Hawaii

Christopher and I decided that we were in a desperate need for a vacation! With everything that has taken place in the last year, from Izaiah, to remodeling a house, to the new baby, we are both a little stressed out! My parents were great enough to take Kennedie for the week, so just the two of us could have a little R & R in Oahu. I must say, it was exactly what we needed! Although my kids were on my mind the ENTIRE time, I managed to have a little bit of fun! Ha Ha! Hawaii was wonderful, windy but wonderful! Here are a few pictures, but I must warn you, most of them look the same because it was just the two of us so you can only get so far away with your arm extended as far as it can go! We managed to wrangle a couple of people into taking our picture so we had a little bit of different views!

These were the crazy sting rays that were in our hotel. Some of them were huge!

Of course Christopher had to take his golf clubs! What's Hawaii without golf?!I must say, this is quite a pretty shot! Look at that arm extension! Beautiful!I definitely think that the Temple was in the prettiest spot in Hawaii! It was up North Shore and is sitting on the top of a hill. It was so beautiful!This was probably the coolest thing we got to do! We we able to visit my great great grandpas grave. It was crazy! His headstone is so old! It was a great feeling to be one of the few that has been able to see it!This was the largest swap meet I have ever seen! It wrapped around the Aloha Stadium with 3 levels! It was really fun!

miracles

Let me start off by saying I believe everything happens for a reason. God has a plan for us and we need to have faith that everything will turn out alright in the end. just like many people, we have had many struggles and trying times, but looking back, most of them have been blessings in disguise. When Izaiah was born so early, I was angry. I wondered what he had done to deserve all the pain he was going through. Now, I see the big picture. If he hadn't been born so prematurely then he wouldn't have been so sick and needed surgery. If he hadn't had surgery, then we never would have known he had the birth defect malrotation of the intestines. Years down the road, we could have lost him in an instant. We were given a miracle. My family is another blessing. I love my family. I love everything about them, but it was a very long and emotional process to get where we are. It took 4 years and many rounds of fertility to get pregnant with Kennedie. And it took 2 years and many more rounds of fertility to get pregnant With Izaiah. I would sit and watch my friends and family decide to have a baby and in a few months they were pregnant. Although I was so happy for them, I was so sad it didn't work that way for me. But looking back, if I hadn't had the trouble that I had then I wouldn't feel the way I feel right now. Like I have been given another miracle. I'm pregnant! No fertility, no years of waiting. Just like that! I'm not going to lie to you, when I found out I cried! I cried because I just had a baby! I cried because i have a 5 month old son still in the hospital, I cried because I am terrified if my body can handle another pregnancy, but I cried the most because it is such a miracle! All of my fears aside, I'm so excited! I know it sounds crazy, but i feel that it was meant to be. I excepted the fact that we would only have 2 children. We were so blessed to have them. But it goes to show, God does have a plan for me. So I rest in his arms. For now, I am happy, healthy, and blessed once again!

all smiles

Izaiah is doing much better now! It is amazing how different he acts when he is not sick! For the first time, he is smiling, flirting and being a real baby! He lost most of his fluid weight and is down to 8 pounds 3 ounces. Now he can start gaining healthy weight! He is starting to eat a little better, but he has severe reflux, so it makes it a little difficult when he keeps throwing up! But all in all, I couldn't be happier! Right now, all we are waiting for is for Zai to eat all of his feeds through a bottle, then he can come home!!! It is getting so real now! He may be home in a few weeks! AAAHHH!!

Private blogs

There are a lot of friends and family members out there that have private blogs. I am all for them and think it is a great idea. The only problem I have, is no one EVER invites me to view them! I really am interested in what is happening in your lives, especially if you live far away. I would love to keep in touch and see how your family's are growing. So, if you have a private blog and wouldn't mind me taking a peak, my e-mail address is amw3256@yahoo.com. Don't worry, if you don't want to invite me, I won't be offended! Also. if you have a public blog and I am just not aware of it, please fill me in!

Puffy puffy puffy

Zai is slowly getting better. He was finally taken off of the oscillator and put on a regular ventilator. He gained almost 4 pounds in a few days so they have been giving him medicine to help him try and lose all of the fluid weight. He looks HUGE! the poor baby couldn't even move his head because his neck was so big. His belly was so distended that it was shiny and almost see through. The medicine has helped a little and he has lost about 1 1/2 pounds. He is still on a lot of pain medicine so they are trying to slowly wean him off so they can place a feeding tube and see how well he does digesting. Hopefully in a week or so, he will be able to come off of the ventilator! Things are just happening really REALLY slowly. so it may take a while for anything to change. As of now, he is hanging in there!

