Surgery Update

I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for your thoughts and prayers!

This is my first chance to get on here and update because I have been so out of it. I went into surgery just after 9am yesterday morning and was not even lucid until 7pm that evening. My husband somehow managed to get me home, pick up our other children, and get back home to me before I was even awake enough to realize I was back home in my own bed! The last clear thought I had from yesterday until I woke up in my own bed was kissing Joseph before they wheeled me out of my room to go into surgery.

Dr. Joy said my surgery went very smoothly. When he actually got inside of me, he said I had a TON of scar tissue that had built up around both of my ovaries, my cervix, and around my bowels. There was so much built up that he felt this was no doubt the cause of my pain over the last few months. The scar tissue was a result from my c-secton when I had Wyatt.

Good news, is that Dr. Joy was able to save my ovaries and did not have to do a partial hysterectomy like he thought he might have to do. He was able to successfully remove all the scar tissue that had accumulated, and can I tell you, I feel so much better! Granted, I am still sore from the surgery obviously, but for the first time in a long time I am no longer in constant pain.

He also went ahead with the tubal and thermal ablation. I have mixed feeling about that. It's a relief to not have to worry about pregnancy and the possibility of having another baby with the same condition Wyatt had. At the same time, I'm kind of mourning the kids I still wanted to have. I know we logically made the safest and best decision by having the tubal, but it's hard to accept that at 24 years old, I don't have the option of bearing children ever again. I think it will just take some time to get used to the idea. The only reason I'm okay with this, is because we are 100% sure we will try to adopt in the next couple of years. And if we decide we absolutely want to have another child of our own, surrogacy is still an option thanks to Dr. Joy for saving my ovaries.

I go back to see Dr. Joy in two weeks for my post op check up. I don't know if I will have to worry about scar tissue building up again from this operation, so that will be one of my many questions. Until then though, I'm just going to enjoy being pain free!

Surgery

This evening, at 6pm, I get to ingest this cherry flavored drink called magnesium citrate. Let me tell you... Not so excited about that... Especially considering the fact that the paper my OBGYN sent along with it added instructions to "stay hydrated because magnesium citrate will cause severe diarrhea as it is intended to clear the digestive tract".

Oh. Joy.

Why am I drinking this? To prepare for surgery tomorrow.

Why am I just now telling you when I've know about this for weeks? Because I felt like Leah and the rest of the Dunn family needed your prayers more. (I hope you are still remembering them in your prayers by the way)

Why am I having this surgery and what type of surgery is this? Well, That's complicated!

I've been having a lot of female problems since the end of November. It's gotten so bad that it's nearly impossible for my husband and I to be intimate because the pain from our encounters can be almost excruciating. Plus, I bleed afterwards and I've never had that problem before.

I'm constantly walking around with pelvic pain. The best way to describe it is that it feels like I've just had a baby. You know how your actual pelvic bones ache after a natural birth? That's how I feel.

I'm also bleeding in some form or another more than I'm not throughout the month. Those symptoms, accompanied by having practically no energy all the time made me get myself to the doctor. He was convinced I was starting to stuffer from endometriosis. He ran all the normal tests. Full blood panel, complete pap, endometrial biopsy, ultrasound, trans vaginal ultrasound... Everything came back fine! So, I'm either going insane or there is something that was missed.

Dr. G (or Dr. Joy as I've taken the liberty to nickname him) thinks there could be a lesion or something that could be causing the pain and wants to do a diagnostic laparoscopy. While he is in there, I am going to have a tubal and a balloon ablation because Joseph and I are confident that having more children is not a wise decision. It's just not fair to us or a future child to attempt another pregnancy knowing there is a 1 in 4 chance of having another baby with the same condition that Wyatt had. As much as I'd love another child of my own, adoption is a better, more logical, option for our family.

So, tomorrow morning at about 7:30 I will be wheeled into the operating room and be put under for this surgery. I'm really nervous because I have never been put under for anything. Not even dental type stuff! The ONLY times I have EVER been in the hospital have been to have my children.

Anyways,..

