Home

We got discharged a little bit ago and will be traveling home soon. It is almost unreal how quickly we are leaving, but from past experience we know it is easier to heal at home. Praise God for going home!

Bakersfield????

Galen always says there are no accidents in the Christian life, and now I believe him! (Note: I did not disbelieve him before. :-) ). Baby Matthew and his parents in the room next to us are from Bakersfield! That is so exciting because I wanted to exchange contact information with them, so we could stay informed when he gets to go home. And now I learn that they live in the same town as we do. Very cool.
Is God awesome or what? Please pray for both Matthews and tell God a very big Thank You for Mia's amazing recovery! Thank You very much to all you praying people!

Mia is doing much better today. She only has one IV left and they are thinking about sending us home tomorrow. She still has some stuff in her lungs, so pray that it would go away completely soon. She will have quite a long recovery at home. She'll be at home away from germs for a couple months because her immune system is weekend. And she'll have to spend time regaining strength. Pray that all goes smoothly for the next couple of months.

On a different note, Mia got her first wagon ride today. They have wagons to pull the kids around in so they can get out of their rooms...she cried and cried when we put her in it, but then after we got going she loved every minute of it. She then cried when we stopped the wagon ride...she didnt want to go back in her room. We will be doing it again tomorrow!

We also saw Matthew Lawrence and he is doing alot better, please continue to keep him and his family in prayer. And the baby Matthew next door is also doing better. Please keep them in prayer also.

Mia got a lot of IV's and wires removed today. Her lungs are still full of something, so please pray that would clear up soon. The concern is that it might turn into pneumonia if it doesn't clear up. She also is not eating well, so pray for that also. There is talk about sending us home soon, but we definitely need her lungs to be cleared up first.

Giving Thanks

After a long nap, and a bottle from momma, Mia is like a brand new baby. Except for that whole crying all the time thing. She is laughing and cooing, talking and playing with toys. I have to give thanks to the only one who has the power to heal her. Our LORD God, the I AM, Yahweh, the creator and sustainer of all life. Thank You!!!!!

Would you pray for the little boy in the room next to us? Matthew is 1 month old, and he is recovering from his 2nd heart surgery. His mother shared with me that he has holes in his heart and has a 50 percent chance. Will you join me in asking God to intervene in Matthew's life?

Uncomfortable

Mia had a restless night. Now that the anesthesia has totally worn off, she is uncomfortable and will softly whimper when she is awake. They have given her Tylenol, but anything stronger would not be in her best interest. A chest x-ray revealed some stuff in her lower left lung. So she needs to cough and breath deeply, and if she is sedated, she can't do that. If she would get worked up and cry loudly, that would help her lungs also. Pray that her lungs would be healed.

Mia got some pedialyte and formula tonight. She drank them both super fast, she was definitely hungry! We are being careful just to give her a couple ounces at a time to make sure she tolerates it. She seems to be doing well so far! We just continue to rejoice at how smoothly everything has gone...we know it is a God thing and want to always remember to give Him the glory for it.

Mia just got her breathing tube out! She is doing well, super tired, but happy to have the tube out of her mouth. Pray for continued gain of strength as she is really weak right now. Pray also for when we start food as that might be a bit of a challenge.

Chest Tubes out

About an hour ago, they pulled the 4 plastic drainage tubes out of Mia's chest. Lisa and I were there watching, and they gave Mia a sedative right before they did it, because it was painful. But she was fast asleep when they were done, and while she slept, we went to lunch. Now they are testing her for pulling out her breathing tube. The way they do that is the machine is not breathing for her, Mia is doing all the work. The respriatory therapist said Mia is doing a good job breathing, and they plan to pull out the breathing tube shortly. (1PM?) Thanks for praying! God is so good!

I just talked to Mia's nurse and she pretty much slept through the entire night. They had to give her some sedation only once. They think they are going to try to extubate (remove her breathing tube) this morning. Pray for timing and that everything would go smoothly...the worst scenario would to do this to early and then have to put the breathing tube back in. Pray for wisdom for those doing this.

