Category Archives: ella

3 Months Free

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I am so pleased to announce that Ella has gone 3 whole months since having to be rushed off to the hospital. My Cardiac Baby has had not one issue with her heart since 10/23/2007. I actually feel safe leaving the valley and traveling places. For a while there I actually thought I’d never leave here ever again – I didn’t want to travel to far away from her doctor. Now that I feel confidant I just might be taking a trip to Sacramento soon to see all of our family and friends.

I was reading on Kimi’s blog about her daughter Faith and how they lost her due to her heart condition. As I was reading about her story it really hit so close to home. I had mentioned on her blog how it’s amazing how God will come in during the hardest times in your life and he literally will carry you through it. The Footprints poem has so much meaning to me now. Through losing my baby, Mya, and then to go through almost losing Ella I just am amazed at how God carried me through it all and kept me strong.

I am so thankful for the many blessings that I have in my life. I continue to pray that Ella’s heart will correct itself somehow and she won’t require surgery. I pray that every mom out there who has lost a baby or child of theirs finds their strength to go on through God.

Footprints

One night I had a dream–
I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord
and across the sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints,
one belonged to me and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that many times along the path of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me and I questioned the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you would walk with me all the way,
but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life
there is only one set of footprints.
“I don’t understand why in times when I needed you most,
you should leave me.”
The Lord replied, “My precious, precious child,
I love you and I would never, never leave you
during your times of trial and suffering.
“When you saw only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you.”

…Mary Stevenson

First Cabbage Patch Dolls

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I remember my first Cabbage Patch. She was a newborn and her name was Christina. I remember her birthday was September 1st and one September 1st when I was 6 years old we had a birthday party for her. All of the neighborhood kids came over with their dolls and my mom bought cupcakes. We lived in Lodi – amazing the little things we remember. Yesterday the kids got a package in the mail from Aunt Ksee. Jayden got another transformer to add to his collection – talk about excitement!! Ella got her first newborn cabbage patch kid. The Birth Certificate says her name is Lauree Janelle and was born on January 20th. Ella loves her. She tries to chew on her face and sometimes gets frustrated, but when I hold her up so she can see her a big smile goes across her face. Her first real baby doll…. so sweet!

And then there’s Jayden. My mom bought him a boy cabbage patch doll. I honestly for the life of me cannot remember its name, and the birth certificate is probably packed away with all of my scrapbook supplies in the garage, but I had to share a picture of Jayden w/his little mexican soccer player cabbage patch doll. He is shirtless, because I guess Jayden decided that the needed to show off the doll’s muscles lol.

Guilt

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Why is that no matter how good of a parent we are we are still faced with guilt almost every day of our lives. Maybe this isn’t the case with every parent, but it is with me. I’m a good mom. I know I’m a good mom. But let’s give last night for an example. I was busy working downstairs and I looked at the clock and though ‘Uh oh…I need to get upstairs and tuck Jayden in and get him into bed.’ I went up there and he was sleeping. I didn’t get to tuck him in. Didn’t get to read him a story. That guilt ate at me all night long. He did brush his teeth though, because his mouthwash was out…very odd for him! Makes me so proud!

Food is such an issue in our house. Like my post yesterday, Jayden has issues with food. I cannot force this child to eat anything otherwise he WILL throw it up. He’s pickier than I was as a child and that’s pretty darn picky! I feel guilty when I pop chicken nuggets in the microwave. Crap, I even feel guilty when I make him fish sticks. No matter what he eats I feel guilty that he’s not eating veggies or something super healthy. However, he does eat fruit all day long and prefers wheat bread over white bread and that puts a smile on my face 🙂 And he drinks water, which some kids HATE…well, Jayden would rather have water than anything to drink.

Another overwhelming guilt that I have is that my one on one time with Jayden is nothing like it used to be. He was an only child for 6 years. That’s 6 years of having my undivided attention. 6 years of the world (well our world) revolving around Jayden. That changed drastically. All of our attention shifted quickly to Ella. Rushing her to the hospital so many times right after bringing her home. Having to be away from me while I was at the hospital in Portland and he was home w/my husband. Through it all he is still sweet. Still loving. Not jealous. And I feel guilt. I feel guilty that Ella sometimes takes up all of my time and I can’t go read him a story at that second. I can’t peel that orange, because if I move she’ll wake up, please just wait 5 more minutes. And he waits. Very rarely will he get his feeling hurt over Ella getting put in front of him. I know things will get better, and I know Jayden understands, but that doesn’t help the guilt I feel inside.

