As this next surgery approaches I've be doing a lot of reflecting on the last surgery. How did we make it through? What was helpful? What was not? It is crazy that it was almost three years ago that we walked through Maelyn's first open heart surgery. The biggest thing that helped was prayer through community. We had communities all over the world praying for us and we felt it. Prayer works. We know that Maelyn did so well the last time because of those prayers. Every time I put out a specific prayer request, people prayed and Maelyn made progress. But since we moved and had a baby and four kids has been insane, I feel like I've lost a lot of that community that prayed so fervently.
So here is my plea, help surround us with prayer! Any way you can. Even if you think you personally can't pray, you can! Try it, it's easy! There is no formula, you just say, Hey God! blah blah blah Thank you Jesus! If you know people who are serious about prayer, please ask them to stand in prayer for us. As parents, it gets hard to pray. Watching your child in pain and suffering is so challenging that you loose the words. That is why we need others to literally pray for us, when we don't have the words. God hears the smallest prayers, even when there are no words, but the more people praying the more power in the spirit. And the best thing about this request is that you can pray for us with out being with us. We would love to have people all over the world sending requests to God for Maelyn's health. So when you think you can't do anything to help, you can. This is our number one need. You can't be the doctor or a surgeon but you can pray for the doctors and surgeon. You can't be at the hospital with us but you can pray that we would feel that you are.
If you want to be part of this journey by praying for us, subscribe to the blog, follow me on instagram and facebook. I post the most on instagram but will put prayer requests on here and facebook.
So the next time you hear about anyone in need, not just us, stop and pray. Because prayer is the most powerful action you can take.
So here we are. We are home from all of our vacations for the summer and we are in the waiting period before surgery. I think of these next two weeks as the "don't get sick quarantine". But the fact that it is summer has me much less paranoid this time around. We will hopefully have some play dates and some outside time, but it will have to be limited. The kids don't really know what's coming. They know that their Nana and G-pa are coming to visit and they are so excited. I have told them that mommy and daddy and Maelyn will be going away while they are here but they keep forgetting. Maelyn knows she has a 'big' doctors appointment coming up and that she gets to go to the hospital and she is actually very excited. I don't want any of them to be scared. Right now they all think doctors and hospitals are cool and fun and I want to keep it that way. Tim and I have mixed emotions. Obviously we are dreading watching our three year old daughter go through and recover from open heart surgery. But we have been waiting for and anticipating this since she was diagnosed prenatally. So we also just want to stop thinking about it, stop preparing for it and get it over with so we can move forward, whatever that may mean. We are hopeful that once she is recovered from this surgery, she will have the best outcomes and be able to have the best normal life. We are hopeful that she will have more energy and will be able to keep up with the other kids, that her coloring will be better, that she will not struggle as much with the changing seasons and that her body will thrive under it's new circulation with no future complications. We just have to get through the next few months, and continue to pray for all of these things. We have decided to leave Nora with my parents and the boys while we go to Philly with Maelyn. It is going to be so difficult to leave my baby for a week +. She has been attached to me for 9 months, well technically 18 months, and it is not natural to leave her with anyone for any amount of time. We have been working on weaning this last week. She just started to take a bottle/sippy cup. I am trying not to breastfeed at all but I have been once a day because she drinks so little from the cups and I don't want her to get dehydrated. We are also sleep training because that comes with weaning and leaving her with someone else too. Over all it's going well, we are making progress, it is just hard. She is my last baby and she is growing up so much faster than the others! She is crawling, pulling up, trying to walk, eating solid food!
Please pray with us for healing and best outcomes. Pray for Nora and I as we prepare to be apart and for our time apart. That the kids would still think doctors and hospitals are cool after this!