We got to see Mia and she looks really well. She is a tiny bit puffy, but that should go down soon. She is still on the ventilator, but they plan on removing it tomorrow, so pray that the breathing tube comes out easily. After that she may try food, so pray for that also. She is looking real well though and we are encouraged.

We just talked with Mia's surgeon. Everything looks really great. He said they found another hole inside her heart that they patched with the same material from the original hole. There was another thing they fixed and I don't know the exact terminology, I just know it was fixed and it shouldn't cause her any problems later on. He said her valves were not leaking which is great, and so everything looks really well. God is good always and today He has said yes in fixing Mia's heart...thank you! The surgeon also said the bleeding has stopped and again, we are thankful.

We can see her in another hour and half...pray for a quick recovery and short hospital stay. We don't have enough words to praise God for what has happened today...we are so grateful and thankful for all who continually pray.

We just heard from the OR that they took her off the bypass 5 minutes ago and she is doing fine. Thank you Lord! There is a little bit of bleeding they are trying to control, we don't know if that is common or not, so please pray for that. They expect to sew her up in the next 30 minutes or so. We don't know when we will be able to see her yet. Please continue to pray for the final stages here and thank you for all of your prayers already. We are grateful.

We are still waiting to hear how the surgery is going...we do know she is on the bypass machine, but we haven't heard anything else yet. Thank you for praying.

We just talked to the OR nurse, they placed the arterial line at 8:30 and they just started her surgery at 9:45. Pray for her surgeon, that everything would go smoothly, pray that her body would tolerate the blood products, and pray for her time on the bypass machine that she would be on and off it quickly.

Please also keep Matthew Lawrence in your prayers, another kid from LBC. He had surgery a few weeks ago and there were complications. We just saw his mom and they might need to do another surgery, but don't want to so soon after his last. He is 5 and has intestinal problems.

We just let Mia go with the doctors to be prepped for surgery. She was doing great, they gave her an oral sedative before we left her and so she was real calm and relaxed and didn't cry when they took her. They said it would be about 3 hours of prep time and they would keep us informed.

Pray specifically for an arterial line, they won't do the surgery without one and she is real hard to get IV access as it is.

Pray also for no seizures after surgery because they said being on the bypass machine can result in seizures.

Just a quick update...it is 4 am and we can't sleep...not because we are worried, but because we don't want to miss the 4:30 alarm. We have to check in at the hospital @ 5am. Mia did well yesterday getting her blood drawn, they got it on the first poke. Thank you for praying and thank you God!

Right now she's sleeping real nice...I love to hear her breathe when she is sleeping...it is very peaceful. She got her last meal at 11pm and fed real well. Pray she isn't too hungry this morning before she gets put out. Will update more later when we know more.

Child Dedication

Today we dedicated Mia at church. It was such a sweet time for us. She got all dressed up for the occasion in a new dress with tights and shoes...that was the first time she's ever worn shoes! She didn't like them too much.

It was so nice to see so many people who have continually prayed for our little girl. Thank you so much!

Mia also got weighed today and she is definitely beefing up for Tuesday...she is now 16 pounds 10 ounces. :)

Some things to pray for tomorrow and Tuesday...tomorrow we go down to LA and she has to have her blood drawn one last time before surgery, pray that it would be quick and easy, that they would get it the first try.

Tuesday is her surgery and we don't have a time yet, but it will probably be like all other pediatric surgeries...in the morning, so I'm sure we'll have to check in around 6am and they'll end up taking her around 8am...we will try to update the blog as much as possible on Tuesday to keep y'all informed.

- Pray for the surgeon and team that everything would go smoothly without any complications.
- Pray for easy IV access, she's always a hard poke.
- Pray that there would be no surprises in surgery.
- Pray for wisdom on all of those in the room with her.
- Pray for an easy time on and off the bypass machine...pray that her heart would start when the time comes for it.


