Thankful for...

These guys.

Meeting the little sister

Justin taking Maisy's temperature.

Maisy is still in the NICU and we are hoping and praying that she will be home any day. On Saturday, we went to Denver and Maisy got to meet some very special visitors. The NICU is restricted to parents and grandparents during flu season, but a very special nurse helped us to arrange a meeting between Maisy and her older siblings.
Gracie and Gunner seeing Maisy for the first time. Gunner looks excited to see Maisy, but he was actually saying "Hi, Dad!" and waving to Justin. Anyway, it made our day that our kids could finally meet their new baby sister. It may be her last time to see them without getting mauled.

Sleeping with prayer hands

Waiting on a little girl

Above is a picture of a preemie onesie next to a newborn size onesie. Maisy's clothes are so tiny and I feel like I will be playing dolls. I may even keep a few out for Gracie to use with her dolls when Maisy graduates to a bigger size.
This is Maisy and her cute dad. They were bonding last night at the hospital and she was making all kinds of cute faces at him. Maisy has made it to the graduate NICU now and the only thing keeping her from coming home to us is her eating. She needs to eat all of her food through a bottle (instead of a feeding tube) for 24-48 hours. She is getting close though and we are hoping that she will be home by Saturday.
Little miss bright eyes. She had her eyes open almost the whole time we visited yesterday.
This was my turn to hold the pretty girl. Did I mention she gets to wear clothes now? In the NICU they go all out and give them onesies and sleepers. She was all decked out in pink and her bed was all pink too. Who knew you had to go to the NICU to get all the nursery perks?

This is Maisy under the "billi" lights. She had high billirubin levels for a few days and spent a lot of time under the lights. Everytime I saw her, I thought off the tanning beds. I love the cute little goggles.

How it all went down

Thursday Morning I called the doctor's office to tell them I was showing some signs of labor. They told me to come in and get checked and also to have my bags packed to go to Denver.
I finished packing my bag to go to Denver and bags for the kids to go overnight...just in case.

I went to the midwives to be checked. They said there was enough change from my Tuesday appointment that they wanted to be sure I was okay. They sent me down to Denver "just to be on the safe side". Justin and I were both wondering if it was a false alarm. We didn't want to question the doctors but I didn't feel like I was in active labor and Denver is a long way to drive (about an hour away)- especially if it wasn't the real deal and we had to be sent back.

We dropped our kids off at our friends' house. They are saints and deserve to go to heaven. These are the same friends that took our kids overnight when we went to the hospital this last weekend.

Justin and I arrived at the hospital at about 1pm. We checked in and were told it would take a couple of hours to rule out labor. I got checked pretty soon and had made even more change and progress. The OB specialist who met with us over the weekend came and broke my water at about 2:30pm. I got an epidural at about 6pm. I just couldn't take the pain, and probably never will be able to. Ahhh, relief. I continued to labor and Maisy was born just after 7pm.

Maisy had the cord wrapped around her neck, but other than that the delivery was really slick. Did I mention that Maisy is a full 3lbs. smaller than Gracie was at 7lbs. 11oz? Yes. My recovery has been a lot easier and faster, which is good because I've been running back and forth from the NICU all weekend.

Anyway, we were glad that we listened to the advice of the doctors and midwives and didn't wait until the very last minute.

I was released today and we will have a better idea on Monday when Maisy will be released. In the meantime, we will be traveling back and forth and visiting quite a bit.

"And God has not ceased to be a God of miracles"

Mormon 9:15 And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles.

9:16 Behold, are not the things that God hath wrought marvelous in our eyes? Yeah, and who can comprehend the marvelous works of God?

A week and a day ago I was sitting in shock in a hospital. I was trying to be logical, have good perspective, and stay calm. Inside I was crushed. I was told the perfect body forming inside of me was actually not perfect and I was swallowed up in fear of losing this sweet baby that I've carried for the last 8 months. I won't repeat my last post, but I'm not sure if I even mentioned in that post the additional worry that the specialist had that our baby might even have down's syndrome. We didn't know what to plan for and our hopes for our baby were melted down to hoping that she would survive birth or that we would survive whatever Heavenly Father had planned for her.

I'll tell my labor story later, but I wanted to first tell you that Maisy is doing very well. As you remember, the doctor gave us promising news last Saturday and drew our little heart diagram. Now...fast forward to delivery. Maisy goes to the NICU (newborn intensive care unit) right after birth to be monitored until the cardiologist gets there. That night she had an echo-cardiogram done (basically an ultrasound of the heart). The cardiologist came to tell us that Maisy's left ventricle looks like it will be absolutely sufficient. Same with the aortic valve. They were worried about an obstruction from another anomaly in her heart. He said that also didn't appear to be a problem. There is a hole in the wall between the ventricles, but he said there is a flap of tissue that is preventing much blood from passing through and he thinks it may heal on its own.

There was one other new worry with the aortic isthmus (basically a place where blood needs to flow that our baby had a narrow passageway). They said that they needed the **PDA (patent ductus arteriosis) to close before they could determine if the passageway would be sufficient. **this is a part of the heart that is open in the fetal heart and closes within the first 48 hrs. of birth.

