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Orthodox Christian Parenting, hosted by Faithtree Resources Executive Director (and mom of four!) Michelle Moujaes, is a weekly podcast for parents and grandparents navigating the holy struggle of raising kids in the Orthodox Faith. Each episode offers honesty, encouragement, and practical wisdom from the Church—creating space to exhale, freedom from the pressure to be perfect, and openness to grow as you raise children who are deepening their knowledge and love of Christ.
I couldn't believe what was happening, and I couldn't believe that, you know, like, to see a baby suffering. And I you know, feeling like, oh gosh. What could I have done different? And why did this happen? This doesn't make any sense.
Joy Hajjar:This wasn't how what we planned. And I was, like, in shock. I couldn't stop I could not stop crying.
Michelle Moujaes:Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting, where we bring the church's timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Moujaes, and today's conversation is one that I have been waiting to share with you. You know, as parents, we plan. We picture how it's gonna go. We imagine the milestones and the family photos and the ordinary little life that we're gonna build.
Michelle Moujaes:But then sometimes, something happens that takes that whole picture and literally just rips it in half. A diagnosis, a phone call, a hospital room, a long road we never asked to walk. Today, I'm joined by Joy and Elias Hajjar, parents of three beautiful girls, one of whom their daughter Rosie fought a long battle with serious heart issues and ultimately received a heart transplant. Their life has been transformed by Rosie and by the young man whose heart she now carries. Their story is one of faith, of hope, of a God who did not abandon them, and of a church that surrounded them when they couldn't stand on their own.
Michelle Moujaes:This is a conversation about what it looks like when our faith is genuinely tested and when the easy answers fall away and what's left has to either be real or nothing. And what Joy and Elias are about to share with you, it's real. Be sure to download the free digital discussion guide linked in the show notes so that you continue the conversation at home with your spouse or with a friend or with your community at church. Here we go. Joy and Elias, welcome.
Michelle Moujaes:Thank you.
Elias Hajjar:Thank you.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. So if you would, before we jump into the conversation, just take us back to life before you had kids. Like, give us a high level where you met, how you knew each other.
Joy Hajjar:We met at college conference at the Antiochian Village Who did? Yeah. 18, 19 years old, and we kept in touch for years. I lived in Montreal, Canada, and Eli lived in Toledo, Ohio. And it was a lot of visits, conventions, and we got married in five years later.
Joy Hajjar:We dated for five years. We got married five years later, and I moved to Toledo. I love it. Love it. And we've been here now, and we've been married now twenty years.
Michelle Moujaes:Oh my gosh. Okay. So tell me then, you're married and you start to have a family. Yeah. So okay.
Michelle Moujaes:Tell us about that.
Joy Hajjar:Well, we decided we were a couple years into into marriage, and Eli opened his first restaurant. And I had a great pregnancy, And I went in to deliver just a week before my due date. It was a beautiful sunny day in June. With your first? Yes.
Joy Hajjar:And
Elias Hajjar:We'd only done one ultrasound at twenty weeks, and the technician and we remember the technician saying that Rosie's hand was like over her heart, so they never got a good picture of the heart. And so and we never thought that anything was gonna be wrong anyway, so we didn't do another ultrasound. We wanted the the sex of the baby to be a surprise. Like, we didn't wanna know before the birth. And so, you know, we didn't think about anything during the whole pregnancy.
Elias Hajjar:She felt great. And then, yeah, we go into the hospital.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah. And as soon as Rosie was born, they took her for her bath and to clean her up. And I think I dozed off, and a few minutes later, I woke up and they came and tapped me on the sole shoulder and said, we're gonna take Rose for some testing. Her color was a little dusky, which means Dusky. Dusky coloring.
Joy Hajjar:And so that, you know, alarms the the staff. And the rest of the night, we were
Elias Hajjar:I left. So I I actually left the hospital, came to our house to pick up some stuff, and then I came back to the hospital. Was about an hour I was gone. And Joy was in the room, and Rosie still wasn't with her.
Joy Hajjar:Wasn't back.
Elias Hajjar:And Joy was like, this this doesn't feel right. Like, why isn't she here yet? And I you know, we're exhausted at this point. It's, like, late in the night. Said, no.
Elias Hajjar:It's okay. We're just gonna go to bed. And and I ended up falling asleep. I think you did too. Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:And then it was, like, five or 06:00 in the morning, a cardiologist comes into our room and basically draws us a diagram of like a normal heart and then tells us what was wrong with Rosie's.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:And, you know, we're it's 06:00 in the morning. It's our first kid. We're we're like, what is happening? Yeah. Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:So we call both you know, we call our families. We we let them know there's some stuff going on that we need to figure out, and then they give us a choice. They said, you can go to Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, Mott Children's Hospital, or we can go to Cleveland Clinic because Toledo is, like, right in the middle of both of those main health systems. Toledo wasn't isn't, like, prepared to handle these complex heart conditions. And Michigan, know, luckily, thank God, Michigan is one of the top, you know, 10 heart centers pediatric heart centers in the country.