We are at peace and trust God completely through all of this. God has been so gracious to our little girl and we are thankful.

Today I went with my mom down to LA to give blood for Mia and everything went really well. We also ran into one of our other donors their (thank you Jeff!) and tomorrow another donor (thank you Stacy!) is going down. Please keep her in your prayers tomorrow and Brad and Grampa Flash on Saturday.

Nana was a huge blessing to us today...she stayed with Mia so she didn't have to make the trip to LA and so she was with her for 6 hours, thank you Nana! We were so grateful for that, it took a lot of stress off of me.

Some of you have asked about giving blood here...this blood we donated is not for credits, it's actual blood that she will get during her surgery, we've used blood bank blood for her in the past when we didn't have a choice, but since we knew this was happening, we really wanted it to come from family/friends...we trust the blood bank, but it's just nice to know whose blood she is getting sometimes. :) So if ever in the future, she needs more blood for a surgery and you are O negative...and are interested you can let us know...it was such a blessing to have Jeff and Stacy and Grandma Cheri (and her mama...but that's a given) be able to donate for her. Mia says thank you!!!

Mia continues to do well. Today she got weighed and is now 16 pounds 5 ounces! I think the extra calories from oil are really helping.

This coming Sunday we are going to dedicate Mia at church. It will be at the first service (8:45) at Laurelglen Bible Church if you are interested in coming.

Otherwise we are doing well, I am going with my mom to give blood tomorrow for Mia and Brad and Grampa Flash are going on Saturday to give plasma and platelets...we also have two friends who are going on Friday to give her blood, so pray for all of this that we'd have safe travel and everything would go smoothly.

I know the top of my head is cut off, but Mommy want to show y'all my two top nippers...yup, that's definitely two...so we're thanking God for those!

Mia is eating so much better...back to normal! Thank you for praying for her. And she did get weighed this morning and came in at 16 pounds 1 ounce, so we are grateful she didn't lose not eating yesterday.

I am feeling a little bit stuffy, so please pray for our health...that we wouldn't get sick...I think that the combination of not getting enough sleep and making sure everything is right before surgery is wearing on me a bit...maybe she'll sleep through the night and I'll get some good sleep??? It happens every now and then. :)

Home

We do always love coming home. One of these days we'll not have to go to LA as much and we will be grateful for that also.

Last night we drove down to our dear friends George and Lory and stayed with them (thank you thank you thank you!). That was real nice because they told us we had to be at the hospital at 6am...we didn't want to drive at 4am...what was even better was that prior to leaving Bako-land a gal from the hospital called and said, you don't need to get there at 6am...you'll just hang out for an hour and do nothing when she isn't scheduled until 7:30am for her CT scan...so you should just arrive at the hospital and go directly to radiology at 7am. What a blessing!!! Mia ended up sleeping really well in her borrowed pack-n-play from her boyfriend Jacob. (Thank you Jacob!) And at 6am I got her up to give her her seizure medicine and she fell back asleep until 6:45 when we left for the hospital. She did great waiting for the whole process to happen. Thank you for praying for that!

After some confusion about her CT scan, it was determined (unexpectedly to us) that she would actually need to be intubated (have a breathing tube) for the CT scan. This is because in addition to lying completely still, she would need to have her breath held for her also. This is because they need to measure the distance from her ribs to the blood vessels on her heart so that they don't accidentally damage them during surgery. Since a baby can't lie still and hold their breath they needed to sedate her and have the breathing machine hold her breath for her. Amazing what they can do with technology! She needed an IV first though and they did it while she was awake, but they got it on the second try, so we were very thankful for that. And then because of the breathing tube she had to have general anesthesia which takes a bit longer to wake up/recover from...so we ended up not finishing their until about 10:30. But she did really well and there were not any complications. Thank you God!

