What we've been doing...(part 2)

Aunt Jamie and Cousin Audrey came to visit while Papa Bear and GJo were here. They drove all the way from Texas so that Aunt Jamie and I could run in the Half Marathon. Jacob and Audrey had alot of fun together!

Papa Bear is playing with his new iPhone instead of smiling for the picture. Ha! This is the pre-race expo on Thursday afternoon.

GJo is strolling Jacob around...

Audrey and Jacob playing on the floor Thursday night!
We went to the Zoo that Friday and the Elephants were up close and personal that day! What a treat!

Such amazing creatures!

What we've been doing...(part 1)

After coming home from the hospital, it felt like we had missed the entire month of April, and most of the Spring season in our home town. So, we went to the Ellington Agricultural Center's Iris Garden to get some pictures of our State flower and let Jacob spend some time outside. It was so pretty!

Jacob saying, "Cheese!"

Jacob decided he wanted to walk across the bridge. He loves bridges lately!


So sweet! In case you can't tell in this picture, Jacob seems to have grown even more (is that possible?). We are definately going to have to switch to 3T shirts just for the length! What a big boy!

Easter 2011

What a wonderful day spending time together as a family and celebrating the Risen Savior!

Home Again!

We are home from the hospital, and so happy! Jacob is eating well, and giving us some dirty diapers too...so we feel confident that we will not have to go back! YAY!!!!!

The last time I posted, Jacob was just starting a liquid diet. He did well for a day on that, then we went easily into some bland foods on Wednesday. We continued to get dirty diapers, which was a really good sign that things were moving around in there! So, on Thursday morning, they said that we can go home as long as Jacob gives them another dirty diaper after eating solid foods the day before. So he performed that task and off we went!

Thanks for the prayers for our little guy!

Jacob's Day in Pictures

Today we made some progress and had some fun while doing it! We got a visit from Uncle Biggie, met some Vanderbilt football players, and had soup, jello, and juice. We are still waiting for some dirty diapers, but they've got to be coming soon!

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No more NG!

Here's a picture of Jacob this morning with the NG, and another from this afternoon without it. Yay! We still can't have liquid diet yet, just sips of water and ice chips. Maybe tomorrow... For now, we will just hang out and wait for some poop. Come on Jacob, get things moving!

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A slight setback...

So...we are back at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Boo! This was definitely not the plan! After we came home, Jacob was doing great. He was eating well and had a good diaper (if you know what I mean)...so we thought we were on the right track. However, on Friday afternoon Jacob started grabbing at his tummy again. We watched it for a few hours and then at dinner time we noticed that he didn't want to eat. We let him go to bed, but he would cry and pull at his tummy. We noticed that his tummy kept getting bigger and was pretty hard...just like last time. :-(

So we tried "helping" his bowels move along, and that didn't seem to help his belly get any relief. So, at about 4 in the morning we packed our stuff and headed back to the hospital. The ER doctor came in and said "Are you as tired as you are entitled to be?" We obviously responded yes.

After a few hours, we saw the surgeons and they believe that Jacob has postoperative ileus. Basically, his bowels did not wake up completely in his belly, and the food he was eating was.not going through. They put another NG tube down into his stomach and drained it, relieving much of the pressure, and said we just have to "wait until they wake up completely."

Needless to say, we are tired and frustrated, but not defeated! Jacob will come around, just in his own time! Prayers for his bowels to wake up would be GREAT!!!!!!!!

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Yay!

We are home from the hospital!

Bummer!

The last time I posted Jacob was pretty sick. Well...it didn't get better so we went back to the doctor last Wednesday. They said his virus gave him an ear infection and put us on antibiotics. The next day Jacob began pulling at his tummy, became very restless, didn't want to be touched, wanted to stay in bed, and was overall very upset. We watched him closely and noticed that his tummy was getting bigger and bigger. We didn't know if this was an allergic reaction to the medicine, just constipation, or even something more serious. We went back to the doctor on Friday morning because Jacob's abdomen was very distended and he was not drinking or eating and lethargic. We were sent to the ER at Vanderbilt where they did x-rays and found a bowel obstruction in his small intestines. He was taken back for surgery that night and they found a section that was kinked off and purple in color, they had to cut out about 10 cm and sew it back together. They also found other adhesions on his intestines and took care of those while he was opened up. The surgery took 3 hours. Recovery was very rough the first two days. Basically, Jacob had a bad reaction to the morphine and sometimes it took three of us to hold him down and try to calm him. Finally the doctors listened to us about what was best for Jacob, and gave him Dilaudid for pain. What a difference that made for Jacob! Within a few hours he was calm, sleeping, even interacting with us during his awake time. There's about three stages to his recovery...we are in the final stages now. Jacob had to have a bowel movement or pass gas, and have limited amounts coming out of an NG tube, before we could give him any liquids. When he tolerates liquids, then we can move to solid food and if he tolerates that, we can go home. We are on a liquid diet now, and hopefully will start food tomorrow or Friday, then be able to go home either Saturday or Sunday. While we did not want this to happen, we feel like God has been with us. We feel like He orchestrated the timing so well for all this to happen when it did. Dr. Morrow, the surgeon that performed all of Jacobs surgeries, "just happened" to be on call that night and God knew that would give us such peace of mind knowing that he would be doing the surgery. We learned alot about being advocates for Jacob and we believe that things will only get better from here! Here's some pictures of Jacob from the past few days. Deon never left his side through the whole process. They even took Deon into the operating room. However, I sure hope Deon's germy body wasn't anywhere near Jacob's insides...They probably left him in a holding area and just told Jacob that he was with him always!

