Look at this amazing party favor!!!!
The beautiful and ooohhh so delicious cake!!!
The cutest table set up! :)
Opening gifts.. :)
Tawa and I
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Maddox's Baby Shower 2/19/2011
Our dear and closest family and friends threw the most wonderful and loving shower for us. We absolutely LOVED everything!!!! The cake, decorations, party favors, music, the food, all the preparation and most importantly the support from everyone who came was truly amazing!!! The hard work that was put into the shower was definitely appreciated from the deepest part of our hearts. We all had a great time! Can't wait to show the pictures to Maddox when he gets here, to show the love and anticipation that was expressed toward him for his expectant arrival. Tawa, I and Maddox were definitely encouraged and felt the love from everyone who showed their overwhelming support and love. Below are some of the pictures from the shower.. :)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Houston Bound March 6th
We have confirm the date that we will be leaving for Houston. Sunday, March 6th, will be the big day. The doctor wants us to be down there when I'm at 36 weeks, just in case I have Maddox early. Although I'm not due till April 4th, it's a concern of the doctors that I can have Maddox early.
We're going to miss our little Jack Russell, Bailey sooooo much!!!!
He's like our little son. I know my mom will take good care of him.
As of this week, we only have two weeks left!! :) yikes!!!
We're going to miss our little Jack Russell, Bailey sooooo much!!!!
He's like our little son. I know my mom will take good care of him.
As of this week, we only have two weeks left!! :) yikes!!!
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What is CDH?
I'd mentioned earlier in the last blog that I was going to explain in detail what this condition is and how it's affecting Maddox.... well....
Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, or CDH, occurs when the diaphragm does not fully develop during gestation (around week 7 - 10 weeks). This creates a defect, or a hole in the diaphragm. There is no known cause of this defect. About 1 out of 2500-3000 babies gets this life threatening condition. The diaphragm is the thin muscle that separates the stomach contents from the chest cavity. The result of this defect is that the contents like the stomach, intestines, spleen and liver can migrate into the chest area. This impacts the lung growth. Since the lungs are not able to fully develop the way it should then the baby can experience dangerous high blood pressure in the lungs, or pulmonary hypertension. This is going to be our main concern for Maddox. There are different levels of severity with CDH. In Maddox's case, he has a severe left sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia, which means part of his liver is in his chest. The liver is more dense and harder than the stomach and intestines so the liver does not budge to allow the lungs to grow. Maddox had two echos done where a cardiologist checked the function of his heart and to see how well it's doing. The cardiologist said although his heart is moved to his right side, his heart is doing great! That was great news to us! : )
Tawa and I have never heard of this condition before in our life until October 28, 2010. At 17 weeks, we went for a 2nd level ultrasound screening. I noticed something was wrong when the screening was longer than normal. I started to be alarmed when the doctor was concentrating hard on his chest and stomach area for more than 40 minutes. Then he broke the horrible news to us, my heart fell and I just couldn't stop crying. I couldn't believe that this was happening to us. Words couldn't explain the hurt and pain that we both felt from that point forward. Ever since then we have prayed constantly and relied on Jehovah for strength to cope with and have prayed that Maddox's lungs grow. We have done so much research, talked to many doctors to get 2nd/3rd opinions and so forth. We did find a good team in Dallas but they weren’t too cooperative with respecting our religious beliefs. However, we felt much more comfortable with the care that Texas Children's Hospital has to offer our son. The doctor in Houston has previously performed CDH surgery on a JW baby successfully without the use of blood. (my previous blog entry talks about this) We met with the doctor and the meeting went well. With that said, we have decided to go down to Houston for Maddox's care. We will be leaving the first or second week of March. Maddox will require surgery as a newborn after he is stabilized to push down his stomach contents back into place and then the doctors will need to close up the hole in the diaphragm. This will also require Maddox to be in the NICU for awhile and we may end up staying in Houston anywhere from 1 to 2 or 3 months depending on how well Maddox handles the surgery and recovers.
