The story of Emma Grace.

Today a friend of mine posted the story of baby Emma Grace, and it had me bawling like a baby. I though I would share it with all of you also.

"MIAMI — When she was just 2 1/2 weeks old, Emma
Grace lay on an operating table, scrawny arms and legs spread out, tiny body
dwarfed by the giant room full of steel and high-tech gadgetry. Her chest was
raised so a surgeon could get to her faulty heart. No feet were pacing outside
on her account, no eyes darting for updates.
Before she learned how to smile
or hold a gaze, Emma was given up twice — by her 23-year-old birth mother, a
drug-user, smoker and drinker who knew she could never care for the baby, and by
a 48-year-old adoptive mother who backed out when she learned of Emma's heart
condition and of her own pregnancy by in-vitro fertilization. Now the baby was
having an enormously risky procedure to give her the pulmonary artery she was
missing. She looks so sweet, thought Dr. Redmond Burke as he prepared to
operate.
"Someone has to adopt this baby," he said.
Emma Grace was born
two weeks early on Monday, March 24 at 6:18 p.m., at Baptist Hospital of Miami.
She weighed 4 pounds, 7 ounces, and spanned all of 16 1/4 inches. As the
delivery staff put a stethoscope to her chest, like they do all newborns, they
heard a murmur. A scan of her heart showed a possible defect. Emma was
transferred to the care of specialists at Miami Children's Hospital, where they
confirmed she needed heart surgery. They also found out she has DiGeorge
syndrome, a genetic disorder whose symptoms include a weak immune system.

