Here in Dallas

We made it here Sunday evening and things went well for the most part, Ella was hasitent to walk into the Ronald McDonald House due to her fear of new places thinking they all will give her "owies". But with each reassurance from us that there would be no owies today, she would walk on forward.

At bedtime we were all exhausted and when we told Ella it was time for bed, panic hit her. She did not understand going to bed here and not at home. She grabbed her bedtime story went to the door and begged to go home. She was sobbing, my heart was breaking. I wondered if we had made the wrong decision to come so early and have night after night of this until her surgery. Finally Jon asked her if she wanted to snuggle with me for awhile in our bed she said she did. We decided to see if she wanted to sleep in our bed that night. Usually this would have been met with a resounding "I sleep in Ella's bed!", but this time she said yes, so the three of us snuggled in together in the tiny bed to go to sleep. Jon and I were excited, to be sleeping with her, because we miss her at night, but knew it might be a long night of little sleep.

We were right, we didn't sleep much, but as she slept with her sweet little arm over my stomach and we held hands, I just stared at her perfect profile that I could clearly see with the brightness of the Dallas night life out of our window and I began to cry. Not only was this the first time we have all slept together since Aug. 8th 2010 the night before she was born, but we were in the same place, in a room with the same layout as our first stay. I thought about my fear that night as I was awaiting her birth, wondering if it would be our last night ever with her. As the tears slid down my cheeks I thanked God with all of my might that she was here with me again. So even though we didn't get much sleep, it was a night I won't ever forget.

 At 6:30am Ella sat up and declared "I'm all done sleeping!" As apposed to her normal 8:00am wake up time. We started the day, with her asking to "walk" which we have learned is her way of handling stress and is one of her favorite past times. Although this is a healthy habit and one that will be useful in her future of trying to stay fit, it is currently not ideal considering her significant drop in sats when she is walking. We just survived to nap time, we were really tired. Ella went down without a problem in her bed and we slept right along with her in our bed. I'm really thankful for how quickly she adjusts to new surroundings! She has been sleeping well and in her bed ever since.

We never did have much snow in the path of what would have been our drive, but we are still so thankful that God made the way for us to come down here early. We would have been so very exhausted had we come down on Tuesday, now we have settled in and had lots of time to rest! God is watching out for us!

We are scheduled to report at the hospital at 9:30am and I'm not exactly sure what time the actual surgery will be, but it will be sometime after 11am. Tomorrow is really the hard part. Tomorrow we will send Ella into her 7th heart surgery, a stranger will carry her out of our view and we will have no control over what happens for the next few hours. Thankfully I am sending her in to a cath surgeon who I have so much trust in, and I know that God is in that room with her. Tomorrow they will look to find what has been causing so many problems. Tomorrow they will decide if her next open heart surgery is in the next few months, or very very near. Tomorrow Ella will be in pain, terrified, and exposed to countless horrible viruses. Tomorrow we put every ounce of hope and trust in God for strength to get through this next step.

We are humbled to ask you yet again for a flood of prayers on our sunshine's behalf. She means everything to us. We thank you all.