Moving Forward

I wish I would have written this post sooner, but time got away from me.

It has been over 2 months since McCoy had his removal surgery, but hardly a day goes by that Dallas and I don't think about the blessing it is to be done with our removal journey.

On July 5th, after Dallas got home from work, we celebrated the end of McCoy having his expanders, by saying goodbye to his "bubbles" in a fun way:

Enjoying his new toy "bubbles" in his mini pool, since he's saying goodbye to the ones on his back ;)

Then we bathed him one last time, and oddly enough, felt kind of sad knowing that tomorrow his expanders would be gone.  They had become a part of him, in a way that's difficult to describe, and it felt like we were about to say goodbye to a piece of him that had become special to us.

Dallas gave McCoy a blessing, and then we put him to bed. After he was asleep, I gathered the last few things to add to our hospital bags, and then Dallas and I prayed together that the next day all would go well, and that no matter the outcome - whether the entire nevus was able to be removed or not - we could feel peaceful and happy.  We recognized how blessed we'd been up to this point, and it felt good to finally realize that we could truly be happy no matter what happened.  As long as McCoy was safe and recovered healthily, we would be okay.

We woke the next morning and left for the Children's Medical City Hospital at 6am.  McCoy stayed awake for the whole drive, and loved watching all the lights in the dark morning light outside the car windows.  He stayed happy and content as we checked him in, weighed him, and changed him into his gown.  As we moved into the pre-op room, he began getting tired and fussy.  Luckily we had the ipad, and treated him to a musical show while we waited to meet with Dr. Burns.

Even though we've done this before, it does not get any easier sending your baby back to surgery!

Finally Dr. Burns arrived, and as we met with him Dallas and I both felt peaceful.  He didn't say whether he thought he had enough skin to be able to remove the whole nevus or not, but he said he'd do his best taking all factors into account.  He also said he wouldn't know what the incision/scar would look like until he actually got into surgery. He did however, mention that he was sure this wouldn't be our "last rodeo", as he called it.  He said that in a year he wouldn't be surprised if McCoy needed a scar revision surgery.  Compared to insertion and removal of expanders, that type of surgery would be a cinch, but he did say that we would probably want/need it in a year.  But we didn't focus on that or discuss it, he just mentioned it and we moved on from there.  After all the medical questions were answered, we handed McCoy to a nurse who carried him away to a room where they would mask him and sedate him, before IV'ing him.  When I first handed him to the nurse, he was fine.  But as the nurse started moving away from us, he began crying.  It was heart breaking.  However, the timing ended up being good for us - mom showed up at the hospital, and Dallas needed to head into work, so I joined my mom and we left to grab some breakfast to eat while we waited to receive a text from the OR nurses with updates regarding the surgery.

We had just barely ordered our food when I received a text saying the procedure was closing, and the surgeon would be out to meet with me soon. We were shocked! And scrambling around trying to get out of there quickly and back to the hospital.  When we were still 5 minutes from the hospital, Dr. Burns himself called me and said he was coming out to the waiting room to discuss with me how the surgery had gone.  I felt ridiculous and horrible that he would be waiting! The surgery had finished WAY faster than we had been told, and much faster even than the insertion surgery.  I couldn't get over my surprise.  All in all McCoy had only been back in the OR for less than 2 hours.  I rushed up to the waiting room, and immediately Dr. Burns said, "I was able to remove all of it, and it couldn't have gone better."  He explained that the scar looked kind of like the Hurley logo (a "u" with an upside down "u" underneath it).  He said McCoy would be in much more pain this time than he was last time (which worried me, as I had not expected that.  Most moms I'd connected with whose children had already undergone removal, said that removal was easier than insertion, so I was kind of planning on that).  He explained that McCoy had 2 drains, and they exited his body on each hip, so that he could sleep on his stomach or back comfortably.  He also said that he had a foam type of board on his back, with a dressing around his whole midsection to keep everything kind of held together.  Then he said we would meet in a week for him to check the healing of the incisions, and that if his drains were ready to be removed before that, we could come in and have the nurses do that beforehand.  He hugged me and said call if I needed anything at all.

I was so elated.  I could not believe that Burns was able to remove it all!!! It's like, deep down in my heart I knew all along we were going to receive that miracle, but still, in the moment you discover what huge blessing you've been given, it is so humbling and unbelievable.  I immediately called Dallas and told him the wonderful news.  Mom met up with me, and we waited shortly until we were able to go to the recovery room and see McCoy.