Providing all goes well, I will get to come home after I wake up and recover at home. Please pray Dr. Joy figures out what is causing all this pain. Intimacy is a big part of marriage and I miss having that connection with my husband. It's very frustrating to want that connection, but not be able to act on it because it hurts to even stand for long periods of time, much less... well, you know...

Update on Baby Leah

Leah was born with a head full of hair and she was able to spend an hour and 9 minutes with her mommy and daddy before she passed on to her eternal home in heaven. Leah was 15 inches long and weighed in at 5.56 pounds. I'm so thankful God granted this family some quality time together, but my heart aches for them that they had to say goodbye. I will never understand God's plan in this. It's not my place to, I know...but it sure would make accepting his plan a lot easier... maybe.

Please continue to pray for Kim and her family as they face some dark days ahead. Prayer is the best thing you can do for them at this point. Imagine, God gave them a piece of heaven to hold for an hour and then made them give it back for a lifetime. It's going to be a rough road. Please, please, please pray for them!

I Hate This

I can't sleep.

I feel physically ill to my stomach as I watch time seemingly speed up and slow down all at once.

The closer this sweet family gets to meeting their daughter, the more I am thrown back into the those early, raw days where the only thing that reminded me that I was still alive was this suffocating feeling of helpless desperation that comes from a completely broken heart and soul.

I never had to deal with knowing the exact time I would meet Wyatt. I couldn't imagine how hard it would have been to know days ahead of time that I had mere hours left with my son. My body was simply thrown into labor on its own and I vividly remember screaming out to God as it happened that I wasn't ready. How in the world can anyone be ready to barely meet their baby before having to say goodbye to them for a lifetime?

To quote Kim in the email she sent, she states, "It's weird... I feel a sense of calm right now, but I'm sure that's just the calm before the storm." Well, I pray God keeps his hands on this family and grants them the peace that surpasses all understanding as they head towards the hardest day of their lives.

I know today will be a rough day all around. I hate knowing what this family is in store for if Leah is indeed called to her eternal home. I hate feeling this desperate helplessness creep over me again! I want to kick and scream and berate God for asking another family to go through what ours did. But that won't help...

So instead I'll pray...

I pray God continues to grant peace to Kim and her family. I pray with all my heart this family will get to keep Leah here. And I pray that if she can't stay, that her family will get some beautiful time with Leah before she peacefully passes from her parents arms to Gods.

I also can't sit on my hands and do nothing, so I'm going to ask you guys to do something for Kim and her family...

For any of you that have a child in heaven, you know what it means to see your baby's name in the world. Will you please, over the next couple of days snap a picture of Leah's name and send them to Kim? I don't know if she is comfortable giving out her email address, so if you'd be so kind to send them to my email address, I would be happy to forward them along with your message. My email address is mommy2aews@gmail.com. Thank you in advance for doing this!

Also, if anyone wishes to send cards or flowers to her at the hospital (Her full name is Kimberly Dunn), the hospital information where she will be delivering follows below:

Bayfront Baby Place (Bayfront Medical Center | 701 6th St. S. | Saint Petersburg, FL 33701

Urgent Prayer Request

I just got a message from Kim asking for prayers for her family. They will be meeting baby Leah via c-section Monday afternoonat around 4:30pm, because Kim's fluid levels are just too high for her to safely continue with the pregnancy.

My heart is torn between being hopeful that God may grant them the miracle I hoped we would receive, and being broken because I know the pain and heartache in store for this sweet family if Leah is called to her eternal home.

Will you please take a minute to pray for them with me?

Will you please set an alarm for 4:30 and take a few minutes to pray for this family Monday afternoon?

Will you also please click here to visit her blog and offer words of encouragement?

Thank you dear blog friends for uplifting this family in thoughts and prays. If I hear anything from her before she is able to post, I will update as long as I have her permission.

This could be REALLY neat!

This is only free for people in the United States and Canada (from what I've gathered)...

I just discovered this nifty little service that google offers and I'm playing around with it! Apparently, this service called Google Voice allows me the opportunity to record a custom greeting for a widget that I can post on my blog! (Or anywhere else I want to put it for that matter!)

