Another week, another lesson.

Another week has come and gone. As I sit at the beginning of a new week, I have mixed emotions. First, we'll get through the good stuff. Last weeks scans were all good reports.The echo is still stable and sonograms are looking good. Dr. Weiss told me again on Friday "I'm no cardiologist but his heart is looking better." I agree with him, I by no means have any knowledge of the heart but from what I've seen these last 5 weeks it looks like a better functioning heart. Either way, Holt is doing good! I know that these good reports come only by the grace of God and I believe that he is sustaining and keeping my baby safe. Thank you Jesus!

The more I understand about the heart the more I realize how complex and wonderful it is. Every time I meet with a doctor they re-explain the function of the heart and how it pumps the blood. I am amazed when I think of the creator that created this organ. One of the first thing that my sweet sister-in-law helped me with when I was settling in here was making poster with scripture to hang on the walls.  I want to share with you one of them.

 Psalm 139:13-17.
"For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!"

This situation has given me a new perspective of these verses. We really are fearfully and wonderfully made. Every part of our body, every organ, every system, every beating, moving part of our body from head to toe was no accident. We were created from nothing. A brilliant mind spoke us into being. And that my friend makes me speechless. Speechless, that someone that big and wonderful could love us. Despite are human-ness. And let me tell you I am being very human today.

Even with these good reports somehow today I feel like I've got the weight of the world on my shoulders. Monday's are one of the hardest days for me.  Don't get me wrong we had a wonderful weekend. Josh came down Thursday evening after work. It's good to see him. One of the hardest things right now is the distance. I have told him that I will never be a commuter couple or a work widow ever again. I know this is only temporary but it doesn't make it any easier. My parents came over on Saturday to spend the day with us. We had a wonderful time playing games and celebrating my dad's birthday.

Downstairs there is a bakery, Josh and I got him a cake. It's was wonderful!

We also had another visitor. Her name is Zoe. She is a therapy dog. It's fun to have such a cute visitor! I enjoyed spending time with her. I am a huge dog person and I am missing my dogs a lot lately. So to have sometime with a dog is well, therapy.

I think my issue is I am just home sick. I haven't seen my house in over a month. That's a long time, especially when I am starting to "nest". All I can do is think about what I would be doing if I were home and how much we do not have for this baby when he comes home. Due to this unforeseen situation I had to post pone my baby showers. Which made me sad because I was so looking forward to those. Please don't get me wrong,  I would much rather be here knowing and having a plan to help Holt then being surprised after he is born. I still can't help but think, how after we leave the hospital is everything going to come together? Please also understand that I am writing only to document my thoughts. I know that someday I will look back on this and laugh when I think how silly I was to worry about little things like diapers or bottles. I would give those things up a thousand times over to have a healthy baby. It's just hard sitting here with nothing but time on my hands to think, and that's where I get in the most trouble. If I could just shut my brain off for a minute and listen to what I really know. The all of my need have been and will continue to be met, and I know the same for my son- God will provide for us.

The other night I woke up at 4:30 again and my mind went racing. I've decided this is when God has my undivided attention and we do a lot of dealing at this time. I started thinking "God how is all this going to work out? I don't have nothing for this child! Then my simple mind started listing everything that we don't have: a diaper bag, bottles, diapers, blankets, a monitor (how will I know if he's ok?? cause walking in the room and looking the "old fashion" way would of course never due! ;) ) I have no swing, how every will I put the kid down? How can a baby ever survive without a swing! The nursery is not finished- goodness the bedding is still in the bag! How is the world are we ever going to survive after we bring him home!!!" Let me tell you the answer I received.

This is a lesson that I have had to relearn. You would think that I would have gotten it by now. I KNOW with everything in me that God WILL provide everything we need, because He promises. I just can't get my brain up to speed with my heart!
In the middle of my silly prayer I heard this whispered to me in the most loving way-

"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11 ) Lauren, Just trust me, I've got it all under control!