Elias Hajjar:And so we chose Michigan, and we were they we were in the NICU at Toledo for two or three days. They took us by ambulance, and our nurses
Joy Hajjar:Rosie's nurses.
Elias Hajjar:Rosie's nurses were Mary and Martha.
Michelle Moujaes:Oh, I love that.
Elias Hajjar:In the ambulance. And, you know, I drove behind them. Joy, you were in the ambulance. Right? Or you were with me?
Michelle Moujaes:Sorry. You had just had the baby,
Joy Hajjar:and you're on your way. Yeah. And we were expecting a a healthy you know, we had no anticipation of anything being wrong. So it was it was a it was a big shock
Michelle Moujaes:to say
Joy Hajjar:the least. And, you know, just kept moving one foot in front of the other, but it was hard to really sink in. There's so much going on at that point. It's hard to sink in. But the doctors, I mean, essentially, that first night sat us down and said, these are the, you know, the heart defects, and your baby won't survive without surgery.
Joy Hajjar:And it was I felt very unprepared. You know? We like that you're you're about to have a baby, and you do all the things to prepare for nine months. And then something kinda just hits you out of nowhere, and you know, a, nothing about the anatomy of a heart or how to take care of it. And so you, you know, trust what the doctors say, and you just keep going.
Joy Hajjar:And we ended up at Michigan, with Rosie, in her first heart surgery at, like, a week old.
Michelle Moujaes:Cod lover.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:And you. That's a that's a big lift as a parent. Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:Yeah. It was it was hard. I mean, you know, you see this baby, and, you know, it's so small. And then you you've got this, you know, scar in the middle of her chest. And you're talking about, like, something the size of a plum that they're operating on.
Elias Hajjar:So Oh my goodness. And you look at these doctors with such awe and respect that this is the path that they've chosen as well as to have the ability to do these things, you know, that are lifesaving. And so, you know, we we stayed in Ann Arbor for six weeks Yeah. Just trying to get well, the first operation that we did was the least intrusive. It was just a a band, essentially a rubber band around one of her arteries to help with some of the blood flow.
Elias Hajjar:So essentially, the the condition that Rosie had, the plumbing of her heart wasn't fully developed. And they had created there were these this process. It was a three step process to correct the the blood flow in her heart. And the first operation we did at one week. The second we did at nine months.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:And then the third and final we did at eighteen months. Yeah. And, you know, though that process, you know, those couple years was a lot of in and out of hospitals. It was a lot of touch and go. Like, you know, she had a feeding tube because she didn't she couldn't have the energy to, like, feed on her own.
Joy Hajjar:Right.
Elias Hajjar:And in order for her to get to the weight that she needed to be healthy enough to actually perform these these major surgeries
Joy Hajjar:Oh, we had to, like, fatten her up with, like they told us to do the craziest things to try and get her to gain weight, which a lot of, you know, a lot of families who have premature babies or babies in the NICU when they're born have all these, you know, go through. It could be a very bumpy road when babies are born. I mean, think of the miracle that
Elias Hajjar:Of life.
Joy Hajjar:Of of of, you know, everything going right. It definitely opened our eyes. Eli and I grew up with so abundance of love and support and never experienced any real trauma or tragedy. And so this kind of hit us like a ton of bricks, and it took me a few days to stop crying. I I couldn't believe what was happening, and I couldn't believe that, you know, like, to see a baby suffering.
Joy Hajjar:And I you know, feeling like, oh gosh. What could I have done different? And why did this happen? This doesn't make any sense. This wasn't how what we planned.
Joy Hajjar:And I was, like, in shock. I couldn't stop I could not stop crying for the first few days.
Michelle Moujaes:Also, you just had a baby.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah. Thank you. I mean,
Michelle Moujaes:your body probably was going through so many things and the hormones alone, let alone having to deal with something so traumatic.
Joy Hajjar:And so Eli looked at me and he said, we will get through this. You know we will get through this. And I was like, oh, he's pretty sure that we're gonna get through this. And and he said, and then it's gonna get hard again because they explained to us that this would be a series of surgeries. And doctors, god bless them, they tell you everything that could go wrong.
Joy Hajjar:So they prepare you, and they say there could be severe disability in this area, and there could be, you know, impact on these organs and all of that. So you could go to, like, the worst case scenario. And I'm grateful that Eli was so confident that it would be hard, and then it would be okay. And then it might get hard again, but we would be okay. That was huge.
Joy Hajjar:And just tying it into, like, our church family, I'll never forget. I had moved from Montreal just a couple years earlier. It was, you know, 20 how old is Rosie? Nineteen years ago. So, like, the Facebook world, those things were just starting.
