LA tomorrow

Tomorrow Lisa and Nana are going to LA again for Mia to be examined and re-packed under sedation. Our desire is that her bum would show signs of healing and improvement. Appropriately, today's sermon at church was on "Do not worry", Matthew 6:25-34. The Cliff notes summary reads: "Do not worry, because it won't change anything, and God is in control of all things. Trust Him." I have always been optimistic about Mia's health and future, I don't know if it's a "glass half full" mentality, or just faith in God. But her recovery from the stroke and all the other surgeries and hospital stays is a Miracle. A crawling, laughing, kissing testimony to God's power and mercy for his children. Thank you for praying! I have been convicted recently of approaching prayer as a shopping list of things to ask for, instead of approaching the throne of our Heavenly Father in awe. More of treating God like the Supreme Being in the Universe, and less like a servant. God already knows what we need before we ask. Matthew 6:8. Love, Mia's Daddy.

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Mia is out and Lisa and Nana are on their way home. This surgeon (who is new to us) says he can't see a difference between this time and the last, so he is going to consult with our original surgeon who is out of the country for two weeks. And we might need to come back on Monday to do it again. Please pray for Mia's healing, we are really in the dark about what the future holds for her. But we are confident in God. 2 Peter 1:3 says "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." God has given us everything we need for this life. Period. How awesome is that?

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we go back down to LA for them to put Mia under and look/repack her bottom. I imagine it will be another real early day, so pray that everything would go smoothly. I also noticed another "skin tag", the stuff we noticed prior to starting this repacking process...anyway it's tiny, but it's there, so pray that we wouldn't have any major setbacks, pray that the surgeon (a different one than our regular because our regular surgeon is out of the country for another week) would know exactly how to address it best.

our latest video

Progress

Yesterday was Mia's last time with her teacher since school is ending, can you believe it is summer already?! So, we went through the developmental list she has to see where Mia was at right now and I'm so excited because she's made some really big strides! Praise God! So, here's how she's doing.

Fine Motor Skills, she's probably only about 3 months behind with those. She can point and she can use her pincer grasp real nice. We still haven't mastered stacking two blocks or putting pegs into a board consistantly, but those are some of the things we are working on.

Gross Motor Skills, this is where she is farthest behind...she's still at about a 10-11 month age for these, and that's because we haven't figured out how to pull to a stand yet and we aren't walking, but she wasn't crawling before and now she's mastered that, so we've actually come quite a ways in this category.

Feeding, she's still behind in feeding, but she can now eat a cracker by herself and she will pick up certain things and feed them to herself, but if it is squishy or has a weird texture she doesn't like to touch it. We can now eat Stage 3 baby food no problem and are working on moving her to more table foods, but we just aren't quite there yet.

Speech, understanding, she has quite a vocabulary, but speaking, she doesn't say much. In fact, she's way behind in speaking, however, she does understand so much speech that we are encouraged that she'll get there, but you can be praying that she would learn new sounds because we only say mama, baba, and aye, and yaya...sometimes we can get a nana, but you'll notice there's not alot of sounds there, so pray for those to emerge.

Cognitively...this has to have been her biggest improvement, which is so exciting to us to see...she is definitely at her age level and quite possibly beyond it. (Hey, didn't those doctors say she wouldn't have any higher cognitive function...) Thank you Lord!!! She is a bright little cookie, she knows some things that some two year olds don't know, like her colors and so many body parts, so, that's awesome!

We continue to believe that she can be healed completely, but we trust God for whatever the outcome and want to continue to give Him the glory for how well she is doing. Thank you for always praying for our little girl.

Everything is fine...

The surgeon says we are now 60% healed! Yippee skippee! God has been nothing but kind, generous, and merciful to us. He doesn't have to be. He is soverign and Lord of creation, and we say thank you my Abba, Father. Mia is still asleep in the post recovery room, and momma is watching over her. We get to go home in an hour or two, so we could be back in Bakersfield this afternoon. Praise God!