I was then reminded that I had to learn this lesson just a few short months ago. You see getting pregnant was not the easiest thing for Josh and me.  Not a lot of people know this but I had an appointment with an infertility doctor here in Dallas. I thought that was the road we were heading down.  A couple days before the appointment I was filling out all the paper work and stopped in the middle of it and decided I was not ready to give up on God, so I cancelled the appointment.  Josh and I decided to give it until the end of the year and if in January we still weren't pregnant I would reschedule the appointment. The next day as I was driving to work, I was discouraged. This was September and we had been trying since January and both were just frustrated. (I know what you're thinking, that's not a long time- but there's more to the story that I'll spare you the details) While driving and letting God know how frustrated I was he ever so gently reminded of this verse.
I felt like God was grabbing my cheeks looking me straight in the eyes and said "You believe I know the plans for I have for you but would you believe this for your unborn child? Would you believe that I KNOW the plans I have for him. For his future, one filled with hope and not harm. A plan to prosper him. I know when the exact egg will drop to be fertilized. I know the exact day you will find out about your child. I know the exact day when he will be born- it's just not time yet.  I know what your future holds as a family. Will you not trust me? I know!"  How can you argue with that?

 So I placed our future in His hands and began praying that he would do "immeasurably more then all we can ask or imagine" (Eph 3:20)  That my friend he did, I found out on November 19th that we were blessed with a child. Yes, God answers prayers! He answered our prayer, but not in the way that I had planned. He did it in his perfect timing and with his perfect plan.

Why is it that I know all this but there are days when I feel like my world is spinning out of control. For some reason lately I have felt the need to be prepared (I blame the hormones) and I am also learning that through this whole situation I have no way to be prepared. The "normal" is no longer our "normal". "Normal" for us has been forever changed. I am slowly learning that there really is no other way then trust in the Lord to help us find our new "normal".  We'll get there eventually, it's a one day at a time process. I think that's why we are to daily "walk" with the Lord. I'm glad it's a walk, cause running gets you no where fast, except for out of breath. I am so thankful for the Lord's patience with me. And that he will teach me the same lesson over and over and over again. Hopefully one day we can move on to a new lesson! But until then, we are taking it one day at a time.

Before I end this post today I wanted to share with you some pictures my wonderful mother took of us this weekend. Another thing that I am having to deal with is not having maternity pictures taken. My passion is photography and I love a good picture. But this is part of our new "normal"- pictures taken from an iPhone at the hospital. On the other hand I am so grateful that I have a few good pictures to remind me of this time. Now that I have rambled enough here are a few pictures.

 I played in Photoshop yesterday evening to make this.

 I will forever treasure these memories because they will forever remind me of what a Savior we serve. Yes, the waiting is hard and never fun. But God has already preformed so many miracles in our lives and I know he's not yet finished with our family. Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement. I cannot express to you what they mean to us.

35 weeks

Today I write this with a humble and happy heart. Friday we recieved some great news!

The day started out like every other Friday. 7:00 am I had my lovely wake up call by my nurse for my sonogram. Rolled my sleepy body out of bed, headed down the hall and into the exam room. where Dr. Weiss awaited to start the sonogram. The sono started out like every other sono has started at the head and works his way through the rest of the body. He paused while looking at Holt's heart, which after you've seen the pause at the heart you get nervous.  Dr. Weiss said " Hum, I am no heart doctor but his heart looks like it is pumping a little better" He then said he was going to call Dr. Laird (one of the many pedi cardiologist) and talk to him about it. " Baby is still stable, looking good and subjectively his heart looks better" was the report I was told when I left the room.  Later that afternoon Dr. Laird came by and gave us the update from the echo that I had on Thursday. He said that he and Dr. Weiss have discussed the sono and the echo and they both agree that his heart function is showing a little improvement. PRAISE THE LORD!! God is for sure answering our prayers.