As doctors waited for Emma to gain weight before putting her through an
operation, the couple who planned to adopt her flew in from California. They
spoke to doctors about the baby's health. Nurses noticed the woman was visibly
upset and was reluctant to hold the child. Then, two days before the surgery,
Burke walked by Emma's room and saw the adoptive mother weeping at the bedside.
"I can't adopt this baby," she told the surgeon. "She's got too many medical
problems, I'll never be able to take care of her."
But she also felt guilty
about leaving Emma alone.
"Don't worry," Burke assured her. "We'll touch her
every day and make sure she's all right."
"We'll take care of Emma."
Word of the orphan baby had spread quickly among Miami Children's nursing
staff.
"This was the first baby where there just wasn't anybody calling. It
just really got to us," veteran cardiac nurse Carol Ann Hoehn said. "We thought:
'You know what, we'll fill in the gap here."'
Teddy bears starting turning
up in the newborn's bed. Bright pink bows began adorning her head. Nurses made a
point to pop into her room and hold her. Hoehn sent out a text message: We're
having a baby shower for Emma. Are you in? The replies came back: Yes. Yes. Yes.
"We wanted Emma to always know that she was always wanted, she was always
loved and worthy to be loved," Hoehn said.
The night before her surgery,
Emma was under the care of nurse Jennifer Peterson, who was instantly smitten.
She snapped Emma's first glamor shots, capturing her yawning and napping. She
dressed her in a pale pink hat with tiny flowers that another nurse bought, so
the pictures didn't look like they were taken in a hospital. Peterson spent
hours that night cradling and rocking the baby.
"Honestly you don't know
what happens during surgery or afterward," Peterson said. She remembers
thinking: "I don't want her last memory of people not to be nice ones."
The
next morning, cardiac surgery nurse Daniel Monroe — oblivious to the orphan's
tale — went into Emma's room. Moments later, he called out to a co-worker:
"Listen, I need you to find me the parents because I'm in a hurry to go to the
OR." I'm sorry, the co-worker answered. There are no parents. When Monroe heard
that, his reaction was instantaneous. He looked at the bassinet and whispered:
"We could adopt you."
For years, he and his wife Elizabeth tried to have
children. They spent $35,000 on in-vitro fertilization to conceive their son
Paul — an especially hefty sum for a then-operating room technician and high
school home economics teacher. But Elizabeth Monroe always wanted a daughter and
it was painful to give up that dream. She felt uncomfortable with the idea of
adoption, wondering: How do you pick the child?
"Children are gifts from
God," said Elizabeth, a devout Christian. "You don't pick them out of a magazine
or out of an album... How am I qualified to say that's the perfect child for
me?"
On her last birthday, Elizabeth had a "hissy fit" with her maker.
"God, I want you to give me my baby girl," she insisted. "Drop her from the
sky, just give me a little girl."
Three months later, when Daniel called
from work to tell her about the orphan baby, Elizabeth was certain her prayers
had been answered.
"No doubt about it," Elizabeth said. "It was the baby
being dropped from the sky."
First Dr. Burke had to fix her heart. The rare
defect, truncus arteriosus, is usually fatal if left untreated, and requires a
lifetime of follow-up even if it is repaired surgically. Over six hours that
Friday in April, Burke rebuilt Emma's walnut-sized heart, using stitches thinner
than a human hair to attach a donor artery and patch over a hole.
After he
was done, Emma's heart was so swollen, the surgical team couldn't re-close her
chest. The pressure inside her heart was so high, she couldn't be taken off a
bypass machine.
"Most places in the world, she dies," Burke said.
Instead, she was wheeled over to a catheterization lab so tiny metal stents
could be used to widen arteries so small that blood couldn't get through. The
four-hour procedure did its job: The swelling subsided.
Emma was left on the
bypass machine overnight. The next day, she was taken off it and sewn back up.
She'll need another, bigger artery put in by the time she starts elementary
school, but, for now, this one is doing the trick. During her last month at the
hospital, Emma was visited by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who
swung through during his health care tour. Burke explained to McCain what
extraordinary measures can be taken to save children like Emma. Such
interventions cost the hospital an enormous amount — at least $1 million in
Emma's case — but even so, Burke told McCain, patients in need are never turned
away. While the men spoke, McCain's wife Cindy looked intently at the infant, IV
lines coming out of her as she nestled in Elizabeth Monroe's arms.
The
Monroes had called the birth mother's attorney the day after her surgery and
made their desire to adopt known. They sent a letter, explaining their
backgrounds and professions. After an agonizingly silent Sunday, the couple
heard from the attorney a day later: The birth mother had approved the adoption.
The Monroes know it isn't going to be easy. They were reminded of that soon
after Emma's surgery, when she bled into her brain. It's a common problem for
premature babies because their vessels haven't had time to fully develop and can
rupture easily. So Emma got another piece of hardware: a shunt to relieve the
pressure in her brain.
It remains to be seen how the bleed will affect her
mental development. Experts believe that with early intervention, Emma has the
chance at a normal life. Some hospital staffers wondered if the Monroes would
reconsider the adoption after the latest ailment. But the couple is steadfast.
"We are 100 percent, totally committed to this child," Daniel Monroe said,
"regardless of what comes at us."
"I truly believe that God has put her in
our path because we can make a huge difference in her life," said Elizabeth, who
plans to take at least a year off from work to focus on the baby.
"There's
going to be a lot of moments, hard moments, we know that," she said the day Emma
was finally leaving hospital in late May. Elizabeth, having spent the night
there, was running on two hours of
sleep. "God will never
give us more than we can handle." Elizabeth has repeatedly reminded herself of
that refrain in the weeks since Emma has been home. On a recent Tuesday, she
shuttled the baby to her morning physical therapy appointment, grabbed lunch for
5-year-old Paul, then took Emma to a gastroenterologist. The doctor prescribed
medicine that seems to be helping Emma keep down her milk. As they sat in a
black leather recliner in the corner of the Monroes' living room, Elizabeth
soothed the fussy infant: Esta bien, mi vida. It's all right, my love.
Paul
bounced around nearby, missing some of the attention that used to be solely his.
But he's a proud and affectionate older brother, running to grab her pink
blankie and calming her by yanking the tail of a stuffed elephant, causing it to
play "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star."
"God has purpose in so much of this,
even the fact that we had Paul," Elizabeth said, "because most kids that have an
older sibling are always trying to catch up. She needs that incentive." A
neurologist told the Monroes a day earlier that Emma also needs constant
stimulation — something an energetic brother is happy to provide, too.
Elizabeth's friends are planning a "Welcome Home" party for Emma. At first,
Elizabeth felt it was silly to have another baby shower-like gathering, but
changed her mind after pondering all the baby had been through in her first few
months.
"She had a very rough start," Elizabeth said as she cuddled the
sleeping infant. "I want her to be so showered with love that she doesn't think
twice that somebody gave her up and somebody said: No, not for me.
"She just
deserves extra love."