2009 leaves the scars...

8:30pm
It was such a treat to be able to spend this special Christmas time with the closest family. We would still love to have our parents and siblings with us, but having Abi at home to celebrate the holidays was like a dream come true.


We continue to stop and look at Abi in amazement. Wow, I can't believe she's here with us, already, after the surgery. It will probably take a few more of those moments before we get used to this fact. The only thing that I don't want to do, is to forget about what happened, how God showed His peace, healing power and confirmation of His love to us. I want Abi's story to touch and encourage more people as she continues to grow. The surgery was just the beginning...


The last couple of days of 2009 we are practically brushing up on the daily and night routines, keeping a close eye on Abi's breathing and eating patterns, behavior and the healing scar... 
I pealed off the last 2 bandages on her 8 cm (3.14 in) incision!!
The scar looks great! Almost as pale as her skin. 
I am truly impressed with the look. Just take a look:

This scar...is why she's here and destined to live a very long life...
This scar...is her testimony of God's new Heart for her...  
This scar...tells a story of one brave and strong little girl.. 
If she was able to go through this in a blink of an eye, there is nothing she would not be capable of doing! 

No matter how big and how visible the scar will be when Abi grows up, I hope she will feel proud of it! I will make sure she feels confident about it and will want to wear whatever she likes. 

There were so many times I would think how unfair God was to allow her heart to be so complicated, imperfect and abnormal like that.. I could not in the whole world understand WHY!!!?? He would want such a thing to happen to a baby! 
This year has been filled with a mixture of so many emotions and feelings like joy when we first found out about Abi through fear, disappointment, anger, unforgiveness, helplessness, frustration, envy, sadness to peace, hope and blessed at the end... 


2009 is definitely classified as the most challenging, emotionally draining, exhausting yet educational year of my life. 
It seems like Abi is not the only one with the scar on her heart. We all have one in ours as we went through the healing process with Abi.


J.

Living in peace

10.50am

We got emails from some of you asking what’s going on with the lack of posts since last Thursday. Oh boy, I can’t believe it’s been so long since we posted here. We apologize all of you who check the blog daily or almost daily (and we know there are hundreds of visits a day for what we are very thankful!).

The wonderful Christmas time has just been crazy for us. Crazy in a very positive way. We had visitors almost every day – wonderful! We love you all and we love to have you over!!!! When only we could (definition of ‘when only we could’ is when Abi was taking a nap) we tried to catch up on sleeping as well.

Seems like it is not for us to sleep at night ;-) Two nights ago Asia and I talked about it and tried to come up with possible reasons why Abi was up exactly every 2 hours. It is funny because once we heard her ‘call’ us I told Asia what time it was without even looking at the clock and I was right to the minute. Incredible!!! So we talked about it and we came up with the following list: 1) it’s habitual. No reason for it and not really hungry [but still eating]. 2) Growth spurt (with the amounts she’s eating overnight she must be catching up on the past 5 months growth spurts as well). 3) She’s just messing with us and doesn’t want us to get any sleep.

Other than that she’s still doing wonderful. So far she has not developed any of the possible complications, and even though theoretically she can still develop them we pray she won’t and we know our God is crazy about her and if He has a fridge in heaven her picture is on it, so we have peace about her future. Yes, we live in peace every day. It’s incredible because it is not easy and when we look at things from our, human perspective, it’s very easy to be bumped and depressed, but He’s been good to us for so many years and even now is pouring His peace and love upon us daily! That’s really cool! I’m telling you all who haven’t tasted it yet! Just try!

I’m back to work today, but Asia is staying home for the next couple days/weeks which is great! It is so good to have them both around!

Have a wonderful day!

Art

First Christmas Eve

It was a great day today. Our first Christmas Eve filled with talks about last year when we were talking about today wondering who that would be sitting with us at this table. A little boy or a little girl. What would she look like? What whould she be like? How was it going to be etc. It was a year ago but seems like it was just yesterday. Then we had no idea this Christmas would be so special and blessed.

Art

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It's Wigilia Today

In Poland our families have started celebrating Christmas Eve, called Wigilia. This post is dedicated to them and our friends from Poland! :)


This is how we celebrated Christmas in 2007 with our families...(the last time we actually spent Christmas together..)

Dzien Dobry wszystkim w Polsce!!
Z okazji nadchodzacych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia, skladamy Wam Kochani, wszystkiego najlepszego, duzo zdrowia, pokoju oraz samych powodow do usmiechu.



And to all - Merry Christmas!!

Art, Asia and Abi..


P.S. Abi is 5 months today!!

The Post Office

8.19pm

Last night we got less sleep than any nights before since we came back from the hospital. No, Abi did not confuse day and night which we've heard happens a lot after staying in hospital. She is very active and happy during the day, but keeps snacking during the night. She gets no rest, we get no rest.

I know, it's just a season and we will get there one day when she sleeps through the night.