I guess this post is just for me to talk about how it’s hard that no matter how good of a mother you are, you still have this overwhelming guilt inside of you that you should be doing better. Are there other moms out there that feel this way?

My Cardiac Baby

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Every night I lay down and I look at Ella and rub her cheek and I thank God that she is still with me. Every time I think of what happened to her my stomach just flips upside down. Today I felt so bad, because she had to get shots. She was so happy and just cooing at the nurse and then she stuck her and Ella screamed her head off. And of course I’ve spent the majority of today listening to her heart over and over again. We’ve almost gone 3 months w/out Ella having to be rushed off to the hospital and I couldn’t be more thankful for all of the prayers that have gone Ella’s way.

The thought that runs through my mind the most is what made Ella’s doctor want to see her the day after I had brought her in? I have never had a doctor do that. I’ve brought Jayden to the doctors when he was sick and after the doctor checked him over they didn’t call me the next day and say “We just want to check him out since it’s Friday and the weekend’s coming up.” When Ella’s doctor’s office called and said this I almost hesitated to be honest, but thought might as well, she’s still sick. Little did I know that my daughter’s organs were starting to shut down. Little did I know that her heart rate was at 280. Little did I know that in a couple more hours I’d be holding a baby that stopped breathing. Little did I know that my whole world was going to be flipped upside down and forever changed at that moment. Little did I know that I would learn just how much I loved this little girl. I thought she was going to die. To see her laying there lifeless was a feeling I can’t even describe. To have tubes breathing for her was the most horrible sight I’ve ever seen in my life. To have to drive 4 long hours in the middle of the night to Portland while she was being mediflighted there. Not knowing if she made it. Yet, getting that phone call and having the best sigh of relief I’ve ever had – the plane has landed and they’re on their way to the hospital.

One thing that always sticks out in my mind is that next morning – 7am shift change. We’d barely had any sleep since we had arrived there at 4am. But I heard the nurse walk in to the room and say, “This one’s awake in here.” Gino and I jumped up so quick and ran to her side. She just looked at us w/her big beautiful eyes and tried to move her mouth like she wanted to tell us everything that had happened to her and even tried to cry, but there was a tube going down her throat. My little precious, 7 week old, newborn baby.

I cannot express how thankful I am for every prayer that was said for her. For God carrying her in his arms.

Even though she’s had no episodes, she still has her heart problem. I still give her medication every 8 hours. On that ECHO her WPW will still be there. So please pray if you pray that Ella stays healthy.

Thank you.

She has a tooth & He lost one!!

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We have had quite the busy couple of weeks w/Ella. On 12/22/07 she rolled over, on 12/28/07 she sat by herself. Somewhere along these lines she held her own bottle and today I felt a tooth that broke through!!! I will get pics up of her sitting oh so proud by herself and of her first tooth!!!!

Jayden lost his first tooth on 12/30/07 and the Tooth Fairy was so nice to him… she gave him a whole $5.00! He bought himself a smoothie at the mall and a big sucker. Well, last night lo and behold I hear Jayden in his room saying MY TOOTH FELL OUT!!! CRAP! How is the tooth fairy supposed to come when I have no car since my husband is at work. So I ran to the calendar w/Jayden and said “OH MAN! The Tooth Fairy is on vacation until tomorrow night.” He bought it! Thank you, Lord! So, we set his tooth on his head board and tonight we’ll be putting it under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy…. so many wonderful events happening in these parts :0)

So, now I’m going to prepare myself for Jayden’s friend that’s coming over…. boys together are CRAZY! So, then I’ll come back and edit this post with pictures… hope everyone has a blessed day!

Summing Up 2007

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This has been an amazing year. We started our year out in Sacramento, where we’ve lived our entire relationship/marriage. Where our son was born. Where our family lives. Where our hearts reside. I found out I was pregnant in December 2006. So, I started 2007 out pregnant and praying and praying that all would go well. In 2006 I had been pregnant and lost our baby girl, Mya. So, we entered 2007 with high hopes that it would be a much better year than 2006 brought us.