We are by no means out of the woods  but we are just thankful that there are signs of improvement and we are not going the opposite way. We will take any little victory we can get! Thank you Jesus!
So what does this mean- we still have critical AS but the left vent. is pumping a little better. Friday we also finally had our consult with Dr. Mendeloff (the cardiothoracic surgeon). He was great, explained in very clear and great detail all our possibilities. He told us that a normal valve and aorta in a baby his size are 8 mm and Holt's are measuring 5 mm (After the consult was over my intelligent husband did the math and said that it is less then half the normal size) and that with a valve this size we will have to have some kind of intervention for Holt, it might be at 2 days, 5 years old or 30 years old but at some point in his life there will be intervention through surgery.  They would like to get him as old as possible, but of course we won't know until we see how the valve will hold up. They are planning to start with the balloon catherization and watch him for a while. If that doesn't work or doesn't hold up then we will talk about surgical options. Dr. Mendeloff explained to us the surgical option called the Norwood procedure, which is the series of three surgeries I have mentioned before. The first surgery will be right away and then we will have another surgery at 6 months and the final one at 3 years old. We have been told to expect to be in the NICU for a minimum of 4 weeks, and of course if surgery is needed then it will be longer.

 He explained and drew pictures of the process of how the re-route the left valve to the right valve and they would use tissue from a body that was dedicated to science to enlarge the aorta. The surgery would be open heart surgery, which means his chest would be cracked open and he would be placed on bipass. If everything goes smoothly then the whole surgery would be 6-8 hours long. There are few risks that happen with a surgery like this, but of course they aren't anything like the risk of not having the surgery. This surgery gives us a 85% survival rate and this hospital is above the national average for sucessful surgeries. We are grateful to go from 50% survival to 85%.

Now we just play more of the waiting game. I have made it to 35 weeks and I've been told that in the next couple of weeks we will start talking about scheduling a delivery date. Please pray for my mind, I can't help but be nervous about that day. I know God is already preparing the OR where the c-section will happen it's just the unknowns that are hard to not think about. Also pray for wisdom for Josh and myself as we have difficult decisions to be made in the coming weeks. We are fully trusting that God is and will continue to work out the details.

 I want to share this picture of Holt with you, isn't he just precious?  Please pray for strength for this little guy. He has such a long hard battle a head of him.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.

Standing on the Promises

I love music. I don't have very much musical talent but I love listening to it. There is something about music that can renew the soul. This morning I had a wonderful time of worship. I turned on Pandora while I was getting ready and the first song that came on was Selah singing "Standing on the Promises". Such a sweet song I grew up singing. I want to share the lyrics with you, because they just fit my situtaion so well.

Standing on the promises of Christ my King,
Through eternal ages let His praises ring,
Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing, standing,
Standing on the promises of God my Savior;
Standing, standing,
I’m standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail,
When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,
By the living Word of God I shall prevail,
Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of God is about all I can do these days. I'm not gonna lie to you, lately I have been struggling. I know with everything in me that God has got this situation under complete control! My heart knows this but my head is a little slower to catch on. Just when I think I can't do this anymore I'm reminded of the miricle that God has already preformed. (and it makes it a little easier to sit here) Last week, Holly (cardiolgist nurse practitioner) came by to check on me and answer my questions. As I am processing this whole situation she (and every doctor that we have seen) has been so patient with me as I ask questions no matter how off the wall and crazy they might be. I don't rememeber the question but the answer Holly gave me made me stop and say "Thank you dear Jesus for watching out for my baby". She told me that 1 in 800 babies that are born have heart disease and one step further 1 in THOUSANDS of babies have the condition that Holt has. (lucky us huh?) She then went on to say (and this is the miricle) that finding this in the fetus NEVER happens. It is almost always found after the baby is born and it is usually to late to do anything. Sometimes I don't feel like "thank you" is enough. I mean my child's life was saved because of that sonogram.