This is a picture of Jacob today drinking his juice and waving to the camera. So sweet!

Taking a wagon ride around the hospital.

There's an outside area where Jacob got to see statues, fountains, fish, and just enjoy a little sunshine.

We'll update when we are home!

SICK

Jacob must have caught a virus, a nasty one at that, because since Friday morning this boy has not wanted to do anything but sleep in bed or lay on the couch watching Mickey, Umi, and Super Why. Deon is always at his side, as is Mommy and Daddy. He started coughing on Tuesday night, but we didn't think it was anything to be concerned about...especially since he's had colds before that are minor...then Thursday night we were up all night with him, and Friday we took him to the doctor. He was breathing fast (about 50-60 breaths a minute) and just had a lack of energy. The doctor had us get a chest XRay, which came back normal (no pneumonia, yay!), and said we should watch him closely. Saturday his fever spiked to 103.1 and slowly came down with the help of ibuprofin. He still has a slight fever and if it doesn't get better by Wednesday we'll go back to the doctor for some more help. Any prayers you can send up on his behalf would be GREAT! :) Here's some pictures of what our guy has been doing lately... ...and doing even more of this...

Bless his Heart!

CDH Awareness Day!

Today is Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness day and we are wearing turquoise today to honor the many families that have been and are being diagnosed. We are wearing turquiose for families that have spent time in the hospital and families that will spend time in the hospital. We are wearing turquoise for families that have lost babies and for families that have taken babies home and for the family members that remember how this birth defect changed their lives forever. Today our family will make people aware, but every day we remember.

Time in Texas

Our main reason for going to Texas last weekend was so that we could speak about our experience with one of God's miraculous gifts, Jacob. We were asked to speak at Murray Street Church of Christ (click on the link to go to their site) and what a blessing it was for us to be there, worshiping with people that have been praying for Jacob for 2 & 1/2 years. These people are some of our biggest prayer warriors, and it was such a pleasure to meet them and thank them in person for their prayers. What a blessing to us. God is working in that church and we are honored to be a part of that. God is at work all around us, in our circumstances whether good or bad, and it is our joy to be able to see God and join in His work. If you are looking for God, you will find Him.

While we were there, we got to see family and celebrate my niece's 3rd Birthday too. Papa Bear and GJo were there too, and it was a wonderful time together! Enjoy the pictures...

Here's Jacob on the plane getting ready to take off! All buckled in!

We attended Uncle Josh's first Basketball game for a church league on Friday night. Jacob LOVES basketball and watched most of the game just like this...

Then, after the game Jacob played around with Papa Bear on the court. :)
Jacob loved being outside on Uncle Josh and Aunt Jamie's porch swing... So sweet!
Here's the cousins enjoying some time on the swing!

Saturday was Audrey's 3rd Birthday party. She LOVES princesses, so of course she had a princess themed birthday party, complete with a Cinderella Cake!

At the party, the kids decorated little crowns with a picture to go inside, and also colored from Disney's coloring books. This is such a sweet picture of Jacob and Audrey coloring together.

This is the birthday girl!!! So sweet!

For her birthday she got a princess tea set table and a pony to ride, among other princess like things. She loved it!

On her horse!

After the party Jacob and Audrey were playing with their characters from the show "Super Why," a favorite show around our house and apparently there too. Jacob has Wyatt and Audrey has Princess Pea. So cute!

Audrey was constantly bringing her Tea set chairs out into the living room for her and Jacob to sit next to each other. It was so sweet to watch them together. She would maneuver the chair so he could sit...so cute!

They spent some time outside before church on Sunday night...this is how they entertained themselves. Audrey easily ran circles around Jacob, but she would just grab his hand and walk with him everywhere. Precious. LOVE. THOSE. BOOTS!

Jacob laughing at Audrey...she had just climbed through the "V" in the tree.

Here we are all together. What special memories!

Weekend Trip to Atlanta

This past weekend we traveled to Atlanta to be with family. Jacob was, as usual, the center of attention. He stole the show and entertained us all. Here's some pictures from the time in Atlanta. Here's Jacob and his sidekick Deon in the car...can you find him? I love how sleepy Jacob looks...he got maybe 30 minutes of naptime that day! Ha!

Gramma and Jacob went to the lake to feed the geese. Jacob tore up the bread all by himself and placed it in the ziploc bag. How sweet.

The geese came so close that they were eating out of Gramma's hands.

I stole away from the family to see my good friend and her new baby. We spent nearly 3 hours just catching up and holding her wee-one. Precious!

Saturday morning was spent at the Southern Museum. Jacob learned all about how the locomotive "The General" was taken by a band of Union Soldiers and one man's mission to stop them from completely destroying the rail lines and cutting off resources for the Confederate Army. Very informative!

Here's Gramma and Chappy walking into the museum with Jacob.

Chappy, Jeff and Jacob...not sure about this one... Ha!

Jacob had a good time waiting for the "movie" to start by running back and forth on the "dinah." Otherwise known as Diamonds. :) In case you didn't know already, they are "bap" and "ite."

"The General"

Being with family is very special, and we love and appreciate them so much. It's great to be able to share Jacob and all the normal, ordinary, and wonderful things he can do, with a family that loves him and gives him so much attention! What a blessing God has given us.