Holding him in my arms again felt so good.  He was so small and felt so different, but I was so happy knowing he would never have to go through such a major, painful surgery again.

McCoy struggled a lot in recovery.  The nurse there was wonderful, and very on the ball.  She gave him as much pain meds as she could, and kept alternating meds as needed, so that he could have as much in him as was allowed.  McCoy was moaning constantly and kept continuously crying from the pain.  We could not seem to get a handle on it.  The nurse explained to us that because the meds she had given were not enough to make him comfortable, if we wanted to get on top of the pain with stronger meds, we would need to be moved to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit).  They wheeled McCoy up in his hospital bed.  When we got to our room, one nurse was giving us a difficult time about keeping McCoy in the bed he came on - they wanted to move him into the particular bed that was in the room already.  He was in so much pain, our recovery nurse that had escorted us was pushing to be able to keep McCoy where he was.  Thankfully, a head nurse came in and said he could stay put in the bed he came in.  I was so grateful.

All of Thursday was very difficult.  McCoy was moaning in pain for basically the entire day.  We kept trying medicine after medicine, hoping to get him comfortable.  Moving him in any way obviously caused him discomfort, but I tried to hold him and nurse him.  He didn't want anything to do with it.  (I thought being bit before had been painful...well picture a poor baby in pain, frustrated and tired of feeling so miserable, who clearly does not want to nurse, biting his mom.  Yeah.  Excrutiating).  But it didn't phase me, I felt so sad for how much pain he was in, he could do whatever he wanted and I would not mind.  I tried over and over patiently, but ultimately it wasn't until the next day that he really latched and ate much.  Even then the nursing was difficult and not the same as it normally was.  Anyway, so all day we kept trying different medicines, tried a million different concoctions, trying to get just the right "mix."  He was put on a continuous pain drip (which is so intense and has to be closely monitored, that it can only be administered on the PICU floor), which finally seemed to help.  On top of that, we kept giving him other pain meds, and of course his antibiotic.  The nurses said if any of us adults were given as much medicine as McCoy had been given, we'd be knocked out cold.

By the evening, McCoy was resting.  Mom and I took a break and went home for a shower while Dallas took over.  While we were gone, McCoy woke up!  He actually opened his eyes.  By this point, he was extremely swollen all over his body, so it was very difficult for him to open his lids and see anything.  But seeing his little peepers was the best feeling ever!  We quickly grabbed some books and Dallas read a story to him.

We ended up staying in the PICU the rest of Thursday and all of Friday as well.  We were discharged Saturday morning, after we were able to wean McCoy off of the drip in his IV.  We had switched him through the night over to medicines we could go home on, so by morning we were definitely looking forward to coming home.  We had some unpleasant experiences with nurses that added greatly to our stress and anxiety.  However, Dr. Burns' PA's were wonderful! So nice, very thorough, and extremely personable towards me, and McCoy's unique surgery/recovery.  We spent some time reading to McCoy and working on nursing again.  We also fed him some puree's to help with any potential nausea as a result of all the medicine in his system.

Sitting up and AWAKE! Hooray!

I learned how to empty his drains, we packed up, changed McCoy into his own clothes, and a nurse wheeled me (in a wheelchair) with McCoy in my arms, to our car.  This time going home felt one hundred percent different than the first time.  It was a light, happy, optimistic feeling.  I was so excited to get him home to his own familiar surroundings, and not be connected to all the annoying cords, or be bombarded by nurse faces popping in every second.  (In fact, when McCoy finally was coherent and awake, he would cry every time a nurse came in and got near him.  He definitely was not loving their presence anywhere close to him).  We buckled McCoy in his car seat (I originally was going to hold him for the drive home, but he didn't seem to mind, and the nurse who wheeled me down was not leaving until she saw him securely in, so we ended up just leaving him in it).

McCoy quickly got back to himself once we were home.  We were able to sleep him on his back, and he rested well.  Getting him to take his medicines was much easier this round!  I had the meds flavored, and I think that helped.  We usually timed it where he would be just waking up, and kind of out of it, and we'd slip the syringe into the back corner of his mouth before he really knew what it was, and he'd swallow it pleasantly (for the most part).

