Trinity had a severe left-sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) with most of her organs in her chest. There is a 50 percent survival rate across the U.S., but we were fortunate to be near Texas Children’s Hospital which has a rate closer to 75 percent. I stayed at the Ronald McDonald House during the two weeks leading up to my scheduled C-section, and completed any school work I had in the house. Aside from the occasional scare with Trinity’s lack of movement, the rest of my pregnancy was fairly uneventful.

Birth day came and my entire family came to town to celebrate Trinity and Guinevere’s arrival into this world. A normal C-section is pretty unnerving in and of itself with the doctors removing the babies like toothpaste from the tube. Trinity’s silence when she arrived was probably what drove the entire situation home for me. She didn’t cry. It was a quiet flurry of activity as they tried to intubate her, which was a struggle from the bits of conversation I could catch. They whisked her away and my husband followed. Guinevere came out screaming enough