It amazes me that God cared enough to prompt me for the sonogram. But if you think about it isn't that what God does? Isn't he in the saving business. Isn't that the whole reason why Jesus came to this earth? To save us? So why is it that when something like this happens I am amazed. I'm amazed that he cares enough about Josh and me and my unborn child to prompt me to ask for a sonogram. I'm sure you feel like I'm beating a dead horse into the ground... Yes, Lauren we all know all of this! You'll have to have a little patience with me as I process this whole situation. When something this traumatic happens it takes a while to process. And that my friend brings me to my struggles lately, I've been processing.

Last week for multiple nights straight I'd wake up at 4:30. Just wide awake. And of course what do you do when you are a wake that early in the morning? You think. Let me tell you I can think myself into the craziests of scenarios! Let me share one with you. (Please understand that I now laugh at this) I started processing our situation and rememeber that at one time I was told that Holt has a big head. Of course, being tired and hormonal, I went to the craziest place! (Here's where you can start laughing at my brain.) I thought childern with down's syndrome have heart problem and big heads. Of course fear and panic struck me. I started crying and praying "Lord, I don't know if I will be able to handle multiple problems. Isn't a severe heart problem enough?" After a few minutes of prayer I calmed down and feel back to sleep. I woke up with the thought still on my mind and of course had to ask about it. So poor Dr. Thomas (cardiologist) was asked the crazy question. He chuckled a little and reassured me that yes, babies with down's syndrome have heart problems it is completely different then the heart problem Holt has. He also said if there was any concern of this the OB's would be doing a number of test and I would for sure know about it by now. He then reassured me that he has had moments like that when he wakes up at night and his mind goes off the deep end. So atleast I'm in good company. Ha! I know full well that everything else (as far as they can tell) is 100% healthy and normal with Holt. If that reassurance wasn't enough Dr. Weiss assured me that yes, we have a baby with a big head but it's a normal big head. I'm pretty sure that it just means he'll be exta smart cause he has room for a bigger brain? Ha! I'll just keep thinking that!

 After all this reassurance my heart calmed down a little. I know I'm new to this whole parenting thing and by no means do I have ANYTHING figured out. If anything I feel like I'm back at the starting line wondering "How do you care for a child with heart disease?" I have been told a number of times that before we are discharged they will make sure I feel comfortable with the instructions and know how to care for him. It gives me a little comfort knowing this. I still can't help but allow my mind to wonder to after he's born. I can't help but think about all that he is going to go through after he's delievered. It's really not fair if you think about it. I know and Josh knows what this little guy will face, but he has no clue! I've been given about 100 different scenarios of what will happen and all I can think of is I can't protect him from this. I would give anything to change places with him and go through it for him. But I can't. It gives me a better understand of why Jesus did what he did for me. I know he understands! Isn't that why he came to die? If you think about it we all suffer from heart disease- sin. But God gave us the ultimate healing. Only the blood of Jesus can cleanse our heart and make it new. So why is it such a struggle for me to comprehend this trial? I think it's because it's involves a whole new life. And that is a whole new concept for me.

 Most first time parents get to atleast hold their child before making decisions for them. Josh and I have been making decisions for this kiddo for weeks and we have no idea when we'll get to hold him. Kinda makes it a lttle more challenging. I'm pretty sure that's why we were instructed to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding..."(prov.3:5) I have gone down the "why me" road. Why him? Why my child? Out of the 1000's of babies, why did it have to be us? It's not fair! Why can't I just have a "normal" child? and my friend I have no answer. I know that this is a good thing that I am going down this road. It's part of my healing process. I also know God is big enough and patient enough to listen to my questions. Though I don't have an answer for these question (and probably won't this side of heaven,) I have the peace that passes all understanding. What more do you need?

