January: Birth & the CMC

During Isla's life, Mo used a blog on www.islajeanjohnson.simplesite.com as a means of communicating with friends and family for frequent updates about her condition. The following entries were transferred from the “Isla’s Updates” section of her previous website.

LAST DAY APART Authored January 16, 2013

Isla has been in the NICU at Children's Medical Center for three days, and I've been at Baylor for a total of 2 1/2 weeks. Tomorrow is the day!! I will finally get discharged so I can go visit our baby girl at Children's. The time apart since her birth has been tough, but the nurses here have been taking great care of me to get me healed up from surgery as quickly as possible. Dan has been shuttling back and forth between us to keep us both feeling very loved. Today the nurses set up a webcam so I could watch Dan hold Isla from my hospital room across the city. I've only gotten to hold her once, for about a minute, since she was born and can't wait to see her tomorrow!

Nana Carol came in to town today, and will be staying with us for awhile while Isla prepares for her first surgery. We still don't have a date, but expect the first open-heart surgery, called the Norwood procedure, to take place sometime in the next week.