Again

So, we are heading back down to UCLA again to do the same procedure on Mia. Pray for substantial healing since last week Friday and pray that everything would go smoothly tomorrow. We have to be there bright and early...the procedure is at 8:30, we will update you when we know more.

5 Years Today!

It's hard to believe that Brad and I have been married 5 years today! It seems like yesterday and in some ways time has just flown. In those 5 years we have been so blessed! Here are some photos of our favorite blessing.

4th times the charm

Mom is in the recovery room with Mia, everything looks fine. The surgeon said that we have to come back next Wednesday to do it again, but that's fine. Lisa is so smart, she asked the doctor for a percentage of how much better Mia looks and he said her bum looks 50% better than when we started. That is great news and a huge relief to us that this will not go on much longer. God is good! All the time.

So, we know that we are born into this world sinful. And yet, when you look at a newborn you think, that can't be possible because they don't do much besides eat, sleep, and poo :) Well, today we decided that Mia defiantly ignored us when we told her no. She has committed a sin. We joke about it, but we are actually excited that she knows she did something wrong because that tells us there is definite higher cognitive function. Here is what our sweetpea has learned. She ventures out towards the kitchen because CindyCat's water dish is close by and she'll go over there and put her hands in the water and splash...it makes quite a mess. I can usually catch her before she gets there because I know she is headed that way, but sometimes I am slow...well, this one time, she was heading there, I said, "Mia Danielle, no." And she turned around and looked at me and smiled and crawled faster towards that water dish. We laugh about it. When I pick her up I tell her no and she shakes her head no, but she definitely likes the water dish.

So, what the doctor told us yesterday is that her bottom was looking better on the inside...there's a small opening next to her anal opening that he has put some packing in because that's where it wasn't healing. The opening won't be there forever, but since she wasn't healing properly, he left a tiny opening to put packing into. So, in between the anal opening and the vagina is where her body isn't healing. So, pray that it would continue to look better, pray that we wouldn't have to keep doing this because it makes us nervous to have her put under anesthesia so much. So, the plan is to go back on Friday and have him look at it again. Pray that it would be healed significantly.

On the way home yesterday we stopped at In & Out and Mia had her first real taste of French Fries. She is a girl after her Grandma Cheri's heart (Grandma Cheri loves In & Out)...she loved the fries and couldn't get enough of them. Next step...hamburgers. :)

Thank you for praying for our sweetpea!

One more time

It is 3:14 pm on Tuesday and we are in the post-op recovery room with Mia. The doctor said her bum did look better since last Friday. But he wants us to come back this Friday and do the outpatient surgery and repacking again. So we should be back in Bakersfield by 5 or 6 today. Thank you so much for praying for our little angel!!

Mia's bottom continues to look good to us. Tomorrow we go back to UCLA for her surgeon to take another look. He will put her under general anesthesia again and take a look inside to make sure everything is healing properly. Pray that it would go smoothly and that we'll have made great progress. It will be in the afternoon, so pray for Mia to not be hungry, I imagine she'll get a bottle in the morning, but probably nothing after that until after the procedure, so pray for her tummy to go that many hours without food. She can have clear liquids, like apple juice, but she has never been a juice girl, we just don't give her juice, so she doesn't like drinking it. So, just pray for a good day tomorrow for us!

So, we just found out that we have to be at UCLA at 1:00 and her procedure is scheduled for 2:00, that means she will only get a bottle of milk in the morning before 8:00 and then after that she can only have juice until 12:00, but she's not a juice girl, so pray that her tummy would tolerate no food for those hours.