Joy Hajjar:So we didn't have that much connection like we do now to see people's lives and participate. But I'll never forget my father my priest, father Anthony Gabriel, my mom said said to the church the couple days after Rosie was born, he said, one of our babies just had a baby. You know, I grew up in that church, and we're gonna surround her. We're gonna we're gonna surround them in prayer, and we're gonna help help them get through this. And given that we had gone to the village and conventions and created a church community from my family in California and now in Toledo, we had churches all over with Rosie's name, praying for her, supporting us, and it made a difference.
Joy Hajjar:It just felt like a shock.
Elias Hajjar:We were standing on on The shoulders. Shoulders of of so many communities and so many people that were praying for us. We felt that. And so it it made the really tough nights and and decisions and choices that we had to make. Like, we we almost felt like we were making them as a community Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:Not fully. And that that gave us a lot of strength, and it gave us you know, that's one of the best things about our church. And we even to this day will every time we take a trip or we travel, we search out places we wanna go to the church. And we were just in Phoenix to see her brother, you know, at the beginning of this year. And so, like, that community really helped us through a really, really dark and difficult time in our life.
Joy Hajjar:Well, and not to jump ahead, but hospital waiting rooms, they do something to people. And I know I know a lot of people have experienced when you're waiting for a child in surgery. And so Rosie had three, you know, in her first two years. When she was 11, we were with all our family there at the hospital. We're so so grateful and blessed that our family is close by, and they were all there.
Joy Hajjar:And then it was about midnight, and the surgery was starting, and we were heading into a ten to twelve hour surgery, and they all went home, and we're in a dark hospital room. And this was only nine years ago eight or nine years ago, so Facebook did exist. And we shared what was happening on Facebook. Rosie's got you know, going in for for the heart transplant. And we were in a dark hospital room for and and for ten hours, I read messages from people who were wake either waking up or going to sleep and finding out what was going on and sending their love and their prayers and telling me who else was praying for them and keeping us company.
Joy Hajjar:And that is what got me through that night is I wasn't alone. We were carried carried through it. And we're just grateful that the crisis and the the moments of trauma in Rosie's life have always been shared. The the burden was never only on us. The pain Wow.
Joy Hajjar:It was like more the more people surrounded us, it be everything became a little bit lighter. And more than anything, you know And,
Elias Hajjar:you know, that wasn't like it wasn't even like a a conscious thought on our part. Like, you know, some people when they go through some medical stuff, they they can tend to to be really reserved or they don't wanna share what they're going through. And, like, for us, it was like and I remember saying to Joy, like, put it all out there. I said Yeah. The more people that know of this and and that can pray for us, like, the better.
Elias Hajjar:And so we we shared it all. I mean, I remember that night, like, every hour every time we got an update, you put the update out there. And and it was like, you just you felt that community just come together. And and, you know, even to this day, it's like people will will talk about Rosie and and they'll they'll, you know, and every Strangers. Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:Yeah. Like, people that, like, we don't have relationships with necessarily, but know of the story will talk about what a what a, like, a positive Inspiration. Inspiration. Yeah. Rosie
Michelle Moujaes:feels like she's all of our triumph because of the way that you invited all of us into that story. Because, I I mean, I actually think that's one of the most beautiful things about our faith. When you are on your knees begging God on behalf of someone else, even a, you know, a baby that we hadn't even met yet, there is something that happens in this kind of like supernatural relationship build that can't be described. It it she feels like she's everybody's child.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Does that make sense? Yeah. But I I I think it's I think it's an important call out if you had not invited us into the story. Because so many of us do kinda wanna keep all of our stuff private and, like, not put it out there. But well, I think there's a place for having that kind of discernment.
Michelle Moujaes:In a in a situation like this, like, what else can we offer Yeah. But our prayers. In the immediate diagnosis and the crisis and getting through those first couple of surgeries, that's kind of one lift. But then there's also the day to day grind of like, now we have a child that's going to need ongoing support and care and doctor's office visits and lots of like, I can just imagine the expenses and the, like, logistics of keeping everybody fed. Like, how did that work?
Elias Hajjar:It's almost like a blur when I look back at at that time in our life because we opened our first restaurant in November, and Rosie was born in June. So I you know, we had a six month old business that you know, and and we were kids. I mean, we weren't like you know, we were 25, 26 years old. It wasn't like we had a ton of life behind us that we could lean on. We had to balance, you know, the the business side of it with, you know, this child that needed so much love and attention and care.
Elias Hajjar:And then, you know, on top of it, you know, we got pregnant with our second, you know, six months after or five months after Rosie was born.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. Oh, you're kidding.
Elias Hajjar:Yeah. So Jasmine, you know, there's a fifteen month difference between, you know, our first two. Yeah. Wow.
Joy Hajjar:People have asked us too, like, how is how is what Rosie has been through affected the other girls? Because then they all came along. So we have our three flowers. And the truth is, it actually for them, my overall parenting motto now that I've, you know, been doing it for nineteen years, not that I have any great advice, it's all just we're just doing the best we can. But one of the things is do less as parents.
