6 months old

 It has been a while since we have posted.  David normally does the posts.  I am horrible at writing and never know what to say.  I mean, there is A LOT to say I just never know how to say it.  But here we go....

A day in the life with Zachary:
WOW.   Where has time gone?  Zachary is 6 months old today.  He has been home with his whole family for 2 months.  Crazy how time has gone so fast!  Life has just been so CrAzY!!

I look back at the last few weeks and ask myself how in the world do I get thru each day.  The past 2 weeks Zachary has slept thru the night!!! HUGE answer to prayer. Keep praying he continues this routine!  Since he has been sleeping so long and rolling on his sides, his Ostomy bag has leaked almost every night.  This means a BIG mess in the mornings.

Typically, Micah is the first one up in the morning.  I get his breakfast going, then Josiah is up by this time, I start him on breakfast.  Now Micah wants more.  By the time I get Micah more, Josiah wants seconds.  You see how this goes!

I have to wait for the perfect timing to get Zachary up because he requires about 30-40 min of my time.  When his Ostomy bag leaks it requires a bath.  A bath requires changing the tape on his face for the NG tube and replacing the Ostomy bag etc etc etc.  By this time, the other two boys are screaming at who knows what and feeding the dogs anything they have left on their plates or bowls and sometimes letting them drink their milk.   PHEW!!  Tired yet?  Oh, and by the way it is only 8 AM!! WHAT!?!?!?!   I try to squeeze a little breakfast and coffee somewhere in there, but Micah and Josiah want a bite.  Now it's time for Zachary's breathing treatment.

I have had to just sit back and laugh or I would just cry and want to RUN AWAY!!!   The older boys started swim lessons last week and of course, Monday, the first day of swim was crazy.  I called David on my way to swim just laughing.  He was a little confused, but I just said "I have to laugh, it is better then screaming"  Ha Ha!  I then explained everything that had already taken place and he just started laughing too!

Sometime in the last few weeks, I had to take Josiah to the doctor because he had a 103 temp.  He ended up having Strep Throat of all things.  He is doing much better now.

This is a little peak behind the curtain at our life.  Forgot to mention somewhere in there Zachary has had doctors appointments.  :-)  This is probably why the blog hasn't been updated in a while.  By the time the kids are in bed so are we!

A little Zachary update:
Zachary has been doing pretty good for the most part.  It is so amazing how well he is doing.  We haven't even had to make a trip back to the hospital to be admitted.  I say "to be admitted to the hospital" because we've had 40-something appointments for him in the last 2 months.   We have only had to spend a few hours per appointment and nothing overnight yet.

Zachary had another sweat test several weeks ago to test for Cystic-Fibrosis.  A praise - he does not have CF.  This was a HUGE answer to prayer.  This would have complicated things way more.

From a heart standpoint - the PA band, the doctors placed back in February is doing its job.  We see the cardiologist every 2 weeks and every other week he has an echo done.  They would like to see better growth.  Since he has been home, he has only gained about  0.5kg (not enough).  He isn't even on the charts they have for growth.  We need prayer for him to grow.  On the flip side, if he had been growing a lot we would probably be doing his next heart surgery much sooner because the PA band would be too tight.

He hasn't tolerated his feeds that well.  He had been spitting up a lot since he came home from the hospital.  He has been a little better the past week or so.  But now he has had really bad diarrhea.  There are many potential causes, but  most likely it is his gut not being able to absorb the formula because of his heart.  Heart babies already have a hard time with blood profusions and when he is shunting blood from the gut to supply the rest of his body well, that only causes problems.  We have had several appointments with his GI doctor and have a list of things to try to get him to gain weight and "tolerate" his feeds better.


Zachary's next major event is JUNE 26th.  He will be having his heart catheterization and his bronchial stent checked.    He will be sedated for this procedure and will have a couple nights stay in the hospital.

Prayer Requests:

• Heart cath goes well
• They would be able to leave the stent in until he has his next heart surgery

Praises:

• Zachary has been sleeping well
• Mamma has been sleeping better!
• No one else in the family got Strep

Clean baby!

Swim lessons.  She has turtles!

Here are some pictures of the birth of Zachary.  Can not believe it has been 6 months already.
(Thank you Lisa Warren for the awesome hospital pictures)

They think they are funny.  Yes I'm in labor and they are cracking jokes.

Love my hubby couldn't imagine going thru this with anyone else.

Anxiously waiting to see Zachary.  They took him away right away then brought him back for a sec.

There he is!

So tiny

Got to hold him for a quick min before they whisked him away.

Just precious!