I prepared in advance with some things I hoped would help keep him entertained while limiting his movement.  I also didn't want him to get frustrated if we were always trying to hold him while he was recovering.  He really liked the swing:

Playing up to a breakfast-in-bed tray while sitting in his bumbo (never thought he'd fit in that seat again!)

We woke up one morning shortly after McCoy's surgery day to a surprise on our front lawn!  Members from our ward heart attacked us, and on each heart was a message from someone.  Many we didn't know, but some we did.  There were even messages or pictures from primary kids, wishing McCoy to get well soon, hoping he'd feel better quickly, prayers and well wishes, and so on.  It was one of the sweetest things that's ever been done for us.

Despite our best efforts, McCoy's back began splitting at the intersections where his incisions met.  Dr. Burns said he was 99% positive that would happen, it is basically unavoidable.  But I still feel good about the precautions we took, as it could've been worse had we not.  Here is what his back looked like around 1 week post-op.

To others, his scar may look not good.  But to Dallas and I, we know just how amazing it really does look.  After seeing countless other children with removal scars (from the Nevus Removal Group on FB) we have a better perspective on just how lucky (I should say blessed!) we are with McCoy's results!  We celebrated by having dinner and special drinks with Shayla and Swede in our home.  It was a lovely time!

McCoy's first outing post-op....I promise he was happier to be out and about then his cute little solemn face shows ;)

So now, we're back to "normal" life.  No more weekly fills, no more worries over expanders.  With a small rash being the only thing we have to keep our eye on, along with applying a scar recovery gel to his scar, we're able to do and focus on so many other things now it seems like.  The timing of everything turned out perfectly, and even though Mom could only be with us to help for a few days, McCoy bounced back so well that it was fine.  He handled the removal of his drains okay, and he's probably just thrilled to never have to go back to that office (at least not for a year...Dr. Burns wants to potentially do a scar revision surgery in a year...but we're not crossing that decision bridge for a while!).  Now that he doesn't have all that extra weight on his back, McCoy crawls and rolls around freely, and pulls to standing in a cinch.  I can tell he loves his new mobility.  With the surgery behind us, we focused on getting ready for McCoy's special first birthday, with all the family from both sides coming into to town.  What a special day it was!  Again, the timing could not have been better.

Back in one of my very first posts, I mentioned the story in the New Testament (John 9:2) regarding a blind man, and Christ's apostles questioning who sinned that the boy should be born blind.  Christ's response was, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."  Looking back over this almost 6 month journey (well, plus the time from his birth with all the worrying, the doctor visits, MRI's, researching, and so forth...making it nearly a year long process), Dallas and I can testify that the works of God were made manifest through McCoy!  Miracles are real, and glimpses of Heavenly Father's hands can be found in all the facets of our lives!... but maybe most particularly in the darkest hours are God's works most abundant.  He loves us so much, and He hears our every prayer, our every thought, and He understands our desires, even better sometimes than we do ourselves.  He gave us our miracle - and we will always be grateful for the way He enabled things to turn out.

4 Months Done - Surgery Next Week!

Dallas and I are in awe that we've made it as far as we have.  It's crazy to think we've survived 4 months of fills, every single week, and we're finally to the other end of the tunnel with the light shining through.  Yes, we have surgery next week (Wednesday, July 6), and that is going to be hard!...but it's indescribable how amazing it feels to be done with the fills and to be only a few weeks away from being done with all of this, and McCoy through recovery.

McCoy has been such a strong trooper through all of this.  It may be funny to think that an adult can learn something, or be inspired by, a baby.  But from McCoy's strength and endurance through this process, I've felt my strength to endure hard things grow.  I have felt inspired by his example to me.  He hasn't let the expanders hold him back.  He began crawling this last week, and although it took him a while to finally be able to hold all that weight from his expanders, he now just goes and goes and goes.  The weight on his back (which our pediatrician calculated equating to an average weighted adult carrying an additional 55 pounds on their back) pulls McCoy back or side to side, and somewhat off-balances him, but he's learned to push through the awkwardness of them and explore things around him.  I am so excited for him to know what it feels like to move around free from that extra weight and bulkiness.  I am also excited to hold him and squeeze him and cuddle him without those bubbles everywhere!!