Joy Hajjar:I I honestly think that's a great strategy. And I our our firstborns, they get a lot of us, which is just us doing the best we can. But and so Rosie got a lot of us because she was our first and, I mean, the intense medical, you know, stuff we went through with her. It was a daily grind. It was how is she feeling today?
Joy Hajjar:What does she need? How are her meds? What's the new treatment? You know? Sure.
Joy Hajjar:We were on high vigilance with her for years and years. And so Jasmine and Dahlia kind of came along for the ride, and I I actually believe they're better for it. They they I don't know. I believe children are so much smarter than us as grown ups, and they intuitively become who they are. And the less we interfere, the better.
Joy Hajjar:So they spent a lot of time with grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors and friends and family. And, again, better for it because those all that love. And then there came a time when they were more aware of the seriousness of what we were going through with Rose and wanted to be a part of it.
Michelle Moujaes:What what did that
Joy Hajjar:look like? A year after Rose got her transplant, blood work came back that showed signs of rejection. Okay. So that means that the immune suppression meds that she takes on a regular basis and she will be taking for the rest of her life weren't working to the degree they should, and her body naturally as it would would start to attack a foreign article, which was her transplanted heart. And this news had me, like, on the floor.
Joy Hajjar:I went immediately to the worst place. I wasn't expecting it. And the doctors and I was actually at the grocery store. I was at Meijer buying, like, tights and shoes for the girls because the next day we were heading to Boston for my niece's baptism. And Eli comes to Meijer to collect me because this news and I'm not very a dramatic person.
Joy Hajjar:I'm honestly not. But this is hard. I went to the worst case. I went to the worst possible place. And we came home.
Joy Hajjar:We sat the girls down at the table. And we said, we're really sorry to share with you that this blood work shows that there's some things happening. It's we're gonna require three day intensive steroid therapy in the hospital. We have to go tonight and be admitted to the hospital. And Rosie goes, okay.
Joy Hajjar:Let's go. Let's do this. We were like, okay. And then Okay. We looked at Jasmine and Dahlia, and we said, can go with Teta and Jadi and your uncle to to Boston and and go to the baptism.
Joy Hajjar:That's okay. Or you can stay here. Whatever you guys wanna do is what we're gonna do. And they looked at each other, and Lily looked back at us and without hesitation said, we're gonna stay here. We wanna be here with Rose.
Joy Hajjar:And so they feel they they feel part of this. They are her greatest. I mean, Rosie's been away at college for a year. Thank god. And it's been wonderful, but she misses her sisters.
Joy Hajjar:They are her light. Like, they just make her laugh and make her happy, and they took took this on. And, you know, now that things have settled into a more normal way of life, they are now emerging themselves a little bit and being able to take more of the spotlight.
Michelle Moujaes:What I think is that's a natural ebb and flow that we have in our family relationships. Right? Like Yes. That's an ideal. Like, this is our fight.
Michelle Moujaes:This is our family communal fight, not just Rose's fight, which I love that you've been able to raise siblings that feel that kind of rootedness together. But also, there is a seasonality in in our parenting where sometimes it's like all hands on deck with number one, and sometimes it's all hands on deck with number three or whatever that looks like, in a family. But I also think that's kind of the Christian walk. Right? Like, sometimes it's just not about you, and sometimes it really is.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. So it sounds like you guys figured that out really, really well. God bless them. Sweet girls.
Joy Hajjar:Thank
Michelle Moujaes:you. Tell me then in the midst of that, and I do wanna just touch on the heart transplant because I think that's not only fascinating, but I think God's grace showed up so beautifully throughout that process. I remember that so well. You know, one the things we talk about on this podcast a lot is how you are in relationship with other people, how that does so much of the heavy lifting of parenting. It informs, you know, what our kids take in as far as relationships or take in as far as what it means to be a human so much.
Michelle Moujaes:So just give me a sense of, like, how did you do that if you were, you know, whatever, young twenties, you hadn't been married that long, you were just starting a business. I mean, that had to have been something that impacted your marriage so significantly.
Elias Hajjar:Not really. It was pretty easy. Don't we don't argue. We we agree on everything. Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:I mean, it's typical marriage.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. Okay.
Joy Hajjar:We're we're like opposites too. So Oh,
Elias Hajjar:you are?
Joy Hajjar:That's a that's a good thing. When I'm you know, he charges forward, I I hold back. And me not being able to stop crying and looking and saying, like, we can do this. And it was a lot of those moments of one of us needing something and, like, the crisis that kind of surrounded Rosie's medical stuff for so long was, like actually became our jam. Like, we had a slow yeah.
Joy Hajjar:We were we were really well together.
Elias Hajjar:And and, you know, alright. We gotta run up to the hospital. Alright. You go Here. You go there.
Elias Hajjar:With the other two.
Joy Hajjar:The logistics.