There has been a song on repeat in my head, I know it's my answer for now. It's called "Safe" (I believe Phil Wickham sings it.) The whole song is very powerful but the part that has been stuck in my head is this part:

You will be safe in His arms
You will be safe in His arms
'Cause the hands that hold the world
are holding your heart

This is the promise He made
He will be with You always
When everything is falling apart
You will be safe in His arms

And here is the part that gives me tingles and makes me smile:

These are the hands that built the mountains
the hands that calm the seas
These are the arms that hold the heavens
they are holding you and me
These are hands that healed the leper
Pulled the lame up to their feet
These are the arms that were nailed to a cross to break our chains and set us free

Wow! Those hands have my heart and my precious little boys heart in his hands! Those are pretty powerful hands but gentle enough to hold on tight to us during this storm. My heart can rest easy knowing that we are in good hands, no matter what the out come. Thank you for listening to me.

I know this has been a lengthy post, but it is therapy for me to write down my thoughts. I know without a doubt that we are going to be ok because I've been promised that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) And that's the promise I am standing on today.

Quick update on Holt. He is still stable and growing. He weighs 4 pounds 11 ounces, which is good. We want him to be a big 'o' baby. The echo last week was identical to the previous 2 weeks. Dr. Thomas said that you could put all the echo's on top of each other and they would looks exactly alike. I said "good" and he told me he is glad I'm learning to say "good" to this. I told him we love to hear the words "stable" and "same". He agreed, they like saying those words. As for due date they are still fully expecting me to go to full term, this week I am 34 weeks. Which means, the most I'll be here is 6 more weeks! Wo hoo!! Let the count down begin. Of course we'll be here alot longer with him, but I will be able to leave the hospital and come back. When it gets closer to my due date they are going to schedule a date for my c-section. They want to ensure that everyone that needs to be available will be here so they will give Holt the best care they can give him. Of course I will keep you posted on all of this.

Thank you again for your prayers and encouragement. I don't have much contact with the outside world and love whenever I do have contact, it calms my fear that I'm not forgotten about while I sit in this lovely hospital room. I know, I know-- my mind is just going crazy here!

My last note, I want to leave you with this verse I have been praying for this kiddo and my family for a while now and would ask for you to join in this prayer with me. "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine" (Eph. 3:20)
He is able and I can't wait to see what He is going to continue do in the life of our son.
Thank you for your prayers!

Reason to Celebrate!

Today Josh and I have something big we are celebrating. No, this has nothing to do with our sweet baby but I'm going to take a minute to brag on my husband. This morning I text him good morning, as I do every morning whenever I wake up and he texted me back a number. I thought hummm ok what does that have to do with the morning. He told me it was the grade he had gotten on his engineering licenser exam that he took back in April. He passed!!! I could not be more proud of him. It is a huge accomplishment in his career as an engineer. So today we are celebrating this milestone in his life. I'm not gonna lie this year has not been the easiest year for us. We've had lots of challenges come our way and this is what I call a "God Wink". Just a little wink from God saying "I care". I'm sure I'm not making sense of what I mean by this but when everything seems to be going wrong it's a little good that can carry you through all the hard times. Ok so enough about that! Thank you for letting me take a moment to brag about my husband. As far as our current situation all is still quite. My monitoring (of Holt's heart) twice a day is still beautiful like always. I've had two sonograms and an echo since I've last posted and the reports are good. Holt is stable. Friday, Josh and I were given a tour of the NICU. After the tour I have a peace of mind knowing that our little boy will have the best of care while he is in there. He will have a private room with a nurse that sits outside his door. The monitors he will be hooked up to are monitored by the nurse outside his door, a different station that is monitored by a nurse 24/7 and there are 2 neonatologist and 1 nurse practicioner that are alway on the floor. After the tour I feel like I can exhaule a little more knowing that he will always be watched. It is a lot less intimidating after seeing it. Don't get me wrong it's still very scary for me to think of all my little baby will have to go through once he is born, but knowing what to expect helps me rest easy. Once it gets closer to his discharge we will be moved to a different NICU where we will teach him how to function on his own. We have been told that he will have a feeding tube in his nose. When he is first born his heart functing will take all his enengy and he will be helped with all the other functions of living. Basically this means once his heart is stable enough to let him go home we will have to teach him how to do basic functions on living, like eating. From the NICU we will be moved across the hall to a different NICU where he will begin to learn basic functioning skills before we will be discharged to go home. The night before we go home we will be moved to a room where Josh and I will be left alone with Holt to make sure we feel comfortable with everything before we can go home. Once we pass that test we will be able to go home. I know that is a LONG ways away but it's nice to know what to expect. Especially since we won't know exactly what road we are taking until after he is born and his heart can be further assessed. As for this week, I am being taken on a tour of the cardiac-surgical NICU/recovery room this afternoon. Though it is not 100% certain if surgery is needed or not they still want me to see the area so I will know what to expect. I have been warned because it is very very overwhelming with all the monitors, tubes and other things that the babies are hooked up to. We have also been told that if surgery is the path we have to take it is an open heart surgery, and his chest will have to be cracked open. Most of the time the chest is left open for a while to ensure they don't have to do anything else before closing him back up. This is something that I don't know anyone could every be prepared for. We meet with the cardiothoracic surgeon next week and I know after that meeting we will have a better understanding of what to expect if surgery is the road we have to take. Tomorrow I have another echo and then Friday is another monotoring sonogram. Please continue to pray that his heart continues to stay the same and that no fluid will build up around the heart. Dr. Thomas (cardiologist) said that the moment they see fluid around his heart they have to deliever him. As of today there is zero fluid around his heart. Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement!