So - the countdown is on: surgery is 5 days away. Wednesday July 6 at 7:30am.  We will check in at the hospital at 6am, so we'll leave home around 5:30am.  The last time McCoy can breastfeed is 3:30am, and you can bet I'll be waking him up to make sure he gets one last treat before his fast begins ;)  We will meet with Dr. Burns before the surgery obviously, and he may or may not measure the expanders at that time.  To us, it doesn't really matter what he does.  We're here at the end and there's nothing else we can do but hope and pray.  Dallas and I feel at peace.  We have fasted for nearly 6 months now, and with our prayers and so many others, we know that it will all work out okay, no matter what.  Of course, deep down we still wish Burns could get it all, but we'll just have to see if that is to be our miracle or not.  We've already been so blessed up to this point.

Rundown on surgery schedule:
We will be staying at the hospital for a 23 hour watch (as they call it), so overnight.  Mom is driving up Tuesday.  Dallas and I will drive McCoy over for check in, and be together until McCoy is taken back to the OR. Dallas will leave for work at that time, and Mom will come be with me at the hospital while we wait.  The surgery is blocked out for 4 hours.  Then he'll be taken to recovery, where he should be only for about 1-2 hours.  (Last time he was there for practically the entire day, which was not normal, nor good).  After he's stable we will be taken up a floor to our private room where we'll stay the night.  Dallas will come over after work and stay as late as he can.  Then it'll be me and Mom again through the night taking care of him.  The next morning we'll be discharged, but probably won't get home until 11am ish.

We were able to get some good info from Ly and Illiana regarding recovery:
McCoy should recover very similarly to how he did last time.  The only difference will be that he will have drains.  One or two, we don't know how many yet.  He may be wrapped up tight around his midsection to keep everything in place.  The sutures will be dissolveable underneath the skin, and then the incision will be bonded together with medical glue (Dermabond).  We will not have to do any wound care (unless the incision breaks open).  Every day we will empty the drains - at this point I'm not sure how often.  When the fluid draining is below a certain ml amount, the drains can be removed; Ly believes this will occur around or before the 1 week mark. We will have a post-op appointment probably on Monday after surgery.  McCoy will be on an antibiotic, and hydrocodeine for pain.  They anticipate us being able to slowly wean him off the hydrocodeine sooner than last time, and moving to tylenol with codeine, then slowly moving to just tylenol, until all the pain is gone at which point we'll just finish out the antibiotic.  I'm less nervous about dosing the medicine now that McCoy eats solids and drinks well.  Hopefully this won't be an issue again.  Other moms have told me McCoy will be able to sleep on his back immediately post-op, and Ly said the same thing.  I plan on having him sleep on our chests though, as sometimes the drain placement can be uncomfortable to have pressure on.  Lastly, the nurses told us that week 1 and week 3 are probably the most critical times to be extra cautious about McCoy not doing any activity that could strain his incision, as it will be at it's weakest during these weeks.  The first week is obvious - the skin will not have begun to join itself, and will only be held by the stitches and glue.  The 2nd week the skin begins joining itself together.  The 3rd week, it's still healing together, but the stitches begin dissolving and the glue begins breaking down, so the skin is at it's weakest, maybe even more critical during this time than the 1st week.  All in all, most moms I've spoken with have said that recovery from removal was easier than insertion (perhaps because we have a better idea of what to expect?), that the child bounces back quickly (within a few days, less than a week), and that the pain seems to be less in general.  However some have said coming out of the anesthesia was more difficult, as the removal surgery typically takes longer than the insertion, therefore having been under for longer made for a longer time coming out of the affects of anesthesia.  McCoy already struggled a lot coming out the first time, and that surgery was blocked at 4 hours (just like his removal will be 4 hrs), so I'm anxious about how well he'll come out. But, as long as it's not worse than the first time, that will be good.

This last fill (Jun 30th, the 16th fill) we were only able to fill 3 expanders.  They are all so big now that the ports have become inaccessible.  Below are the last progress pictures.

Final TOTAL volume: 2,394 cc's !!!

Top middle: 350cc
Bottom middle: 635cc
Left side: 335cc
Left shoulder: 360cc
Right side: 376cc
Right shoulder: 328cc

3 Months Done

I blogged a month ago. So much has happened since then.