Elias Hajjar:You know, like, that stuff was and and I think it was it was actually it's gonna sound weird, but it was really good for us because it gave us direction and it gave us purpose. Yeah. And so and and it wasn't hers or or and it wasn't mine. It was, like, it was ours.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah. And so love that.
Elias Hajjar:It it, like, it forced us to work together even though we were and are so different in in our approaches to things that it it it, like, weirdly made our marriage, I I think, a lot stronger.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
Joy Hajjar:I'll tell you when things got hard because let's be real.
Michelle Moujaes:Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean yeah. It's hard when there's nothing going on.
Elias Hajjar:That's that's what happened to us.
Michelle Moujaes:And and imagine when there's something so significant.
Joy Hajjar:Well, Rosie, you know, after she had her she had her new healthy heart and aside from that blip a year later with the rejection, Rosie was, like, growing and thriving and living and, like, less and less where we at the doctors. And then what we spent thirteen years, like, charging through power team. Whoo. We got this. And we, all of a sudden, didn't have that and had to deal with what that the toll that that time Yes.
Joy Hajjar:On us emotionally and physically. And how did we cope with that in our own ways during that time, and how was that serving us now? It was it was very hard when things were okay. It became the hardest for us together.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. I'm obsessed with the fact that you guys are vulnerable and willing to name that because that is true in so many different areas of everybody's life. Not just not just yours, but the idea that as you shift, you know, like, I'm mourning when my kids are out of the house totally because it's so a part of my identity
Joy Hajjar:Yes.
Michelle Moujaes:As a mother. And and it's gonna mean different things. Okay. So what happened? I so appreciate you naming that.
Michelle Moujaes:What what is that what did that look like? How did you navigate?
Joy Hajjar:Back to, like, all the churches that we've been able to visit or participate in or be a part of or know people of. We're grateful father father Michael Shaheen, who's our priest here now, but we've also had other spiritual fathers who we've leaned on, father George Shaulhoub. There were times when Elias was on the phone with father Anthony Hughes from Boston. People who've had who've who've known us, who've or father Michael Nasser. And so I know that there was some leaning on that we did there and then decided one day that let's try let's try therapy.
Joy Hajjar:This was five years ago. And since then, we have been weekly still going to therapy together and talking and working through it. And here's here's my also I know nothing. Here's what I've learned. Here's my most important thing about marriage is letting the other person be who
Michelle Moujaes:Sorry. I'm hungry.
Elias Hajjar:Them free as well.
Joy Hajjar:We just have to let them be who they are. That's what I've learned. And the more I do that and the more he does that and less trying to oh, and that takes me into this other, like, thing I have is us as parents, I think and and parents of someone who needs a ton of medical care and help and analysis. And I felt like I was it was my job to make sure that I knew how Rosie was feeling, what she needed, how she was gonna get it, coordinate all the different parts of her life to make sure that I could fix this problem that that she had. My I really felt for a long time that I just if I just could get it right, I could fix it.
Joy Hajjar:And it's taken me years to really learn and or unlearn that as parents and as spouses, our like, our job is not to fix, And that if we could just bear witness, if we could just stand next to those we love, our children, our spouses, and say, I'm not gonna leave you. This is so hard, and this is so painful. And I don't wanna see this happen to you or to me, but I'm not going anywhere. I will endure whatever. And and I didn't know this before having Rosie and then having other children.
Joy Hajjar:And I'm not saying you need a a child with a medical crisis to know this. It's I think it's part of being a parent and seeing your child suffer in any way. It's like, oh, what can I do to fix this? What do I say? Who do I need to talk to?
Joy Hajjar:And it's like and it and also the whole do less theory. It's like, what if I don't have a solution? What if I don't know if Rosie's gonna get better. I don't know that we'll be able to make it to the next step. I don't know.
Joy Hajjar:There there really was a part. Like, can we survive what's come between us because of how we've each dealt with with, like, a lot of confusing life situations? So one of the questions that I know, like, comes about is when we talk about Rosie and how our faith has supported us and and gotten us through and how it's been the only thing that's really held this whole thing together. We we both grew up in the church. We were taken to church whether we liked it or not as kids every Sunday, and I went to Sunday school.
Joy Hajjar:And my Sunday school teacher, Mary Kurba, said, whenever something is hard, whenever you're scared I was six years old, I heard this. Whenever you're scared, you make the sign of the cross, and it takes away the evil, and it reminds you that God is with you. That was one Sunday school class when I was a young child. And now I'm 46 years old and, you know, supported a daughter through a heart transplant and raising a family, and I still hear Mary Kurva in my head say, make the sign of the cross and you remember that God is with you. That the whole point is you're standing next to each other, guiding each other through all of this.
Joy Hajjar:What my Orthodox faith gives me is that when things get really bad, and Rosie is kind of an example of something being really scary and really dark, and what he learned too is that, like, what what you learn as a kid and what shapes you at that time never leaves you, and it's that we just need to be here for each other, and that's it.