Rejoicing!

This morning I had my echo of the week and a visit from the cardiologist. I am happy to say the report was good. I was told that the echo looks exactly like the echo last week and that Holt is stable. This is a great report! Thank you for all your prayers. I truly believe the hand of the Lord is holding this little boys heart. I was also given an update from the surgical board where our case was presented. Dr. Laird (cardiologist) said that everyone was in agreement that once he is born to do a balloon catheterization to get the valve open and then asses the heart to see what damage there is in the left ventricle. She explained that if there is irreversible damage then they can reroute the heart to make it a one ventricle heart (only the right one). It is a series of three surgeries and the quality of life is very high. It was a procedure first done 20 years ago and from what I understand those patients have enjoyed a long healthy life. We all know how far medicine has come in the last 20 years. It's comforting to know it's not a new procedure. Valve replacement is also still on the table. If they can't keep the valve open with just a ballon cath. then replacing the valve would be the next step. They can use a donor or animal valve. Qualitly of life with the valve replacement is good and he would be able to enjoy normal activity. Either way he will have life long follow ups with a cardiologist. So please join me in continuing to praying that his left ventricle would have no to minimal damage and would be able to function on it's own. I know that only the Lord knows what road we have to travel down and that he is in control. Thank you for your prayers! We are rejoicing today for such a good report and are taking this one day at a time!