I'll quickly re-cap some things from this past month, and then update what happened today.  So, McCoy developed some red troublesome areas on a couple of his expanders, and we dealt with another scare when he got what looked like an infection under his armpit, close to his right shoulder blade expander.  We had to religiously wash under his arm with antibacterial soap, and rub a more intense hydrocortisone cream under there as well, twice daily.  So on top of all the moisturizing and cortisone cream and scar recovery gel I normally apply, I added this routine to my existing routine.  Fortunately, nothing became infected as a result of his underarm, and it's cleared up.  I took pictures to capture it, and Ly almost put us on antibiotics just to be safe (but we were thankful we avoided those):

Here are the worrisome areas: 

McCoy's fills have been going well; we've had a few weeks in a row where each port was pricked only once with the needle, and not multiple times.  The nurses have gotten in the swing of things, and so have Dallas and I.  In fact, the first week in May our fill went extremely well! This is what I said about it then:

"BEST fill yet! Got all the expanders in one shot!...meaning no re-pricking. Needle in, didn't come out, presto!..and he watched his music video the whole time and calmed after each one except the last. Whew. I needed that today. So thankful."

The third week in May Dallas had to go to Mexico again, but thankfully Shayla was able to come to the fill with me.  Such a blessing having her close:

"Auntie Shay Shay came to the fill with us today, so thankful she was there she helped so much!! Distracted McCoy very well while I held him. We weren't able to get each port on the first poke, but it still was a good fill overall. Also, I was able to flip his port right before. His right shoulder blade expander is still pink & we think its because the skin is so thin (other moms think the same thing, as I posted pics on my fb removal group and asked about it). His bottom expander is still not filling out symmetrically which is discouraging. We will schedule next week to see Burns (prob for the following week). Nurses are interested (as are we!) to see how much longer Burns thinks. Nurses said they can tell his skin is getting to the "end" as they weren't even able to put as much fluid in his shoulder blade one...eventually they'll just have to put less & less. Hopefully we still end up with enough skin. We'll see what Burns says in a couple weeks. Rash is under control for now. Just hoping that red spot isn't an infection but I don't think so & neither do the Ly and Iliana (nurses). They may treat him with antibiotics just in case. That's all! Thanks again Shay for coming, it meant so much!! :) Love you guys thanks for your continued prayers."

And that catches us up to today.  Today we went in for McCoy's 12th fill (June 1st).  It has been 3 months since his expanders were placed.  This fill was by the far the fastest one yet.  I think I did an extra good job numbing his ports today, and the nurses were just extra great today as they finished his fill in much less time than the usual 30 minutes.  After the fill, we met with Dr. Burns.  I shared my feelings prior to meeting with Burns in a text:

"Today we meet with Dr. Burns.  I had dreams about it all night.  My hopes are so high and I find myself trying to push them down and not think about best case scenarios.  I'm trying to force my expectations low so that I won't be disappointed.  I feel emotional/anxious, and I usually don't going to his appointments.  Today will be our 12th fill, and we will have been doing this for 3 months.  Wow.  Thank you for supporting us all this way so far, and for all your thoughts and prayers.  We'll let you know how today goes.  Here's to another good fill hopefully!"

 

