Leave It To A Surgeon To Make It So... REAL

Last Thursday we met with our doctors at Children's Hospital. The last time we were there, we left feeling completely overwhelmed with our heads in the clouds. We weren't happy about our situation. We didn't fully understand it. And we certainly didn't think it was in the least bit fair, but at the very, very least we did feel somewhat optimistic. After all, we still had four months before we really had to start worrying about anything. Four months before Jillian was due. Four months before we would actually be going through anything. 
Oh how wrong we were. 
Having four weeks between our first Children's appointment and the one we had Thursday gave us time- nothing but time- to sit and think and contemplate and question and worry about everything. The thing is, no matter how much time we spent thinking and contemplating and questioning and worrying, all of this still somehow didn't feel real. Not to me at least... To me it was this foreign, abstract, crazy thing that all the doctors, OUR, doctors were talking about. I knew they were talking about us and about our baby but, really, who wants to embrace that? And, admittedly, I think my new sense of realism that I have gained after meeting with Mr. Surgeon, is probably still no where near what reality will actually be. 
I'm not sure what we expected to happen when meeting with Mr. Surgeon. My guess is, having been around nothing but mostly positive, optimistic-ish, on the verge of sensitive, caring doctors, we were caught off-guard by the blunt, full disclosure, no sugar coating conversation we had with the surgeon. And while we'd had a taste of Mr. Surgeon before, thanks to him being the one that operated on Athan's heart, we'd apparently forgotten exactly how his bedside manner was. 
This is not to say he was unprofessional or anything like that. He said the same things our  cardiologist has said (although, maybe slightly less friendly) regarding risks and survival rates and the fact that basically everything has to go "right" for this to all work out the way we want it to. He explained the surgeries to us in the same way our cardiologist did. He explained in detail the importance of recovery, what she'll look like after surgery (although nothing can really prepare us for that) and to plan for at least 6 weeks recovery in the hospital. He didn't really tell us anything we hadn't already heard. The thing is, somehow, something about him, maybe just because he will be the one cutting open our little girl, made this all so damn real! And we weren't ready for that. Not that day, not today, not tomorrow. For me, it will only need to be real when "it" is actually happening, but until then, Mr. Surgeon has stirred something inside of me... something that is little by little making me accept that this is us, this is what we're going through. Something that is screaming out that this is our life.