Elias Hajjar:It's the release of the responsibility.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah. Maybe.
Elias Hajjar:You know, for me, it is. Like, you know, I I don't know if that's what you're trying to say, but it's it's like when you when your faith is strong in moments of crisis, you can you release the responsibility of feeling like you've gotta fix it.
Joy Hajjar:Yeah. Because there we don't how much control do we have? Right.
Michelle Moujaes:Right. Right. Right. Right. I mean, that's actually I I think that is the walk of faith.
Michelle Moujaes:I try often to remind myself, like, he tells us, like, he works all things together for the good of those who love him, but it may not look like we want it to look. Like in the hard things, we still have to trust that he knows what's good for us. He loves us. He is who he says he is, and we have to lean into that. That's really hard to do.
Michelle Moujaes:Really hard to do.
Joy Hajjar:Hard to do.
Michelle Moujaes:Meeting with mental health professionals or clinicians that can help us figure out not only, like, the impact of trauma, but how can we be skilled at going forward in our relationships now? I love that. I think it's a responsibility that we have to each other to constantly be growing because, I mean, my husband and I, you know my husband, we're so different. And I say it all the time, I am not a light lift. I I'm not.
Michelle Moujaes:But how can we it was just the facts.
Joy Hajjar:That's very sad. And so is Walid. He is too.
Michelle Moujaes:He is oh, god. Love him. He he is darling. But Yes. The idea that to let him like you said, to let him be himself?
Michelle Moujaes:What? What? That's like a whole new like, okay. Sorry, honey. But, like, can't he just be more, like, in my way?
Michelle Moujaes:But I love that to get skilled in allowing him to be who God created him to be. Huge. Hit me like a ton of bricks, Joy. Okay. I know.
Joy Hajjar:I know.
Michelle Moujaes:Let's keep going. You've answered a lot of the questions we have here, but let's talk about this. Did you ever get super angry at God? Was there a moment where you're like, okay. Got it.
Michelle Moujaes:Like but, like, enough. Or Yeah. You did. So no. You didn't.
Elias Hajjar:I and I oh, let me just real quick. I I always felt like you we would never be given something that we couldn't handle. So every time that we were presented with another challenge, it was like, I always approached it like, okay. We we need to learn something else. And there's something there's another message in this that, needs to be told or another part of the story that that is needed to continue on on this path of of growth and and knowledge.
Elias Hajjar:So, like and and that was my approach to everything. And so it as if my approach is that, then I could never be upset with what the challenge was. Wow.
Michelle Moujaes:Wow. Wow. There was a
Joy Hajjar:time so right after Rosie was born, and I was kind of in shock. I think we went out for a walk on the street at one point, and, like, people were walking around like life was normal. And I was like, what? Why is, like, the sun shining and that person taking a stroll? Do they not know that my daughter is in there fighting for her life?
Joy Hajjar:And I was like I became a little angry at the world and, like, how could this be that an innocent baby is is suffering and the world is still turning? And I I also believe that you find what you're looking for. So you could go down the road of, like, what did I do wrong? How why is this happening to me? And and those thoughts were there.
Joy Hajjar:And but then you have a nurse who comes in and bathes bathes the the first nurse who come in and gave Rosie a bath, and she was like an angel. You know? I would thank you. You come in in the middle of the night and then take care of me and new mom. And the other thing is in in in, like, tragedy and terrible circumstances, how people show up for you, it's almost it's like God just God is, like, keeps showing up.
Joy Hajjar:If you're wondering where he is or if you're mad at him, it's almost like next thing you know, your neighbor you get home and your neighbors have weeded your garden.
Elias Hajjar:Shoveled your driveway.
Joy Hajjar:Shoveled your driveway. A friend stopped at Jasmine's school because they knew she was having a hard day to give her a chocolate covered strawberry. I saw the best of people. And that's where, you know, you say suffering is a gift, and it's like, oh, yeah. Suffering is a gift.
Joy Hajjar:This is a worst thing. I don't want her to suffer for one second. I don't want my kids to suffer for one second. I told I told my therapist that, and she was like, well, then you're gonna have to just put them in bubble wrap and tie them in your basement.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. And what's wrong with that? I was like, okay. Good idea. Things are gonna happen
Joy Hajjar:to them. But if your eyes are open and and and we we learn this I think we learn this in church is God is everywhere. He is right here. He is the wind that blows. He is showing up, but we have to have the eyes to see it.
Joy Hajjar:So, you know, looking for the good because it's it is everywhere. And, I mean, I could go into all the little examples of how people have loved and supported us. Michelle, do you remember you sent me a bag of a gorgeous makeup when Rosie was born for me? You're like, you're gonna wanna feel better. And I was like, you're gonna wanna feel good.
