It has been a week since I last posted so I thought I had better do something. I actually wrote this post a while ago but just never knew when or even if I wanted to post it!
My family is feeling VERY blessed this season! We got the best present ever!! We brought home a healthy little girl! (I am still asking Santa for a jumbo bottle of hand sanitizer!!)
Philippians 4:13
This verse has a lot more meaning to me than ever. I do not take it to mean that with God I can make all my dreams come true. Only I can do that! But what it means to me is that with Him, I was able to dig down in my heart and soul to stand strong and be there for my family when I really wanted to curl up and cry and ask "why us? why Ella?" I was able to find the strength to take everything that was thrown at us and charge through all of the scary times. Now, I am not saying that I did not start out this journey being angry and confused. I did everything right. I went back through my entire pregnancy to see where I went wrong, but I found nothing. I just could not except why I could do everything that I did and still have a baby that was so sick. After a while I realized that Wyatt and I did not get the raw end of the deal with a sick baby. In fact we got the best end of the deal....we got Ella. She is not just any little girl, she is Ella. She is PERFECT! She has the most amazing imperfections that make her to be perfect. She has the most beautiful scars that will forever be apart of her. But most importantly she taught me/us that we can do all things through Him. There is no defeat in this story. We were able to find the strength to be strong.
What Ella went through was horrible to us as this was something not
routine to our family. Luckily, her heart defect can and was easily
fixed through open heart surgery. What made it much more tricky was her
size. They really prefer to do this particular surgery on babies that are over 6 months and more than 9 pounds. Unfortunately, Ella was not healthy enough to go home and wait until she was 6 months or more than 9 pounds.
The following picture is when Ella was a day out of her surgery. She did not have nearly as many pumps as other babies, but to me this is WAY to many!!! They included all her sedation drugs, antibiotics, extra platelets and heart meds. Hanging off of her bed is her pacemaker. She had an IV in her right arm and foot, an arterial line in her left arm, and a central line in her neck. She also had four pacer wires coming out of her incision. Underneath her incision was the drain tube that drained out the fluids from around her heart. This was all in addition to her ventilator, typical monitor wires and feeding tube. It was all overwhelming but I knew she would not have them forever. I knew that once she was off the vent, she would slowly lose the pumps and lines...and she did!
The following picture is when Ella was a day out of her surgery. She did not have nearly as many pumps as other babies, but to me this is WAY to many!!! They included all her sedation drugs, antibiotics, extra platelets and heart meds. Hanging off of her bed is her pacemaker. She had an IV in her right arm and foot, an arterial line in her left arm, and a central line in her neck. She also had four pacer wires coming out of her incision. Underneath her incision was the drain tube that drained out the fluids from around her heart. This was all in addition to her ventilator, typical monitor wires and feeding tube. It was all overwhelming but I knew she would not have them forever. I knew that once she was off the vent, she would slowly lose the pumps and lines...and she did!
This is Ella just shy of 3 months. She went from being a baby with holes in her heart and congestive heart failure and looking like the picture above to being at home smiling and playing just like she should. She is pretty remarkable! AND Yes...she is in a blue bath towel but that is what happens to little girls that have big brothers. They get their old bath towels!!!!
She is so cute!
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