Sunday, April 24, 2011

He is RISEN!

Christ the Lord is risen today! Hallelujah!! As a christian this is truly an incredible holiday! This is the day we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead 3 days after His Crucifixion!!!! What an amazing gift!

This was Ella's first Easter and even though I always want her to know the REAL reason we celebrate, we still had some fun with egg hunts and bunny rabbits! :) Here are some pics. to show off her first Easter!







We had a great day together, we just sat around in comfy clothes, watched Ella's new veggie tales and some of my "I Love Lucy" DVDs. We had a big pot of homemade chili to warm us on this stormy day. It hasn't stopped raining all day, we even had hail a time or two! Yet as usual Ella made it feel like a sunshine day :)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

prayer requests!

Well friends although Ella is doing very well, we have just discovered we may have a new hurdle to jump with her eating. She does well with milk and stage 1 or 2 baby food, but she has a STRONG oral aversion to anything with texture. At first I just thought she didn't like fruit puffs, so after some friends suggested Cheetos and her pediatrician suggested the same we gave that a try still the same reaction gaging/vomiting. Of course being on a ventilator 3 times we knew this may be a problem with her eating, but since she had been doing so well we felt like we may have dodged that bullet. So this seems as though it may be a long road and we may consider speech therapy (they work with helping babies with oral aversion) but in the mean time I ask that you be lifting her up in prayer as she endures such sever anxiety. I also ask that you pray for wisdom for Jon and I as we enter this new journey with our heart baby. We know this life will be full of new hurdles and we can't even express how comforting it is to know so many of you are lifting Ella and us up in prayer! Also on a side note Ella and I have caught a mild stomach bug :( Not sure if it really is mild or if it's about to hit hard, we are praying for the first! This is Ella's first time to be "sick" and although so far it isn't hardly bad enough to mention, it is scary. Mostly because we see the results of us starting to let the outside world in or rather us venturing out into the outside world, and well quite frankly it's hard!!! On another side note, Ella has gotten so much more mobile lately, meaning she is rolling all over the place, she also is starting to repeat the sign language for "all done", and she waves bye bye!... and... SHE SAYS "MOMMA"!!! I had to wait 8 months, but it was worth it :) Anyway that's it for tonight, thank you all so much for praying... these requests may seem small to some, but they are so important to us!

P.S.
As I'm typing this I can hear our little sunshine over the monitor, she is in her crib making the sweetest sounds! Just thought you'd like to know! :)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Update on Doctors visit!






Ella had her pediatrician appointment on Tues, and she is getting caught up on her immunizations :( So she had to get a shot, she was so brave! I was wondering how she was doing on just "normal" baby things, so it was good to get up to speed on what she should be doing and eating! I was relieved to know that we are doing almost everything just as we should be!!! Big sigh of relief for this first time momma! She is small for her age but she is following a growth curve so they aren't concerned. Also it is common for heart babies to be small anyway. She is just over 8 months and she is weighing 16 lbs. 3oz. and she is 28 in. long! Due to her 3 hospital stays, and all her recovery time she is expected to be set back with her development (crawling, walking etc.), even though her mental state is normal. So her doctor asked all the questions concerning her current abilities and to our surprise she was completely on track on one category, and she was just under normal for her age on all of the others! It was a great report!!!! The doctor was VERY pleased and so were we! Then today Ella had her cardiology appointment and she had great sats, great blood pressure, great EKG, great echo cardiogram, and we don't have to go back for 4 MONTHS!!! Yahoooo! They said to still be cautious with her because we still want her to stay as healthy as possible, but as far as her heart health all is great!  Now we just have to do our part to keep it that way! Thank you for your continued prayers for our sweet Ella Dawn!!!

Ella's heart friends:

Please be praying for Charlotte http://tousey.wordpress.com/  , she had her last open heart surgery today (this will be Ella's next surgery)

Also Please keep miss Emma http://www.emmajanae.blogspot.com/ in your prayers as well, she is still waiting on her heart transplant, but she is doing so much better then expected in the waiting process!!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Happy 8 months Ella Dawn!!!!

Wow 8 months... how did that happen?!? Regardless of how fast it went by, it has been FILLED with countless sweet memories! Ella is doing remarkable, she is off oxygen and is showing no signs of any complications! She is on aspirin (thins blood to help heart function) , enalapril (blood pressure) , prevacid (stomach ulcer) , and Maalox (acid reducer). She is not even wearing her heart monitor every night anymore!!!! That is exciting because it is a step forward, but scary because we don't have an alarm that will go off if something goes wrong. It hadn't sounded in several nights but being able to glance down the hall from my bed and see her heartbeat and her heart rate and her oxygen number somehow gave me peace of mind. I guess I can't always have her on a monitor... so we have to Trust. Trust that she will be ok, trust that God will wake us if their is a problem, trust that this is a good step!

I want to ask you all to keep this family in your prayers tonight http://reflectionsbykrista.blogspot.com/ This little girl has HLHS. She is also 8 months old and has been in the hospital since she was born waiting on a heart transplant... as of 4am this morning a heart has been donated to her! I cried as I read this I was so happy for this family, but I also cried because I was sad for the family that lost their baby today. I was moved by their generosity to donate their sweet babies heart, knowing that one day we may be waiting on a heart and the gift of a life for a life. Please pray for the two families involved in this situation.

Well here are a few pics. to comemorate 8 months of the unbeliveable blessing that the Lord has givin us!