section. She weighed 8.08 lbs and was 19.5 inches long. I had originally planned on doing a vbac but changed my mind the last minute. I actually started having contractions two days before my scheduled c-section, but they were not strong enough for me to go to the hospital.

As soon as she was cleaned, Ian brought her over to me so that I could meet our little girl. I was so excited to finally meet her that I did not realize there was something wrong with her until Ian mentioned it. Violet was born with a microform cleft lip which is a mild form of cleft lip. It probably corrected itself in utero, but none of the doctors were able to tell us exactly what happened. She looked so beautiful to me that what she had did not matter to me... I knew that it could probably be fixed and I just wanted to enjoy the little person that I had just given birth to.

Later that day, Noah came to meet his baby sister. He really did not care to see her, but was nice to her.

The following day, the pediatrician came around to check on her to make sure she was ok. The doctor heard a murmur in her heart and ordered an echocardiogram for that same day. We did not think it was a big deal because Noah was born with a heart murmur and it went away by itself. Heart murmurs are common in infants. The images were sent to the cardiologist so that he can go over them. As we were walking out of the hospital room with all of our stuff, my nurse said to go back to the room because the cardiologist was looking at the images and asked us to stay so that we could know the results. About 1/2 hour after we were told to go back to our room, the nurse said that the cardiologist had ordered another echocardiogram so that he could take a closer look at a specific area of the heart. It turns out that the cardiologist ordered another echocardiogram for that same day... and he was the one that performed the exam. My mom was watching Noah and knowing that they were going to release us soon, we asked her to come drop him off. She came to drop him off and left. He was already with us when the cardiologist started the look at Violets heart, luckly he took a nap during the 1 hour that it took for the exam to be over. When the cardiologist was done, Violet was sent back to our room. Ian, Noah, and myself were all in there... our little family. We knew that there was something wrong because the cardiologist came in and pulled a chair for himself. We were not prepared for what he had to tell us. As he was telling us what he found I had Violet in my arm and I just stared into her eyes and held her as hard as I could. Violet was born with a congenital heart defect. There are many different forms of the heart defect and our 2 day old was diagnosed with Coarctation of the Aorta. This made her breath really hard and it did not allow for the lower part of her body to get enough blood. As soon as we found out she was sent to the NICU and was transported to the NICU Kaiser Los Angeles. She was admitted on a Wednesday night, was transported to the Cardiothoracic Intensive care unit at Children's Hospital Los Angeles on a Monday and had heart surgery on Tuesday, she was 9 days old. Her incision in on her back, and not down her chest. This picture is the day after she was sent to the NICU in La. 4 days old.

This was Violet 5 days after her surgery at Children's Hospital, right before she was going back to Kaiser La. 12 days old.

We are so grateful for our family and the support that they gave us during the 3 weeks that we were away. Everyone helped to take care of Noah and we really appreciate it. We are so blessed that our little girl is doing better and we know that everyones prayers had something to do with her recovery. We are so grateful for being part of a church that believes that families can be together forever because prayer and knowing this is really what helped us go thru this. I am so thankful for Ian and for the love that he has for me. This experience has brought us closer together.

I am so proud to be Violets mom. Violet spent the first 3 weeks of her life in the hospital. She is the strongest little girl that I know... she is amazing.