Miraculous

We had our followup appointment with our perinatologist this morning and we cried MANY happy tears! Both babies looked great! little Baby A already showed her bladder again (I have never been so happy to see a bladder before)...which could have taken up to a few weeks. Baby A's little sac had changed from .75 cm on Friday, to 3.5 cm today!!!!!!HUGE improvement!!!! for the first time ever, we could watch little baby A actually move around in her sac, The membrane was actually moving freely and therefore baby was able to move! The biggest fluid measurement we have ever seen on baby A was 2.6 before and before now we had only seen her wedged into the wall of the placenta and suran wrapped by the membrane. Although the membrane is still close to her, at least now it moves and she can move. Baby B,s sac was down to a little over 7.
It was the greatest feeling to sit and watch BOTH babies moving around like they should be and to see both of them healthy after such an ordeal last week.
Kris and I just sat there in amazement as we watched the ultra sound findings. We are overcome with gratitude.....gratitude that we can not even express. we have witnessed a major miracle! I know we are not out of the woods yet, but we have overcome a HUGE hurdle and things are looking good right now. Even the ultra sound tech today was talking about how we must have caught this just in the nick of time. Had we waited even a week, the situation would have been detrimental now.

I just held my breath every minute of that surgery last week and it seemed like eternity, waiting to hear that he had finished successfully. Then we held our breath the next day waiting to see two heartbeats and then we held our breath this morning to see good improvement! It has been a long week of emotions and we are just grateful to be on this end of such a miracle.

The doctors were all literally cheering at the outcome today! they recognized the miracle and they said now we have done what we can do and we just cross our fingers and pray for the rest of the pregnancy to continue on this uphill path.

We will continue to be monitored weekly and will be on bed rest....counting down each week closer to term.

So extremely grateful and counting our blessings! Thank you again for all the prayers! I know they were heard and we are SO THANKFUL!

WE HAVE TWO HEARTBEATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best Early birthday present ever (my bday is tomorrow) !!! we just did the ultra sound and both babies are alive and doing well! They still have a long way to go and the doctor said the next 4 weeks are critical for the healing of the babies as they figure out how to adjust to the new circumstances.
the second bit of good news was that my cervix had gotten better since the other day and so we don,t have to go back into surgery for the cerclage, which means we also get to come home tonight! Dr. cb zit said he has NEVER gone in to do a cerclage and not done it, but yesterday he stopped. because of my anatomy and the risks outweighing the benefits, he waited. I beleive that was a miracle too...he was prompted to stop and he did, and now today it looks better.
I can,t even express in words my gratitude and the emotions we are feeling right now! we have truely witnessed a miracle and are so incredibly grateful for all the prayers, for this AMAZING Dr. Chmait, and for the Lord's hand in all of this! it is nothing short of a miracle...a huge one! As we thanked the doctor and his nurse it was hard because how do you adequately thank someone for saving your 2 babies lives??!!! There were really no words to use, just emotion and tears...lots of happy tears!!!
Dr. Chmait said we take one step at a time and now that we have this HUGE step behind us, we can focus on getting the babies to term....which means I am now on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy.
it will be tricky, especially this time of year with the holidays, but we are more than willing to have a few months of discomfort to have a lifetime with these girls.
The babies are now cured of twin to twin transfusion syndrome and now we just need them to make it to term. it's like we have been given a second chance with these babies and we couldn't be more grateful!
I even feel better physically because they took out a liter of fluid from the recipient baby. today the recipients fluid was down to 7 and although the donor baby (baby A) hasn't, changed much yet, she did have a smudge more fluid today, which should only continue to get better.
So once again, THANK YOU ALL for your prayers and your concern! We are super grateful today for this major miracle in our lives!!!!!

Dad takes over the blog-update on the surgery

So I don't know this blog thing very well but in Kecia's absence I thought I'd give it a shot. I just talked to the doctor and the laser surgery went as good as could be expected. He identified all the vascular points and zapped them with the laser and told me that she no longer has TTTS and that the livelihood of the babies are no longer dependent on each other, meaning that they no longer will transfer nutrients back and forth but both get their nutrients from the placenta on their own. We are so glad that everything went well! We are definitely not out of the woods but this is a huge step to keep the babies alive and inside the womb as long as possible. It is amazing that this is even possible because as recent as 5 -10 years ago these babies would have not had any options available to survive. What a miracle!

The doctor decided not to do the cerclage at this point due to Kecia's anatomy and it being difficult to get access to it but said we would take another look tomorrow and evaluate whether or not we will pursue it further. It is more preventative and he felt that it wasn't worth the risks right now.

While he was in there he got a couple fun pictures of the babies with his scope. Since I don't know how to edit the photos, the first 2 pics are Baby B's hand and foot and the 3rd one is Baby A's mouth.

Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for taking time out of your schedules to join us in prayer on behalf of our family and these two babies. We are grateful for the hand of the Lord in our lives and have felt your love and support. The doctor told us that we all need to say a simple prayer for tomorrow and that is that we will see 2 heartbeats and that her cervix will not have opened anymore. We love you all! Thx

It's a good thing we are here

We got to LA about 7:30 am but our appointment wasn,t until one and we could,t check into our hotel so we went out for a bit then headed to the doctor,s office at the hospital. The doctor did our ultra sound because his tech was sick so we got more time with him. He was super nice and seemed to really know what he is doiing. from the ultra sound we could see right away that Baby A (the "donor" baby with the small sac) was now basically shrink wrapped in her sac. the doctor measured and the little sac had shrunk from 1.5 cm to .5 cm in 2 days, and the "recipient" baby (Baby B) fluid level had increased from 8.3 cm to 11 cm in 2 days. the doctor said it was a good thing we were here!
He then measured my cervix and it too had gotten shorter since Monday which means it is at risk for preterm labor so along with the laser surgery he recommended we do a cerclage where they will put stitches in the cervix to keep it from opening too early. The TTTS has been putting too much pressure on the cervix and it is not going to hold out without this. he said without these treatments things could go bad really quick so we are extremely grateful we got here when we did.

we then went into the doctors office and he went over all the findings he found and each step of the surgery and talked about risks and benefits. he explained everything really well and we feel like he is really skilled and knows what he is doing. The nurse told us there are only 12 doctors in the country that do this surgery and he is one of the best.

TTTS has stages from 1 to 4 and we are still at a 2 so that is a positive thing, but it definitely needs to be done in order to save the babies. So we will do both the laser surgery for the TTTS and the cerclage tomorrow morning probably around 10. I will be awake through it but will have a spinal. he said I will be able to see everything on the screen that he sees while he is in there. we will stay overnight at the hospital and go home Friday night. Unfortunately Kris will not be able to be in the OR and will have to wait by himself for 2 1/2 hours in the waiting room.

the one technical concern he had was that because of the place he has to make the insertion (he goes into baby B's sac) and because of the position of baby A underneath where he goes in, he will not be able to see the top of the sac and will have to be careful not to poke into her sac.
After the surgery the babies will not be connected for survival. they will each have their own flow of blood from the placenta.
After meeting with the doctor he sent us over to the children's hospital to have a fetal echo cardiogram on the babies. the cardiologist found positive findings. he said both babies hearts looked good right now, especially considering what they are going through. With TTTS the recipient baby can have too much stress on the heart from all the fluid and cause heart failure, but luckily right now it looks like she is still ok. the concern for the donor baby comes after the surgery when her heart suddenly has to start working harder to process the new fluid.
I have actually been feeling worse and worse lately physically. My stomach feels bloated and super heavy with preside on the pelvis and they said it is due to TTTS and the excess fluid so even in my body I was feeling like something was going bad so,
we feel like this is the best decision to save these little girls, and if we have to do it, we feel we are in good hands here. So now all we can do is pray....
THANK YOU again for all the prayers! We truly feel buoyed up because of them.

Just when we thought we were above water...

After the crazy weekend at primary children's hospital getting surgery on Adrie's broken elbow, we thought maybe we would have a breather... but not so.

We went to our weekly appointment at the perinatologist and found out that the fluid levels of the babies had changed since last week and they are now in the "danger zone" Baby B (the one with more fluid) was above 8 cm and it is not supposed to be above 8. Baby A (the one in the smaller sac) only has between 1.5 and just under 2 cm of fluid and they are not supposed to drop below 2cm. Her sac is almost shrink wrapped around her little body. They could also not find a bladder showing up on Baby A (and it was clearly there last week) which means she is not getting enough fluid anymore to make pee so we went from maybe turning into Twin to Twin Transfusion, to a stage 2 TTTS (twin to twin transfusion syndrome) Basically the short version of TTTS is that because the babies share one placenta they are at higher risk and with TTTS they are not sharing the blood flow in the placenta making it dangerous for both babies. One is getting too much and one is not getting enough.

So after over 2 hours of scanning on the ultra sounds and 3 different doctors looking at the situation, we were told we need to fly to LA California on wed. and have surgery thursday.

The surgery is an in-utero laperoscopic surgery that will go into the placenta and laser the blood vessels so the babies can't share them anymore. It basically cotterizes the vessels to stop the flow from going back and forth.

The surgery is risky to the babies, but it is a greater risk to not to the surgery. Without the surgery, they say there is a 95% chance that the babies won't make it, so unfortunately we don't really have a choice.

We are so very nervous and emotional and are praying that both babies are strong enough to handle this surgery and that they will both be ok.

You can actually watch the surgery we will be having done

here

and the doctor in the video is the one we will be having do the surgery as well.