Joy Hajjar:Here's I the way the things people did, the messages, god, I don't think he would let us get too down because he he kept showing up. He kept
Michelle Moujaes:showing up. I love that. Yeah. Okay. If you're willing, I wanna hear about because I know this was a profound shift in the story, And I remember that night on Facebook when we all, like, it was just viral, but she went from being tell us about being on the transplant list to actually going through that process.
Michelle Moujaes:And I think that it's fascinating, this part of your story, because I don't think everybody who even goes through this part has the same outcome that you did.
Elias Hajjar:The procedures that she went through as a baby, one of the side effects is something called PLE, which is protein losing enteropathy. And it has to do with the flow of the blood. You know, obviously, it's different. And so some of these kids and it's a very small percentage, maybe ten percent of the kids that go through these procedures develop PLE. Well, Rosie happened to be one of those kids.
Elias Hajjar:When we she was first diagnosed, it was like it was almost like a death sentence. Like, every doctor that we had talked to, like, looked at us, like, with this blank look on their face like, oh, I'm so sorry. And it's like and and that's not who we are. Like, we're not like, I don't need you to be sorry for us. Tell us what we need to do so that we can give give her a a chance.
Elias Hajjar:And so for four years, we tried every different type of treatment we could. We were she was on high dose steroids that had stunned her growth. She we were doing heparin shots in her belly. We were I mean, you name it, we we tried it. And ultimately, we got to a point where nothing we were doing was helping or or getting her any better.
Elias Hajjar:And the only thing that could give her a chance at surviving would be a transplant. And we had we had learned about a transplant early on, like when she was really sick with PLE. She had contracted norovirus, which in Toronto where we happen to be in this is a good story for the church too. We're in Toronto. Joy had taken the girls for her cousin's Baptism.
Elias Hajjar:Baptism.
Joy Hajjar:Another baptism.
Elias Hajjar:And they're in Toronto, and Rosie gets sick, and Joy gets sick
Joy Hajjar:Yeah.
Elias Hajjar:With the norovirus. And they're throwing up, I mean, everything. And Joy's like, I we have to go to the hospital. And I'm not with them. I'm I'm still here in Toledo.
Elias Hajjar:And I said, whatever you think. I had just gotten home from work. It was, like, 11:00. She goes to the hospital and with Rosie, and and she's just as sick as Rosie. The other two girls are with my mother-in-law, Janice, at the hotel.
Elias Hajjar:Rosie, we end up staying in Toronto for I I drove up in the middle of the night. I left Toledo at midnight. I got to the hospital at 04:00 in the morning, and Rosie is pale as can be. I mean, she was on her deathbed. She was like, her blood blood pressure was so low.
Elias Hajjar:Her heart rate was so high. We're and we're telling these doctors, like, something is wrong. And they pulled her down. Remember, they they pulled us downstairs to, and they all put hazmat on. They thought she had sepsis.
Elias Hajjar:Or
Joy Hajjar:It was a whole thing.
Elias Hajjar:Yeah. Whole thing. And and they, like, had to Resuscitate. Resuscitate her.
Joy Hajjar:It was it was probably one of the most traumatic experiences we've had with Rosie in Toronto. Yeah. And how how old was she at this time, you guys? Nine or 10.
Elias Hajjar:Yeah.
Joy Hajjar:Nine or 10. It was it was maybe maybe eight or nine. It was a couple years before we really we didn't we were still trying everything to get her better.
Elias Hajjar:We we didn't want we knew that the transplant would just be trading, you know, one set of problems for another. That's what we were told essentially. So we were trying to prolong that process as long as we could, but it was in Toronto where the doctor looked at looked at us and said, you have to hit
Joy Hajjar:There's no other
Elias Hajjar:there's no other option but a transplant. And so when we came home from that, we went to U of M, and and we talked through that's when they did a couple tests because we were gonna put her on the list, like, right then. And they found something in, like, their echocardiogram that said maybe we could try Another surgery. Another surgery. And they don't know.
Elias Hajjar:It's a fifty fifty chance if it's gonna help her or not. And it's your it's totally elective. It wasn't like and the doctors that's the one thing we we really appreciated about the doctors is they just presented us with the information. They never like, other than putting her on the transplant list, like, never said this is what you have to do.
Michelle Moujaes:I love it.
Elias Hajjar:We know we talked with Rosie because Rosie's at you know, she's old enough now to, like, make these decisions for herself. And, you know, she's like, let's try it. So we put her through another open heart surgery just Just to just to try, just to see if it could work. And so we we go through that. She does really well, recovers, but she doesn't get any better.
Joy Hajjar:Then she get got really sick. Wait. Can I say one thing about when we were in Toronto?
Elias Hajjar:Oh, yeah.
Joy Hajjar:Because one of the quest one of the things that I know is how has there been, like, a moment where you've seen God work Mhmm. Almost like a, yeah, a miracle or how the church how prayer has been answered. And we were in the ICU middle of the night. Rosie's blood pressure is so low. We don't know.