We had to go to the post office this afternoon. I had to go to the office behind the main area and I took Abi with me. When I was talking to one of the stuff I mentioned Abi's recent surgery and that she's a real miracle baby for whom God has been working miracles last 2 weeks. He looked at me and asked to tell him more. When I was telling him about the hundreds and hundreds of people praying for her when she was going through a 9 hour surgery exactly 2 weeks ago and what God did for her there, and how all the doctors were surprised, he stopped me and said: "I got chills! Please wait a moment." And he went around the corner and called one of his co-workers. When she came he pointed at Abi and said: 'She's a miracle baby! Hear this story!' and he asked me to tell her what I told him. When I was telling her about the wonderful things God was doing and the confirmations he was giving us during that time, she stopped me with tears in hear eyes and asked to wait a moment. (seriously!). She called another lady from her office, pointed out at Abi, called her a miracle baby and asked me to tell the testimony again. By the time I was leaving the guy was very touched, shaking my hand like his best friend's and the two ladies had tears in their eyes. Actually the last one was crying.

When we left the post office and got home, I got a call from them that we left our driver licenses there and I had to go back to pick them up. I took Abi with me so Asia could get some time off and focus on other things and went to the post office. Once I got there, it was packed with people so I got in line to the window where one of the ladies I met before was with another customer. When she saw me, she waved at me to come closer and said: 'We've been all talking about you and your little miracle girl ever since you left' and then turned to the client and started telling her Abi's story. In the meantime the other employee spotted me from the other corner of the post office and started waving to me with a huge smile on his face.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for Abi and her life. This will be so much fun to watch!

Thank you all who prayed us through this difficult time and who joined us on this journey.

Art

1st follow-up visit

7:32pm


Our first post-op visit with Dr. Greene went very smooth, except the fact that Abi didn't let the nurse take the blood pressure. 
Abi weighs 11.05lb. She was 10.6lb last Wednesday, so finally she's gaining as she should.
Abi's doctor was extremely, as he said it "tickled", to see how well she's doing, and after reviewing the x-ray pictures, performing new echo and EKG, he was thrilled to see the results. 
Everything looked perfect. We were able to see the blood-flow in Abi's "new" heart and the baffle that was created by the surgeon (Dr. Kirshbom). Dr. Greene was so thrilled with the entire process, the change of plans, the team in Atlanta and Abigail's extremely fast recovery. He himself called it a miracle and said, quote, "people say there are no miracles, but there are; they just don't look hard enough. Abigail's one of them!". He said that he spoke with Abi's surgeon couple times and they both could not believe how wonderful she's doing. He said that many, many kids with less complicated defects and after much simpler, routine surgeries often end up with some kind of complications and the fact that she has no complications and was discharged one week from this big surgery is unbelievable.
Our cardiologist attended a conference in Charleston, SC, where he met some of the surgeons and cardiologist from Atlanta Heart Center. He said the surgeons were talking about Abi's case. Seems like it was not only one from very few double switch surgeries performed in Atlanta but most probably very first one on such a young child. He said if she continues with this progress her case will definitely make a huge impact on the future of this procedure.


Our little Abi is famous now!! :)


After leaving the doctor's office and a very quick stop at work (I'm sorry I couldn't say hello to everyone) to take care of some paperwork, we came back home to spend rather uneventful day. ..

Thank you for your continuous prayers as God is revealing his powerful and amazing ways!!!!


Good night,


J. 

banana, bottle and x-ray...

7:45pm
Abi's sound asleep. We are after the night routine, that is getting better and better every day, namely less fussing before going to bed. Sometimes, I think she reminds herself: " hey, I haven't cried all day, that's my last chance today'.. In other words, she is such a content baby. She cried only 2 times today, both times when she was super hungry and I was super slow, preparing all the ingredients for supper: milk with rice cereal and a banana.. It was a feast this afternoon. 
We LOVE banana!!!!!!!
As I get to spend more time with her and much less working, actually not working at all...I've become a first witness of her many very "firsts". It's so exciting to watch her grow so fast. Since her mended heart doesn't beat like she's run a marathon anymore, the changes are even more noticeable, because she has strength to focus on other activities... 


For example, today, she started raising her hands as I approach her and tell her to "come to mommy". I don't pick her up until I say that and wait for her response and sometimes I lift her hands, so she knows what to do when she wants to be picked up.... She's such a fast learner!!


Also, for the first time she held her bottle and drank from it!!! 

I still am unsure whether it was a planned action, but it looked like it was intentional.. and she looked a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e.!!


Tomorrow, our first follow-up visit with the cardiologist. We are bringing the chest x-rays we did today for him to review. It was quite a ride with the radiology technicians today. They asked us back 3 times to take pictures, after we continued to dress and undress Abi and headed to the  registration area to wait for the pictures... 3 times!!! Unbelievable! And every time, we had to unstrap and take Abi from the car seat, undress her and put her on the uncomfortable, hard table in 2 different positions, dress her back up, put in the car seat and leave the radiology room. 
So yes, Abi was mad! I need to correct my previous statement about how many times she cried today... add three more :)
At the third time, I requested to stay in the room and wait for the technicians to come back to let us know if the pictures were clear... third time lucky..., so Merry Christmas and 1,5hours later we were done. Oh, and the x-ray pictures take 3 seconds for those who may wonder.
With a hint of sarcasm and a spice of humor... I'm saying: "better those pictures are really goood!!"


Have a blessed night,


J.