Friends and family have been really supportive and we both appreciate it so much!! We couldn't have made it this far without the strength and comfort from Jehovah. One good scripture that I like to keep in mind and has given me much comfort is Ecclesiastes 11:5. I've also recently been getting a lot of support from other moms who have children with CDH. This has really helped me with research and getting real live experience. Talking to different ones who have gone through what I'm going through and can relate really does help. I've heard sad ending as well happy ending stories of CDH. One mom gave me a nice comforting thought that has helped me to actually enjoy my pregnancy. She'd wrote, "Miracles can and do happen...keep the faith, enjoy your baby as Maddox is safe inside you! :)" I told Tawa this and this has helped us both to just enjoy Maddox as much as we can as he is totally safe inside of me. That's the most important thing right now; that our son is safe and sound as can be. As long as Maddox is inside of me he's doing just fine as I am breathing for him. Maddox is kicking and so active, We both know that he will be a strong fighter when he gets here and we will be by his side fighting alongside him. Thanks for all of your love and support! We "3" appreciate it so much!
Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia, or CDH, occurs when the diaphragm does not fully develop during gestation (around week 7 - 10 weeks). This creates a defect, or a hole in the diaphragm. There is no known cause of this defect. About 1 out of 2500-3000 babies gets this life threatening condition. The diaphragm is the thin muscle that separates the stomach contents from the chest cavity. The result of this defect is that the contents like the stomach, intestines, spleen and liver can migrate into the chest area. This impacts the lung growth. Since the lungs are not able to fully develop the way it should then the baby can experience dangerous high blood pressure in the lungs, or pulmonary hypertension. This is going to be our main concern for Maddox. There are different levels of severity with CDH. In Maddox's case, he has a severe left sided congenital diaphragmatic hernia, which means part of his liver is in his chest. The liver is more dense and harder than the stomach and intestines so the liver does not budge to allow the lungs to grow. Maddox had two echos done where a cardiologist checked the function of his heart and to see how well it's doing. The cardiologist said although his heart is moved to his right side, his heart is doing great! That was great news to us! : )
Tawa and I have never heard of this condition before in our life until October 28, 2010. At 17 weeks, we went for a 2nd level ultrasound screening. I noticed something was wrong when the screening was longer than normal. I started to be alarmed when the doctor was concentrating hard on his chest and stomach area for more than 40 minutes. Then he broke the horrible news to us, my heart fell and I just couldn't stop crying. I couldn't believe that this was happening to us. Words couldn't explain the hurt and pain that we both felt from that point forward. Ever since then we have prayed constantly and relied on Jehovah for strength to cope with and have prayed that Maddox's lungs grow. We have done so much research, talked to many doctors to get 2nd/3rd opinions and so forth. We did find a good team in Dallas but they weren’t too cooperative with respecting our religious beliefs. However, we felt much more comfortable with the care that Texas Children's Hospital has to offer our son. The doctor in Houston has previously performed CDH surgery on a JW baby successfully without the use of blood. (my previous blog entry talks about this) We met with the doctor and the meeting went well. With that said, we have decided to go down to Houston for Maddox's care. We will be leaving the first or second week of March. Maddox will require surgery as a newborn after he is stabilized to push down his stomach contents back into place and then the doctors will need to close up the hole in the diaphragm. This will also require Maddox to be in the NICU for awhile and we may end up staying in Houston anywhere from 1 to 2 or 3 months depending on how well Maddox handles the surgery and recovers.