Whats cool about this, is that when you click on the button (which is at the top center of my page below my header), it will ask you for your name and telephone number. It also gives you the option to keep your phone number private. Once you've entered in the information you will want to hit "Connect". A message will then pop up that the call is being connected. (Have your phone close by, because it will be ringing away shortly after you press the "connect" button.)

When you answer your phone it will automatically connect you to my voicemail after a couple of rings.

Then you can listen to my wonderful (okay, it's actually pretty lame and you can tell I was reading it because I really am that terrible with recording messages) pre-recorded greeting. So not only will you get to hear my voice, but I will get a chance to hear yours! We'll be one step closer to be IRL (in real life) friends :) Numbers both ways are completely private (as long as you make sure you check the "keep number private" box as you are placing your call...

I won't have access to your number, and you won't have access to mine. It seems like a pretty "safe" service. And it definitely seems like a neat idea to get to know each other better.

What do you say... Anyone want to give it a try?

Also, if you have a Google Voice account set up, let me know... I'd love to call and say hello to you!

Made for a Princess

There is a sweet woman whom God has placed in my life, and with her, her sweet baby Leah as well. I first came in contact with her through a comment she left on one of my blog posts. I felt drawn to her family and knew I would be extremely invested in their lives even from hundreds of miles away.

You see, Kim is probably a lot like you and I...

She is happily married.

She has a adorable son named Bryce.

And she is getting to be very pregnant (no pun intended) with here baby daughter.

Sounds pretty normal, right?

Unfortunately, I have to add to the above, that her baby daughter Leah was handed the same diagnosis as my sweet Wyatt.

Thanatophoric Dysplasia. (For those of you that are new here, it is a rare and lethal form of dwarfism that effects all the long bones. What makes it lethal is that the heart and lungs will be normal size, but the ribs will be short and compressed. If the heart can't beat properly and the lungs can't expand, there is nothing that can be done medically to treat and save a baby with TD. The only consolation offered is the knowledge that we serve a loving God, who just so happens to be "the great physician" and can offer this nifty little thing called "eternal life".)

Kim is 30+ weeks with little Leah and my heart hurts for her family. I remember being where she is. I remembering wanting to stay pregnant forever so that I would never have to say good-bye to Wyatt... Then in the next breath I'd be begging God to just let it be over with because it was just too much to bear... and then, before the thought was even over with, be back to begging God to let me stay pregnant forever with Wyatt safely tucked inside my belly!

Guys, Gals, If you get a second, can you please head over and offer some encouragement and prayers... Just click HERE.

Anyways, as soon as Kim contacted me through my blog, I knew immediately there was something I was supposed to do for her...

I'd mentioned before about being upset because I didn't think to send in my wedding dress to have a bereavement gown made out of it for Wyatt. It was already too late by the time I stumbled across the idea. Well, it wasn't too late for Leah... Except, I didn't send my dress in anywhere. I tried it on (yes it zipped!) and I may have twirled around in my dress on last time before taking a pair of scissors to it.

Every last bit of the dress was made from my wedding dress with love for a sweet little girl. I've never felt more like a princess than I did in my wedding dress and it is my hope that Leah will be able to feel like a princess too.

Here are some pictures of the finished dress...
Here is Eli posing in front of the dress!


Here it is all cut up! (I have to admit I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach at this point)


Here it is Mostly put together...


The front still looks a little plain at this point. I wasn't happy! Not Princess-y enough...


And here's the bottom panel of the dress...


Here are some back views of the dress...



And here is one of Ansley's bunnies modeling the dress...



And here's what's crazy... Kim had no idea I tried the dress on a bunny to make sure it would work for sizing and so that I could get some pictures of it. I just read on her blog that they built baby Leah a baby bunny at build-a-bear!

There is still more to this story, but I feel like the rest is Kim's story to tell if she so chooses. But can I just say that God leaves no room in her family's story to even question that his hands are ever present and steadfast on their lives.

...And I'm still hoping Kim and her family get the miracle that ours hoped for!