Mommy's Day

It is rather fitting that on Mother's Day I'm writing to tell y'all that I'm doing much better. Thank you for praying for me...the mommy...I have felt this overwhelming sense of peace since yesterday, I know that it's going to be just fine. I know that we serve an awesome God and I'm encouraged to know that He knows His plans for Mia and He knew her before she was born, He knit her in my womb just as she is and He's right beside us as we continue to work through her surgeries and healing. I'm so glad that He is in control. And I wanted to take a moment to praise Him! In spite of my struggles (and yours too), God remains faithful to us and that is so encouraging. Thank you God for being so faithful to us.

And to all the mommies out there, Happy Mother's Day, I hope that it was a great day!

Home

We are back home and Mia is doing well. She hasn't required much pain medicine and in fact, got only Tylenol (not Tylenol with Codeine) before bed tonight. Needless to say, I am super anxious...not because I think she'll have pain, I'm just worried that the wound won't heal again. Brad and I prayed tonight and I'm trying to give this over to God, but I admit I am having a hard time with this. I know that God has done so many amazing things in Mia's life already and that He will continue to do so many more, I think I just feel a bit more pressure being the Mommy, like I am the one responsible for how this turned out, since I am the one in charge of her care most of the time. I know it isn't true, but I just wanted to be honest and let you all know that we struggle. We trust God and yet at other times we still struggle to give things over to Him. So, will you pray for me?

And of course for Mia, you can pray for the following:

1. That she wouldn't get any infection this second time around with surgery.
2. That her wound would heal completely on the inside and the outside.
3. That there would be miraculous healing between now and next Tuesday that is undeniably a God thing.
4. That ultimately, she would be able to control her bowels. (Her surgeon didn't think this would be a problem, but he's never seen this before and can't give us a definitive answer. He is optimistic that nerve and muscle tissue hasn't been damaged.)
5. And that waiting to start the stretching process wouldn't have negative repercussions.

And as always, thank you for being so faithful.

She's out

Mia is out of surgery. The doctor said that the stitches on her inside had dissolved from last month like they were supposed to, but her body had not "healed" or made scar tissue in it's place. So he packed it with gauze and stitched the top layer closed. And we have to come back next week on Tuesday to do this again. This means no trip to Oregon for us, and more short term discomfort for Mia. Please pray that her body would heal. Love, Brad & Lisa

We got here bright and early, Mia did just fine on the car ride down. They gave her an oral sedative before they took her away and we are now waiting. We will let you know when we hear more.

Surgery Tomorrow

We are going down to LA tonight so that we can be at the hospital super early for Mia's surgery. We have to be there at 6:30am, for surgery at 7:30am. Pray that everything would go smoothly, that the surgeon would be able to correct whatever is going on and that there wouldn't be any further complications. Pray for easy IV access and that Mia would tolerate the anesthesia well. Pray for a quick recovery. We'll keep you updated when we know more!

New Mia Video

We just got back from LA, Mia did ok on the ride there and back, so thank you for praying! Her surgeon told us that her bottom isn't supposed to look like that, and he wants to fix it on Friday. It will be a minor procedure, we should only be there a few hours, but they will put her under general anesthesia and probably put a breathing tube in her (intubate) for the procedure. He'd like make sure that there isn't anything serious going on on the inside and then fix the outside so it looks like it is supposed to. Pray that they'd be able to work us in and that it the surgeon would be able to fix it correctly. Pray that there would be no serious underlying issues that we can't see. I'll let you know when I find out what time it's supposed to happen at.

Mia's bottom is starting to look worse. :( We have an appointment Tuesday with the surgeon, so we'll see what he has to say about it, but please keep praying that it will get better. We obviously don't know what it should look like, so maybe we aren't seeing things realistically, pray that would be the case, that her bottom is supposed to look like that, it just doesn't look right to us.

Here is a picture of Mia showing you Squishy Face. She's been doing this for awhile now when we take the camera out, like she doesn't like the flash...anyway, just recently, I think it was Nana and Grampa who named it Squishy Face...anyway, we just recently started using that term when she does the face...now she can do it on cue. We ask her to show us Squishy Face and she'll do that, it's really cute.