Collapsed lungs

Of course, good news doesn't last for long! This morning at about 5:00 am, the doctor called me and told me that Izaiah had taken a turn for the worse. He wasn't breathing (even with the ventilator) and so they did some x-rays and saw that both of his lungs had collapsed. They immediately put him on the oscillator to completely keep his lungs open. He had a lot of fluid in the pockets of his lungs, so they needed to do a thorocentisis to remove it. They stuck a needle in between his rib cage and tapped the lung to pull out the fluid. He received his 9th blood transfusion and had more blood cultures sent off to see if he had grown another type of infection. He is going to be monitored very closely for the next little while to make sure nothing else occurs and hopefully everything turns out OK. Most of the test results won't be back for about 24 hours, but I thought I would update everyone while I had the chance.

FINALLY!

Izaiah was scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday, but, of course, our little man does things his own way! His electrolyte levels and CO2 level combination was just so that if they were to operate on him he would go into cardiac arrest! Once again we waited. No one was more upset to hear this news then Kennedie! For days, I had been telling her she would finally be able to see her brother! She picked out a pretty dress, and actually sat still to get her hair done! This was going to be the best day of her life! Now, let me tell you how awful I felt having to tell her she would have to wait! She bawled and she bawled! All she wanted to do was kiss her brother! It's RSV season, so she is not allowed to go into the NICU. She has not seen him for 4 months! This is not an easy thing for a 2 year old to understand! However, over the night, they were able to stabilize the levels and he was put back on the schedule for Wednesday. When they wheeled him out and Kenna got a glimpse of him, she SQUEALED!! I'm not joking you, she sounded like a pig!! She laughed and she giggled and the first thing she said was, "My brother is so cute!" The whole way to the operating room, she kept saying over and over! "That's my brother! He is CUTE!" She kissed him on the forehead before they took him in, and that was the best I have felt in months! After about an hour I received the call that they were closing him up and he was just fine! The surgeon came out about 45 min. later and told us the great news! Izaiah's blockage was just from his stoma being sucked in and all of the rest of his problems were just because his body was ready to be put back together! That's it! No more surgery! (hopefully) My beautiful boy is FINALLY on the road to coming home! Zai is doing pretty well after surgery. He was in a tremendous amount of pain so they have to keep upping his medicine and in result he is still on the ventilator. He was given his 8Th blood transfusion today, but everything else looks great! After about 1 week they will try and start feeding him and see how he does. Once he tolerates full feedings and has no problem digesting or throwing up, he can come home! He can COME HOME! AAAHHH!! Let's pray for only about 4 to 6 more weeks! So what can I say, FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS!!!!

Now, I know this is kind of a sad picture, but look how beautiful he is even after surgery! And look, NO BAG! What an amazing baby boy!

surgery

So quite a bit has happened since the last time I wrote about Izaiah. Because he was so sick, they had to keep him on a lot of antibiotics, take his blood often and give him TPN for nutrition. The plan was to give him a pic line because he didn't have anymore veins that were good for IV's. The IV team came over and tried for hours to place the pic line but were unsuccessful. They said that the back up team would be in the next day and they would be able to get it in. The next day the back up IV team tried for hours and were also unsuccessful. By this point, Zai had to be sedated because he was in so much pain from the attempts. He was taken to surgery so they could place a central line. They made an incision in his neck and ran a tube down and out through another incision made in his chest. Now they can take all of his blood and give him his antibiotics through this one tube. After that was over, we thought he was in the clear. However, he became very ill again and his belly was so tender he would cry every time it was touched. They did a lab work up and it came back that he had inflammation in his belly. They didn't think too much of it because he just had surgery and they figured it was from that. After a couple of days, he was still in so much pain that he had to be sedated most of the time. Then his stoma sucked into his abdomen and so they had to place a tube in his belly to suck the stool out. He has been given enemas through the tube ever 6 hours for 2 days. When they realized that the surgery wasn't the cause they put him on a ton of antibiotics, placed an anderson tube down his throat to suck out his stomach and have been taking x-rays and labs everyday to see if they can figure out what is wrong. All in all, they think he may have another stricture or obstruction. He is going to have exploratory surgery tomorrow to see if that is what it is. They are very unsure of what they may find, but if it is in fact a stricture, depending on how bad it is, they will have to cut and reconnect the bowel, or connect another ostimy bag. If they are able to reconnect the bowel, they will do his "take down" at the same time and he will then be ostimy free! The surgery will take a minimum if 2 hours and we won't know until he comes out if he will have 2 ostimy bags, no ostimy bags, or something completely different! These will be the longest 2 hours of my life!