April 7, 2007 we did the unthinkable. We packed our home up and moved to Oregon. I never thought in a million years I’d be able to free myself from the stresses of the City. I never thought I’d be able to leave my mom, my sister, my brother – my brand new nephew. But we did it. We knew that we needed to plant our roots. Jayden would be starting kindergarten and we wanted to have him go to school in a small town. We didn’t want the city life for him or our unborn child. So, with tears in our eyes and a heavy weight on our hearts we left everything we knew and loved for a fresh start at life. I’m happy to say that it was the best decision we’ve ever made. Although we miss our families so much, we are finally a content, happy, loving family. I couldn’t ask for more.

August 14, 2007 we gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Ella Marie was 6lbs 7 ounces ~ 18 1/4 in. long. Amazing. The most amazing part of this day was that Jayden was at the hospital. He had his ear to the door waiting to hear his baby sister’s first cry. Moments after she was born Jayden was in the room holding his baby sister. Our family at that moment was complete. It’s like a hole in our hearts was filled. Jayden was an amazing big brother from the beginning. Never an ounce of jealousy, which being that he was an only child for 6 years I was a little scared of this.

September 5, 2007 ~ 1 year since we lost our angel baby Mya. We sent her off balloons at Lithia Park and had a family picnic. It was a very sad day for us, but at the same time we realized that without Mya leaving us we wouldn’t be able to have Ella and we couldn’t imagine life without her.

September 11, 2007 ~ Jayden started kindergarten. I cried. I wouldn’t have cried but the PTA passed out a poem that made me cry. He’s been doing absolutely wonderful and he loves school!! He’s writing his name, adding, can tell you what letter words start with and is working on reading!!! He’s so smart and just an amazing little boy.

October 5, 2007 our world almost came to a crashing stop. Ella was hospitalized and we discovered that our healthy little baby girl wasn’t so healthy. She was extremely sick and we had brought her in to her doctors the day before and was told that she just had an icky stomach virus. I knew in my heart that something else was wrong with her. Something major was wrong with her. October5, 2007 Ella’s doctor called me and asked me to bring her in for a quick check right before the weekend. Thank you, Lord. Thank you thank you thank you! If he hadn’t asked us to bring Ella in Ella would not be with us today. Ella’s heart rate was jumping up to 280 and she had been in this state for so long that her organs were starting to shut down. A couple more hours and this baby girl would have stopped breathing. They ended up shocking her heart and thankfully it worked. But in order to repair the damage they gave her something that paralyzed her and put her on ventilators so she didn’t have to work on breathing while repairing her organs. She got mediflighted to Portland and we learned that our baby girl had a heart defect called Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome. We now are aware and I can instantly tell when something is wrong with her, but we’ve had quite a roller coaster with this. She now is on medication that she started on 10/25/2007. This medication is a miracle. After many hospitalizations she has been symptom free ever since she started this medication. I am so thankful that she doing so well now. She will be able to have a procedure when she’s older where they go into her heart w/a catheter and fix her problem. Until then we are lucky to have a medication that works.

Besides Ella’s heart condition we had a miraculous and wonderful year. We’ve never been happier than where we are at in our lives. I am now able to stay at home with my children while I work for my Grandparents through my house. I couldn’t have ever asked for anything more wonderful. It’s like everything we’ve ever dreamed of us happened to us in 2007. I hope that 2008 brings us as much joy as 2007 has.

Ella’s Video

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This is a video that I just came across that I thought I’d post for everyone. Personally, I feel kinda bad whenever I watch it, because it was very mean of me to scare my baby like this, but the look on her face was priceless…..after she jumped pretty bad I was done… but she has some cute cooing on here!! Enjoy ~ a lot of people have had a good laugh over this ~ poor Ella!

Ella’s First Foods

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Technically she’s not 4 months until Friday, but I figured a few days wouldn’t hurt…she needs the practice and it’s really helping w/the acid reflux she has. And that’s awesome! Here’s some cute pictures ~ the first ones were her last night. I gave her a couple licks of Cookies and Cream ice cream – I know, I know, I’m a bad mom LOL.

It’s All About the Thumb

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Within the past couple of days Ella has decided that she is going to be a thumb sucker. It first started out with sucking on her hands like there was no tomorrow, but then a little thumb slipped in and she fell in love. Today she learned how to curl her fingers and just have her thumb in her mouth and I must say it is the cutest thing ever. The negative point about this is I can take away a pacifier, but how do I take away a thumb? I guess we’ll deal with that when the time comes.

Cousins Meet

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The 2 baby girls finally got together!!! This is Ella and my brother’s baby Alana. The bottom picture is of Ella staring at Alana – she was so fascinated by her!!! They are so cute together.