We left there to go and have a chest x-ray and an EKG...all of which were fairly simple and even though there was crying (because now she fears almost anyone who touches her...who wouldn't?), there wasn't hurting for those things. They still needed to get some blood from her to do a bood type check and so I made the mistake of asking them to call the heart surgeon's office and ask if this could be done prior to her surgery when she was out because they tried when she was out from the CT scan, but weren't able to draw any blood. They told me it needed to be done before the surgery so they could have the blood products ready to go the night before...(she's had how many surgeries already at UCLA and they still need to check her blood type????? That's what I was thinking...but apparently it is a legal requirement after a certain amount of time has lapsed since the last check...legalities can be so frustrating!) Well, they then told me at the lab that it would need to be a full blood draw and not just a heal stick or a finger prick...and that did not make us happy. I asked them why we couldn't have done this in Bakersfield when she got her blood drawn for her labs and they told me that the blood type check has to be done at the hospital you are having surgery at...again, legalities. They then said, by the way, we want to change Mia's surgery date to this next Thursday (6 days from now) because her surgeon wants to leave the Wednesday before Turkey Day. At first I didn't think it was a huge deal, but after Brad and I discussed it, I realized it was a big deal because we had already made arrangements with different people about donating blood products directly for Mia. And it would mean more time off of work for Brad...so Brad called them back and after some discussion, the heart surgeon apologized and said he didn't realize that we'd lined up donors for Mia and that he would do the surgery on the scheduled date of November 25th and he'd just have someone else look after her the next day. What a relief that was! But the whole time we are thinking, what is God's will and so I am so grateful that we prayed about it before they called us to apologize because I feel like that was a direct answer to prayer. And ultimately we know that regardless of what day the surgery is on, God will be there.

So, after all of that, we headed back to Bako-land...please pray for Mia, when they intubated her it has caused her throat to be a bit sore and she's had a hard time taking much food today, pray that it will heal quickly and she'll be drinking/eating a lot better tomorrow! And thank you for praying for today, overall it went really well.

Oh...I didn't mention about the blood type...we decided to wait to have Mia poked until the day before her surgery when we go down to LA, we just thought she had already been through too much and we didn't want her to have to be poked today...so pray that they are able to do that quickly when it happens!

Tomorrow we will be at UCLA. Mia will be getting some more pre-op stuff done. The big thing is a CT scan of her heart. They need to put her under anesthesia for this so she won't be able to eat anything in the morning. Pray that there are no complications with the anesthesia and that she tolerates not being able to eat for awhile. It is scheduled for 7:30, so hopefully we'll be done with that relatively quickly. They will also have to put an IV in her and I don't know if it will be before she is out or after. So pray that the IV would go in easily because that has always been difficult for her. She will also be having a chest x-ray and EKG, but those should be relatively simple. And I do believe she might have to get her heal poked, but am not certain on that yet.

Brad asked me why I hadn't told him Mia was half crawling...I just thought he knew. She's been pushing up on her arms and turning herself in a circle...so her arms are definitely getting the understanding of how crawling would work, we just need to get the legs going too...in time. :)

Please continue to pray for our health, we all want to stay healthy prior to her surgery...which is now 12 days away. We know that God is in control and our ultimate prayer is that His will be done, we're hoping health is a part of that!

Today we took Mia in to get her blood drawn and it went so well! Thank you God!!! We went to an outpatient lab by Mercy Hospital and Mike drew her blood. It took 1 poke and less than a minute to get her blood, it was amazing. We were so grateful...we will definitely be seeing Mike in the future...he was like an angel to us! So thank you all for praying...now the only thing left is pre-op stuff this Friday. Please pray that everything would go smoothly there also. Pray also for Mia's health...that she and all of us would stay healthy for her surgery. It still seems like a long ways away, but I know two weeks will pass in a flash.

Mia's October (now that its November)

 

To really appreciate this picture, you need to click on it to make it full size.