Joy Hajjar:We're trying, waiting, trying, waiting. We're sleeping next to her. And father Escunder from Toronto had heard
Elias Hajjar:because Father George Chalhoub had called him
Joy Hajjar:That's right.
Elias Hajjar:To tell him that
Joy Hajjar:So this we were in the hospital in Toronto. Up to the hospital, walks in like a ghost in the night. He was in his black robe, and it was very dark.
Elias Hajjar:Neither one of us saw him or talked to
Joy Hajjar:him. We even we didn't even like, I was, like, asleep. I got my eyes were still closed. He came in, he prayed over Rosie, and he left. And about an hour later, the nurse comes in to do her vitals, and her blood pressure is slowly going up.
Joy Hajjar:Her slowly going up. And that was the turning point for Rose in the worst episode she's ever had of her illness, was that priest coming in and praying over her. And, like, I don't want I know I keep saying I'm not dramatic, and I keep saying the most dramatic things, but that happened. I believe it. I know it.
Joy Hajjar:Absolutely. And I also struggle a little bit because talking about this, and I'm about to tell you about the transplant, but talking about this, there are there are families who have lost children. The idea of, like, our prayers were answered is hard for me because are some prayers answered and some prayers not answered? And I don't have a good answer. I'm sharing this just because it's on my heart.
Joy Hajjar:Where Rose the fact that Rose went through what she did, got a heart transplant, and is where she is today is a miracle. Having her gives us so much joy and and happiness. None of us know what tomorrow will bring. I don't have any answers. I don't all I know is, like, we're just gonna keep doing the best we can.
Joy Hajjar:We will keep showing up. We will keep, like, one step forward.
Elias Hajjar:When we got back from Toronto, we listed her. We put her on the well, we had the surgery. Didn't help. We put her on the list in February 2018. Yep.
Elias Hajjar:In order for her to be on the list, she had to have a port put in her arm, where we were giving her a continuous drip of dopamine. And the reason for that was, first of all, it would help with some of her numbers. And then with her being on a continuous drip, she went up a class in, on the donor list. So, like, the the way the donor list works is there's, like, classes. And, you know, who's ever at the top class obviously gets first dibs at at the the organs that are being donated.
Elias Hajjar:And so she has this continuous drip, and we wait eight months, nine months until December. And we were I I was at the restaurant. I was rolling grape leaves at the restaurant, and Joy calls me. And, you know, my hands are in meat and grape leaves, and I look at my watch. I see it's Joy, and I don't answer it.
Elias Hajjar:Because I'm like, you know, if it's important, she'll call me back. And sure enough, she calls me right back. And so, you know, I I've got all this meat in my hands, so I just I hit my watch. Like, hey. What's up?
Elias Hajjar:And she goes, are you busy? I'm like, a little bit. What's going on? She goes, we got the call. And I go, oh, okay.
Elias Hajjar:And, you know, my two main guys are, like, right next to me, and they hear it. And they the look on their face, they're like, oh my god. And they, like, hug me. You know, I I wash my hands. They hug me, and I'm like, I gotta go, guys.
Elias Hajjar:So I leave and come to pick up Joy. And in the meantime, Joy's getting well, you can tell your side too.
Joy Hajjar:I called we called everybody and said, meet us at the hospital. This is happening.
Michelle Moujaes:The hospital just called you and said, we have a a heart. You need to get to the hospital.
Joy Hajjar:They said it's Rosie healthy. Like, it's, like, healthy enough. She didn't have a cold. She was feeling good. She was going to school.
Joy Hajjar:How soon can you be here? And we were told never to be further than four hours away from the air from the hospital K. For that time she was waiting. Rosie was at play practice. Dahlia was home with me and Jasmine, and we called all the family.
Joy Hajjar:We said, meet us at the hospital. This is happening. And they always do say that you could get as far as the OR, and it could be a no go. You know? Like, you don't really know how everything has to go right.
Joy Hajjar:There's a lot that has to go right. So we pick Rosie up, and we drive up to the hospital, and there's a feeling of, like, anticipation and, oh my gosh, this is happening. And the five of us, you know, say a prayer. We know that on the other side of this, there is something happening.
Elias Hajjar:It's tragic.
Michelle Moujaes:Meaning, you have somebody donating a heart, which meant somebody was not here. Okay.
Elias Hajjar:And we were we were always aware of this burden knowing that in order for our daughter to live a healthy life that someone else was gonna lose a son or daughter.
Michelle Moujaes:Today's discussion was just too good for us to squeeze into one episode. So part two is coming soon and trust me, you do not wanna miss it. Don't forget to download the free digital discussion guide in the show notes. And if you want more information about becoming a donor, consult with your priest to see how organ donation may be possible for you. If today's conversation moved you, also, would you consider sharing it with a parent who needs it?
Michelle Moujaes:We carry each other through these hard times. We'll pick up right where we left off in the next episode. Until then.