Friends and family have been really supportive and we both appreciate it so much!! We couldn't have made it this far without the strength and comfort from Jehovah. One good scripture that I like to keep in mind and has given me much comfort is Ecclesiastes 11:5. I've also recently been getting a lot of support from other moms who have children with CDH. This has really helped me with research and getting real live experience. Talking to different ones who have gone through what I'm going through and can relate really does help. I've heard sad ending as well happy ending stories of CDH. One mom gave me a nice comforting thought that has helped me to actually enjoy my pregnancy. She'd wrote, "Miracles can and do happen...keep the faith, enjoy your baby as Maddox is safe inside you! :)" I told Tawa this and this has helped us both to just enjoy Maddox as much as we can as he is totally safe inside of me. That's the most important thing right now; that our son is safe and sound as can be. As long as Maddox is inside of me he's doing just fine as I am breathing for him. Maddox is kicking and so active, We both know that he will be a strong fighter when he gets here and we will be by his side fighting alongside him. Thanks for all of your love and support! We "3" appreciate it so much!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Visit to Houston
We drove down to Houston this past Sunday and stayed there over night.It was about a 4 hour drive. We had a consultation on Monday morning with Dr Oluteyah who is the Pediatrics Surgeon/Co Director of the fetal center there at Texas Children Hospital Fetal Center. The reason for the visit was to see if we could find a team that could provide the best treatment and care for our son Maddox. Dr. Oluteyah was extremely nice and patiently answered all of our questions. He also explained further on the condition and was more detailed on the treatments that are available for Maddox. Most importantly Dr Oluteyah stated that he will do all he can to uphold our Bible base beliefs and we felt that he sincerely respects that. And that’s what we have wanted to hear. They have a close knit team that specializes with CDH. (I'll explain later on another entry the details on this condition and how it's affecting Maddox) They deal with about 22 - 23 cases of CDH a year (which is more than Dallas Children Medical center handles). We believe that this visit was a successful one. We left there with a sense of hope and confidence that Maddox would get the best care and treatment at Texas Children. This is something we have been praying for.
This decision is not an easy one as we both will need to relocate in Houston for about 3 to 4 months. Of course we won't be working down there. The doctor strongly recommends that we should be in Houston around 36 weeks, since Maddox can come at any time between 36 - 40 weeks. And the additional 2 or 3 months will be the time that Maddox will be in the hospital. And much much more we have to factor into making this decision. But our main concern is that for our son Maddox. We pray each and every day that his lungs grow and that we will get through this. We know that this Lil' man will be a fighter as soon as he gets here!!
We will pray earnestly regarding this huge decision making and we will have to decide by the end of this week. Please continue to pray for Maddox. : )
Below is the link that you can watch and read.
The first link is about a Witness couple who had a son who had CDH along with being a premature baby. Dr. Oluteyah was able to perform the surgery without blood! This is the story that drew us down to Houston for the consultation with Dr Oluteyah. Amazing and touching story!!
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/community/give_miracles/100322-miracle-on-fannin-street
This link is the same doctors who perform fetal surgery! Just shows the high level of skills these doctors have!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18645369/ns/dateline_nbc/
This decision is not an easy one as we both will need to relocate in Houston for about 3 to 4 months. Of course we won't be working down there. The doctor strongly recommends that we should be in Houston around 36 weeks, since Maddox can come at any time between 36 - 40 weeks. And the additional 2 or 3 months will be the time that Maddox will be in the hospital. And much much more we have to factor into making this decision. But our main concern is that for our son Maddox. We pray each and every day that his lungs grow and that we will get through this. We know that this Lil' man will be a fighter as soon as he gets here!!
We will pray earnestly regarding this huge decision making and we will have to decide by the end of this week. Please continue to pray for Maddox. : )
Below is the link that you can watch and read.
The first link is about a Witness couple who had a son who had CDH along with being a premature baby. Dr. Oluteyah was able to perform the surgery without blood! This is the story that drew us down to Houston for the consultation with Dr Oluteyah. Amazing and touching story!!
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/community/give_miracles/100322-miracle-on-fannin-street
This link is the same doctors who perform fetal surgery! Just shows the high level of skills these doctors have!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18645369/ns/dateline_nbc/
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