One Day at a Time

I know it's been a couple of days since I've written something so I thought I would take adnvantage of the quite morning this morning. Since my last post nothing major has changed. I was suppose to have met with the cardio. surgon on Thursday and his office called and changed it to Friday and then it was changed again to Monday (yesterday). Yesterday came and went and still have not met with him. So maybe today. Of course I will update with how that appointment went when I know how it went. haha! I am still being monitored twice daily for contractions and Holt's heartbeat. I have had multiple doctors tell me his heartbeat looks beautiful on the monitoring strips and that I have a very cooperative baby. It's music to a momma's ears, let's just hope he stays cooperative when he gets older. I had a wonderful weekend with Josh here. He came over on Friday afternoon and stayed until Sunday evening. It was very nice for us to be alone and process the events of the past week. I think all week I had been in "survival mode", showing my "tough face". It's a lot on a gal to have multiple echo's and sonograms and then see what seemed to be 1000 doctors and have to come up with questions all at one time. So when Josh came and no doctors were in and out it all sank in. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband who will listen to me jump off the deep end and then look at me and say "Lauren, It's all going to be ok. We'll get through this." He knows exactly what to say to make me feel safe and bring me back to reality. Through all this I am learning why we were instructed "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34) Amen! Daily, different scriptures pop into my head that help me deal with the day. If you don't believe that the word of God is active and relevant for today then you and I need to have a little chat. Lately I have felt like it was written yesterday to help me get through all my today's! I know that's the Lord just walking with me through all of this. A person could go crazy in a situation like this thinking about tomorrow and I'm already pretty crazy enough. So that has been my big lesson of the week. Take it one day at a time. Deal with today as it comes and tomorrow will take care of itself. It's so comforting to know that we serve a God who will take care of our tomorrow's. We just have to get through today. As for this week, I'm here in the hospital by myself. My family had to go back to work, which I completely understand. I had my monotoring sonogram early this morning. Holt still looks great. My instructions from Dr. Weiss was to stay out of trouble, and I told him I'd give it my best shot. Ha! It's nice to have doctors joke with you. It makes me realize the severity of the situation has deflated for now. Sometime this week I am going to be taken on a tour of the NICU, Cardio NICU, and surgical cardio NICU (yes, the surgeon I am suppose to meet with has his very own unit for his surgical patients). So that will be interesting to see all three of those places. And of course my weekly sonograms and echos. To my knowledge I do not have any doctors coming by- execpt for the cardiothoraic surgeon. So I am looking forward to a nice relaxful week! Sometime soon I am going to post pictures of my room and a picture of my sweet boy's sonogram, so you can see who you've been praying for. I just haven't figured out how to get pictures on this thing. But I've got nothing but time for a while, so I'm sure I can figure something out. I cannot say thank you enough for your continued prayers and encouragement for our family! We are truly blessed!

Home Sweet Home

I have made it through my first week! I can't believe it's been one whole week. It feels like it's been a month since we first recieved our life changing news. Yesterday was a very busy day. It started with my lovely check in before 8:00, (and yes this happens every morning) by the nurse. I guess it's my early preparation for life with a baby, no more sleeping in for now. Next came another echocardiogram and we met another cardiologist who looked at the echo and confirmed what all the other cardiologists have been saying. The good news is that there hasn't been much change from Monday's echo. Everytime we meet with a cardiologist they reexplain what the diagnosis means, starting with the general function of the heart and then proceeds to talk about the aortic ventricle. I really appreciate that each time they come to talk with us they take the time to explain, give me time to process and ask quesitons. Almost everyday this week they have come to talk to me and answer every question I have. I feel very confident in the care Holt is already receiving. Our case was discussed at fetus board and I was told if there was any new information then the Nurse Practitioner would come back and let me know. So no news is good news. In between all of this I was placed on the heart monitors once in the morning and once at night. All this activity is enough to make a girl tired! I don't mind the revolving door becuase it makes the day go by faster. This morning I had my monitoring sonogram. We are still stable! There is zero fluid around his heart or lungs and the rest of his body is growing. Thank you Jesus! Before I left the sono, Dr. Weiss told me to get comfortable because they fully expect me to carry to full term or very close. That is sweet music to my heart. Today has been such a relaxing day. I went for a long walk outside which was so good for me. It's nice to be outside and get some sunshine and when I got back my sweet husband came here for the weekend. It was so great to see him again. It has been an adjustment going from seeing each other everyday to seeing each other on the weekends. I don't know if I will ever get use to that! He brought me some more clothes and other things to make my room feel like "home". I have done a few things to put my touch on the room. I will try and post pictures tomorrow to give you a peek into my world for the next 8ish weeks. Monday I am going to meet with a cardiothoracic surgeon and hopefully we will have a better understanding of the game plan if you will for Holt once he is born. Also on Monday our case will be discussed at the general surgery board. I will give an update on that after I know more. Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement. I know the road from here is only going to get rockier before it smooths out. Please pray for rest for me and Josh. This week has been very emotionally and physically tough on us and we both need rest. We know God is our sustainer and giver of all good rest.... so tonight we hold tight to that promise. Thank you again for your prayers!