The statistics are supposedly favorable for this surgery, 90% survival rate for one baby and 70% for both, but when it comes to your children you don't want a % for success unless it is 100%.. So that is what we are praying for.

For the next few days we would appreciate all the prayers we can get for these little girls to be ok and that this surgery will be successful and both babies will be healthy!

Beautiful to You

My friend Katrina Morriss is adopting Carlene through Reece's Rainbow and she put this sweet video together of before and after photos of some of the kids rescued through RR. Mia is among them!

What a perfect song to go with these sweet faces! It is amazing to see the change in the countenance of each of these little ones! AMAZING!

The picture at the end is being sold, along with others of this artists and The artist has kindly offered to do a fundraiser for Carlene. She will be opening up her on-line studio with all her pictures from October 15th until October 19th. Any of her pictures, starting at $9.95 for a 8X10, purchased during that time will earn 40% of all sales towards Carlene's adoption.

Go here to check them out:

http://www.capturedmiracles.org/faith-collections/

The littles ride the Bus : 31 for 21

Due to my restrictions on lifting, I finally gave in and decided to let the girls ride the bus to preschool instead of me driving them. They were SUPER excited waiting for the bus.




It is nice because the bus comes right to my driveway. I am sad that I don't get to see and talk to their teachers and therapists at school each day though like I did when I drove them.






They were not nervous at all! They just climbed right on and waved goodbye and they were off....I was the one who was sad! They just seem way too little to be riding this big school bus!


It was a successful first bus ride and so far the week has been just the same. They cheer and clap when the bus pulls up each morning!

Here is a little video of the big adventure on day 3 of the bus ride.

Getting to know Miss Mia a little better: 31 for 21

"It is so magical to watch this child come alive right before my eyes...my cup runneth over"

It is so fun to watch Mia's personality emerging every day! She is doing so well and learning so much. It is quite miraculous to think how much she is learning, and has learned in the last few months. She now understands most everything we say to her and she is starting to say words and use new signs all the time. I often think how after a month of being in the Ukraine I was still overwhelmed and could not understand anything anyone said to me, and here this little 4 year old is thrown into a whole new culture and language and life, and she just learns and adjusts and surprises us all.

She is a spunky little thing and always exploring this new world around her

She LOVES her food! She is protective of eating time and territorial about her "space" when she is eating. If anyone is in the kitchen even thinking about preparing food she climbs up to the table and sits there patiently waiting for some food to be served. The only time she will sit and watch a show (besides signing time) for more than 5 minutes is if she has food in front of her.

She LOVES being outside. She will play outside by herself for hours. I mean can you imagine going from very few opportunities to be outdoors, and even those opportunities were not "free reign" to explore, and then suddenly you are allowed to play in a backyard and go freely from one thing to the next? She is going to be very sad when the weather is bad and she can't go outside anytime she wants.

She is VERY curious and explorative. She makes LOTS of messes around the house as she is exploring. One day I was getting after her and thought, this is not what 4 year olds do, this is what 18 month olds do...things like playing in the toilet and such. Then I realized, she has never had the chance to explore and make messes.

Her and Bree love to pair up and get into trouble together

She LOVES to clean, and the funniest part about watching her do it, is that she knows the proper way to clean. She will scoop crumbs off the table into her hand. She knows how to sweep under the table, and take the garbage bag out of the garbage can. I think she may have been the little maid at the orphanage! Sometimes she even puts white socks over her hands and uses them to dust....she definitely didn't learn the dusting trick from me!

For a few weeks, every time I got her up from her nap I would get so frustrated because I would go into her room and she would have taken all the bedding off both beds and put it in a pile in the middle of the floor. I was telling Kris about this and he said "don't you remember they always had piles of bedding in between the beds at the orphanage?" I guess they did....and she must have thought this is what she was supposed to do.
She is never in her own bed when we come in to tuck her in for the night. Most of the time she is on the floor or under the bed, but sometimes she has climbed into bed with Bree (which is adorable). She wanders in the night and will end up sleeping in very strange places, like under Kyra's bed in the other room, or part way on the chair in the hallway or next to the bedroom door. The funny thing is if she gets up in the night she will never come in our room, she always goes into her big sisters room. She is also very quiet and we never know she is up...which is a little scary.

