Ella's Journey: 4 years ago today Ella had her first open heart surgery.

4 years ago today was one of the scariest days of our life, we sent our one week old baby girl into her first open heart surgery. She was so very sick. Fragile. In fact we knew she may not make it out of surgery. God's timing is perfect, because on the way down to the OR, while she was surrounded by nurses and doctors, Ella crashed. They were able to stabilize her enough to try the surgery. Once they got inside, the surgeon realized that her lungs were more damaged then they realized. They were far too weak to support a sick heart. He decided that she would need a heart transplant. Before sewing her up her surgeon had an idea. He decided to try something he had never done before, he did a surgery that would help control the blood flow to her lungs in hopes that they may begin to heal and that possibly she may be able to keep her native heart or at least buy her more time to wait for a new one. We were totally unaware of all the changes that had taken place and we were anxiously awaiting an update call that was an hour over due. When we finally got the call from the nurse in the OR that we had been waiting for, instead of hearing that everything was going as planned, we were told that we needed to go to the consultation room and that the surgeon would be in to talk with us. Ella had only been in the OR for about 3 hours and was supposed to be in there for several more hours. We feared the worst. When he came in he told us about Ella crashing, about her lungs being worse then they thought, and he told us about the experimental surgery he had done on her heart. He told us that we needed to begin the transplant process and prepare to go that route in case this did not work, he then told us that he was concerned that her gut was dying. I asked what that meant for her if her gut died. He said that she would die. Although that day was showered with scary unknowns, I still remember feeling bits of Peace and Joy throughout the day because of God's mercy and the thousands of prayers sent on our behalf by you all and so many strangers around the world. Today my big 4 year old is painting at the breakfast table. We believe in miracles, and we have one to celebrate everyday! I thank The Lord for His Mercy in saving our sweet Ella Dawn, in giving us 4+ years already with her. What a beautiful gift!

Ella had a wonderful birthday and we are all on the mend from that pesky summer cold, thank you for the prayers!

These are our traditional last day before her birthday pics.