Sweet 16!

Mia has finally reached 16 pounds! Go Mia. I remember when she was stuck at 13 pounds for awhile and I thought is she ever going to get bigger and Brad had to keep telling me not to worry that she would get there and he's so right...she's getting there. She's almost too long for our scale now, I measured her the other day and she is real close to 29 inches...pretty soon we'll be switching car seats...I was hoping she might stay in her current seat til she's 20 pounds, but she'll be too long pretty soon.

Monday I have to take Mia to get her blood drawn in Bakersfield, so please pray for us. Pray that it would go quickly and easily...she's such a hard one to get blood from. This is pre-pre-op stuff. She needs this done before Friday because they are going to do a CT scan of her heart and they need to put her out for that, so they want to make sure her blood work is ok prior to that. They'll also be drawing blood on Friday, but I believe they'll be able to do it when she's under the anesthesia so that shouldn't be painful, but they will have to put an IV in her on Friday, so pray for that also. They'll also be doing a chest x-ray and an EKG on Friday, but those should be pretty painless.

Her helmet is fitting her really well, which is a blessing, so we'll just keep praying for head growth.

Mia did really well with her Synagis shot yesterday. She didn't get a fever and we were so thankful. She wore her helmet all last night and it looks to be fitting real well. This morning she got weighed and she's now 15 pounds 13 ounces...so we'll keep praying for more good growth because the bigger she is for surgery the better.

A New Helmet

Yesterday we went to LA to get Mia's new helmet. Since both of the grandmas were busy Grampa Flash volunteered to tag along...thank you Grampa! He drove us down there...we stopped at In & Out along the way...we had burgers and Mia had beef and carrots with oil...I think that's pretty similar to what we had. Our appointment was at 1:30 in Torrance and they said allow for an hour to adjust the helmet. Well, 1 hour turned into 2, but we definitely didn't want to go back anytime soon and so far so good...I've been checking her helmet every couple of hours to make sure there aren't any red spots and it seems to be fitting well. It's a little bigger and bulkier than the last one, but they wanted to make sure it would last her until she's 2 or so...they said insurance would definitely not go for a 3rd helmet (we still don't know about this one, but we continue to pray and be hopeful). They did think her head grew a smidgeon since she was last there...so please be praying that it would continue to grow and this helmet would reshape her head.

This morning Mia got her Synagis shot...it is a shot they give babies during cold/flu season to protect against RSV...any premie and baby with a heart/lung condition gets the shot...it's a once a month thing for the next 5-6 months...so pray that she wouldn't have any adverse reactions, she ended up doing fine with her last immunization, but she had a fever for so long...pray she doesn't get a fever with this because we want her to be able to wear her helmet.

Tomorrow we go to LA to get Mia's new helmet. Pray that it would be a good fit and that it would do the necessary job to get her head shaped right. Pray also that her head would grow and that we would be patient as we wait on God's timing.

I meant to post these pictures awhile ago...regardless, this is Mia with her Peace Rose...she really enjoyed touching the petals...she liked it!

Today in church we looked at Habakkuk and I was reminded of God's faithfulness to Mia. At the end of the book, Habakkuk says that regardless of what happens, "I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." (Habakkuk 3:18) This was a great reminder for Brad and I as we get closer to another surgery for Mia...just like her last surgery, we do rejoice in God regardless of the outcome because He is good always. May you be reminded of the goodness of God as you start your week.

Mia did pretty well with trick-or-treating. She went to her Grandma Cheri's and then to her Grampa Flash and Nana's house. I think she was slightly amused by her costume...when I put it on her she immediately held up her arms and was inspecting them, it was cute.

Mia got weighed today...she is now 15 pounds 11 ounces, yay Mia. Her cousin Joy is 15 pounds and soon to be 5 months...so far Mia has been passing her grown out of clothes to cousin Joy, but soon it will be turned around. :)