The other night I went in to kiss her goodnight as I went to bed. She had been asleep for a few hours at this point and as I kissed her cheek and said I love you, without opening her eyes, she smiled this big, sweet smile that said "I am finally right where I belong and it sure feels good"

She loves to gather things from around the house and take them to a "fort" of some kind and play with them. She also loves to hide things. There are still items that she hid months ago that have never turned up. She has some good hiding places...I am afraid one of them might be the garbage!
She loves dressing up, both in dress ups as well as her own clothes. She frequently empties her or Bree's (or both) dressers and then puts layers and layers of clothes on herself. She loves wearing headbands or clothes on her head too.
It never gets old watching Mia thouroughly enjoy the simple things in life that she has never experienced before. Still, after 4 months of having her home, we are still amazed at how little of the world she has experienced. And we often forget that she hasn't been here with us forever, and that she hasn't done all the "normal" 4 year old things.
One night at the end of the summer, I sat in the back yard watching her play with the hose. She was so enthralled with such a simple pleasure that most kids have been able to do all their life.
She played for close to two hours without a care in the world, besides where the water was coming from and where she was going to put it next.
Watching the freedom, the joy, and the contentment in her face made me take a deep breath and remind myself....this is what life should be about....enjoying each moment. Taking the time to breathe.
Don't get me wrong, all my children help teach me this, but there is something so powerful about seeing the contrast between what this little 4 year old was living and could still be living, and what she gets to live now. And this little munchkin is literally soakin it all up!
We can always find joy around us, we just need to stop and take the time to see it

Whether it is water trickling magically out of a long green thing, or hearing a child laugh, or taking a minute to just breathe in the fresh air, it is all breathtaking and should be enjoyed even amongst our busy, crazy lives.
Every day we get to see the world through a whole new light with Mia, and it never gets old. The wonder, the sparkle, the amazement that she looks at everything with is astounding. It is miraculous to literally watch another human being come to life in front of your eyes. And with it being down syndrome awareness month it makes it even more pertinent to think that so many other children just like Mia are still waiting for their chance to really live. They have the right to enjoy life and the potential to contribute to the world, and to others, regardless of their extra chromosome.

31 for 21: What a week

This is what our house has looked like the last few days

Wednesday night I took Bree to the instacare for croup.

Thursday afternoon I called my doctor because I was having shortness of breath and heaviness in my chest and my heart was racing and felt like I had the gunk my kids had and at first they were going to call me in an antibiotic and then the doctor called back and said he would feel better if I went to the ER to get checked out because these are the same symptoms that you can have with a blood clot in the lung and with me being a high risk pregnancy he wanted us to ere on the side of caution just in case. I was supposed to be at the school helping with the fundraiser but instead I sent my older girls with my fabulous friend so they didn't have to miss out and at about 6 on thursday night I went into the ER. Kris was home with Mia and Bree and Mia suddenly started wheezing really bad and had a high fever so at 8 he took her to the pediatrician and found that she had an ear infection and croup as well. He called our babysitter to stay with the other girls but then while he was at the doctor I called him because they were going to have me do a CT scan to check for blood clots. They had done a blood test that tests the thickness of your blood and normal is around 500 and mine was 1100 so they were concerned enough that they felt I needed to do the CT scan. I was nervous for the babies but they shielded both sides of my belly and said the risk was higher for me not to get it checked than it was for the babies to have it done. At this point I was a little nervous so Kris took Mia home and called another fabulous friend to go get Mia's prescriptions and take them home to her and then that friend relieved the babysitter, gave Mia the medicine and got her to bed and even picked up my house for me, making it possible for Kris to come to the ER with me. Just when I was about to be put in the big machine for the scan, the nurse said " I am supposed to tell you your husband is here and will be waiting in your room when we are done" Just hearing that, made me lots more at ease to do the scan. After the scan we waited and the doctors seemed fairly concerned that they would find a clot because of the high numbers on the blood work but thankfully the scan came back clean with no clots so they sent us home. Now that the scary stuff is ruled out, I am just on an antibiotic and hopefully that helps.

Miss Mia has not been sick once yet since she has been home and then she comes down with it at this crazy time. It was a crazy night and we got home around 10. We are super thankful for great friends who always save us in times of need!

Bree's croup seemed worse again today so they had me give her another dose of steroid, and Adrie coughed all night so it will be a stay at home day/weekend for us.

The one positive thing about Mia being sick, is at least this time, for the first time in 4 1/2 years, she had a mom and a dad to cuddle her and take care of her while she was sick.

31 for 21: Down Syndrome Awareness Month

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month so even though I am already 5 days behind, I am going to attempt to blog everyday (it will probably be more like every few days but we will see) this month. The challenge is to blog 31 days for Trisomy 21 awareness. Anyone can do it and you don't have to blog about down syndrome.

DOWN SYNDROME CREED

My face may be different

But my feelings the same

I laugh and I cry

And I take pride in my gains

I was sent here among you

To teach you to love

As God in heaven

Looks down from above

To him I'm no differant

His love knows no bounds

It's those here among you

In cities and towns

That judge me by standards

That man has imparted

But this family I have chosen

Will help me get started

For I am one of the children

So special and Few

That came here to learn

The same lessons as you

That love is acceptance

It must come from the heart

We all have the same purpose

Though not the same start

The Lord gave me life

To live and embrace

And I'll do as you do

But at my own pace