Waiting to see the doc

So - talking with Burns went well, and we were given both good and bad (or discouraging) news.  I'll start with the disappointing information: 3 of McCoy's expanders still have unexplained redness on them.  For a while now, McCoy's top right shoulder blade expander has had redness, and I say "unexplained" because the  nurses have never seen redness appear in the area that McCoy's has.  It's in the middle of the expanded skin, and does not appear to be from infection.  It's not warmer than the surrounding area either.  Usually an infection occurs at the port site, or the incision site.  Or the entire expander will be red.  But to have a patch in the center is odd.  Well, to add to that, McCoy's neck expander (in the center top) has unexplained redness now too.  I've noticed it in the past, but it's faded.  As of a couple days ago, however, it's been bright red, and very odd shaped.  (As shown in the pictures above).  As of last night (I think) McCoy's bottom (biggest) expander developed redness across the center as well.  Not good.  This morning it was even darker red.  Burns said based on what he's seeing, the skin has basically reached its end.  He said he was amazed at how well the whole expansion process has gone for us, and immediately began measuring and marking with a pen to see if we reached our goal and would have enough skin to remove the entire nevus.  As you can see from this picture below, we are just shy having enough skin to remove it all in one take.  Dr. Burns felt, however, that in a few more weeks we should hopefully have enough.  It's difficult to say, as he does not want the expanders with redness to be filled if they continue being red.  They had a photographer come in and take pictures, and we are going to compare the troublesome areas this week, to how they look next week.  We go in for his usual fill next Thursday at 11:30.  If those areas are worse, or new areas of concern pop up, they won't fill those expanders.  If those areas look about the same, they will very minimally fill those expanders.  After Burns measured the skin, he said we're so very close, and things have gone extremely well up to this point, but he can tell McCoy's skin is "getting near the end" and he discussed with us possible surgery dates.  This is the good news!...that we finally have a light at the end of the tunnel, with a surgery date to look forward to.  However, the first part of July Dallas will be completely tied up with major things at work, and won't be able to take a day to be at the hospital for those 23 hours for surgery (it will be the same as his insertion surgery - a 23 hour admittance to the hospital).  He also will be pretty unavailable in the evenings and weekends, as he'll be working longer hours than normal.  As the surgery scheduler looked at Burn's schedule, and the hospital's, she told us sadly she did not have any availability the last week in June, which Burn's had mentioned would be an option during our discussion.  Sadly, the only times available will be either Wednesday July 6, or Wednesday July 20th.  I had hoped so much if Burns said surgery could be in July, that there would be availability the second week...then Dallas would be through the worst of it at work, and could be around to help.  But with only the 6th or 20th to choose from, we scheduled it tentatively for the 20th (which the scheduler had to actually pull strings for with the hospital, as technically Burn's doesn't do surgeries that day in the pediatric unit), but I am to let her know in the next couple of days if we want to change it to the 6th.  I asked Burns if it would make a difference, skin-wise, if we scheduled for the 6th or 20th.  I obviously want to be done and the sooner the better, but I also want to have enough skin, and would not push surgery up unless we truly still had enough and could get it all in one shot. Burns assured me those 2 weeks difference would not make a difference at all.  We'll either have enough, or we won't.  So, now we think and pray and discuss and try to figure out what to do.

The 2 blue lines on the nevus show where the good skin can get to, to those 2 lines...but the area in between those 2 lines we still don't have enough skin for. It measures about 2-3cm.

As shown in the picture above with the  markings of how much nevus Burns can currently remove with the expanded skin we have so far, it's clear we still need a little bit more skin. (I measured and it looks to be about 2-3 more cm needed).  Will these next 4 weeks get us the remaining amount we need? That is the question.  That is what we will be praying non-stop for.  We've come so far, and I just hope these last 4 weeks we'll be able to fill enough that we get enough new skin.  The red areas have never worried me so much as they do now.  Those areas could be the difference of getting this all in one take, or not.  We are so grateful for all the prayers everyone has given on our behalf, and hope that you'll continue praying and fasting for McCoy, that these worrisome areas will not worsen, that we'll be able to fill just enough more to get that small amount of skin we still need, and that everything will work out no matter what surgery date we go with.

After getting home from the fill today, I checked McCoy's back and was nervous to find that his bottom expander looks even more red, and patchy red in places it wasn't before the fill.  I really hope his skin can hang in there and not break down.  We are SO close, it's killing me.  We have come so far, and I can hardly believe we've made it to this point.  It feels so wonderful to have a surgery date in mind and something happy to look forward to (I always wished that we could be done before McCoy's 1st birthday, and I can't explain how happy and blessed I feel knowing that this wish will come true), I just hope we can finish this thing well, with no further complications or unexpected bumps.  We have been blessed beyond measure through this whole thing.  I think often of the scriptural account (I think I've mentioned previously) about the boy who was born blind.  The disciples ask Christ who sinned that the boy should be blind - him or his parents.  And Jesus responds (John 9:3), "...Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."  I have seen the works of God made manifest through McCoy.  Through this trial, through this whole process.  I have never been so aware of so many blessings in my life.  It is almost incomprehensible to me the goodness of Heavenly Father, and the amount of love He has for each of us.  It is immeasurable the amount of blessings I have felt and seen during this whole experience.  Heavenly Father has blessed us so tremendously that I almost feel undeserving...I expected so many more things to wrong, and so far, we have gone through this in the best way I thought possible.  I am so grateful for Heavenly Father taking care of us through this, and for manifesting His love and power countless times.  I hope those close to us have been able to see His works too.

Thank you for your prayers, we're almost through this! :)

Progress Pictures:

 

And just because he's so cute...here's some pics of his darling face :)