Well, the PDA is closing (if not completely closed) and our sweet baby has not had any problems so far. Little Maisy has stunned the doctors who have seen her ultrasound pictures and they have all been so amazed at how much better it all looks now that she is here (not even one week after all of this was diagnosed).

We are not 100% in the clear. They will do another echo-cardiogram on Monday to tell us what they think, but all outward signs are telling us that she will be just fine for now and not need surgery.

I just wanted to thank all of you for keeping Maisy and our family in your prayers. Faith is real, miracles are real, and God loves each and every one of us. I also know that this would be true even if we didn't have happy news to share. I have loved the opportunity, however, to testify of God and his goodness and miracles to everyone we have worked with in the hospital. What a blessing!

Our Miracle has arrived. Introducing...

Margaret Ann "Maisy" Gardner

Born:11/11
Weight: 4lbs. 10oz.
Length: 18 1/4 inches


Maisy, already looking up to her wise parents.
Sleeping peacefully in the NICU.
Meeting her sweet nanny for the first time.

Broken hearted

I never know quite what to put on my blog. I usually use it as a picture forum for far away family to see our kids. I rarely do much journaling on here and often leave a lot of details and some significant events off. Did you know our dog, Miley, died this summer? She did, and now I feel guilty that it isn't on here. But how do I leave off something life changing and so significant in our lives right now? The answer is, I don't. So... if you know all about this, you can read what you want. If you don't, that's why I'm putting this on here.

This past Friday I went in for an ultrasound. I've also been a little hush-hush about the 3 ultrasounds I've had in the last month. Our baby has been measuring small (Like 20 days or more behind the Estimated due date). My midwives didn't feel comfortable with the huge discrepancy so I kept getting sent back for ultrasounds. On Friday they were supposed to do a bio-physical and check the flow from the umbilical chord. From there, I was sent to labor and delivery at Poudre Valley Hospital for monitoring and to speak to a doctor about my ultrasound. From there I was sent to Denver. Luckily our kids were in good hands, because we were admitted to the hospital overnight and met with an OB specialist and a pediatric cardiologist. It was seriously a whirlwind.

Friday night we had another ultrasound in Denver. It was filled with a lot of scary words like heart disease, complex, severe, abnormal, and open heart surgery. We didn't know much of what to think and were left with a lot of time to think about it the next day. It led to a lot of reflection about life, Heavenly Father's plan, and what this meant for our family.

Our visit with the pediatric cardiologist was really helpful. It helped us to put things in context and gave us a better idea as to the seriousness of our baby's condition. The baby has been diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (mild to moderate underdevelopment of the mitral valve and left ventricle) and a persistent left superior Vena Cava (this is part of the thoracic system, rather than the heart, but is included because cardiologists are the ones who operate on it).

I can give more information, but basically, our baby's left heart is not fully developed and we will have to wait until birth to see if the heart is strong enough or capable of pumping all the blood it need to- especially the left ventricle. I don't know that I'll write much more about it until after the baby is born. There are so many unknowns and we will just have to wait until birth to find out much more.

This is the picture the cardiologist drew of our baby's heart. You can see that the left side is smaller but it is more like a 60/40 split with the right heart and not as severe as most of the cases they see. The doctor said it is actually more common to have a 90/10 split than the kind our baby has. Anyway, we feel blessed to have come across such great and capable doctors and will let you know what we find out.

I'm 36 weeks today, but didn't feel like I could pose for a belly shot. It felt to weird, after knowing what I know. Don't get me wrong- I am so excited for this baby to come. I've been washing clothes, getting the carseat ready, and dreaming of how our baby girl will look. I'm getting induced the 22nd of November (2 weeks from today) and they expect the baby to hospitalized for at least 4 days. The baby will be delivered in Denver so that we will have access to all of the pediatric cardiologists and other heart help we might need. We were given some encouraging information that a little girl with a heart similar to our baby's heart didn't need to have surgery until she was 3. I'm still trying to prepare though for surgery close after birth so that I can be somewhat prepared for anything.

Justin and I feel more gratitude than anything. We are humbled that the doctors even found this condition and feel like we've been placed in the most capable hands. We cannot deny the hand of our Heavenly Father and his love,mercy, and watchful care over us and this baby. We know who we are, we know God's plan, we'll follow him in faith.

We appreciate everyone who is praying on behalf of our baby and will let you know as we receive any updates (though we don't expect anything much until after the baby is born). Love to all.
Maggie

Halloween

Gunner carving a pumpkin the day before halloween! The reason why I didn't do a picture of the finished product is that we ran out of steam and never finished. Awesome, huh?

Our cute cow at the ward party. I made him this costume and was happy with how it turned out.

Gracie in her sleeping beauty dress. Her favorite part of halloween was being allowed to wear some mascara each time she dressed up.

This was the best I got of the two of them.

All worn out. She didn't even wake up when the prince (Justin) kissed her cheek.