well it's been awhile, but i'm pretty sure that i finally have a good excuse for not being up to date. i am now a mother of 3 kids under the age of 3. that's not to say that life is absolutely crazy, but it is a bit harder to find time to sit and blog. first things first- for those of you who don't live on facebook- Christina Rochelle Slaugenhoup was born friday january 13th at 6:21 pm. here's the best part- she was born loud, pink, and did AWESOME! she stayed in the cardiac intensive care unit for 5 days, but she was never on any medication or supplemental oxygen. basically our little girl has defied her diagnosis, and has made all the doctors and nurses smile. (the smile of "wow, we really saw this going down a little differently, but we're happy it's working out")
2 things strike me as funny right now. i'll try and get my point across, but i may ramble a bit. what can i say..i'm out of practice when it comes to getting my thoughts down in a concise manner.
1) i really can't tell you how many times we had to have "the talk" with different doctors, nurses, social workers, or random strangers. the talk i'm referring to it the "yes. we understand the gravity of the situation. we're not in denial, but we also refuse to freak out and be stressed for our entire pregnancy." it's almost like they expected us to come in to every visit with blood shot eyes and break out in hysterical sobs whenever they talked to us. look i'm not saying we weren't a little concerned about what was going to happen, but we decided early on that God was in control and there was pretty much nothing we could do- so why stress about it. that sort of confused some of the medical professionals. especially the ones that don't know why we were able to have that assurance or peace. (i feel like i'm babbling here, so i'm going to hope that i made my point and you get what i'm trying to say) anyways, the thing that makes me laugh is this- prior to delivery, when we had no idea what the outcome might be, the doctors sort of viewed us and our attitude with concern and scepticism. after delivery, when our rock star daughter was busy being a champ at breathing and basically just being a great baby, they viewed our attitude as ok. like now that things were stable it was acceptable for us to have faith that things would turn out ok. the thing is, we had no way of knowing how Chrissy would do, and our faith that God is sovereign and good REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME is what helped us be calm and rational. (babbling again, sorry) bottom line- it's nice to have the docs on our side now, and not looking at us like we're crazy uninformed, ignorant schmucks. now they smile and they LIKE that we aren't hysterical.
2) now that Chrissy is here and doing awesome. it has caused me moments of "did we over react? did we make a mistake? did we get people worked up and worried over nothing?" the answer of course is NO! we had no way of knowing that she would do as well as she has, and her little heart is still messed up and in need of multiple surgeries to repair it. we just lucked out that she didn't need those operations right at birth. this way she gets time to get bigger and stronger, and her heart will be bigger when the doctors go in to work on it. bigger is easier to work with in this case. so why does all that make me laugh. the fact that we pray to God asking and expecting him to answer us, and when he does we act so surprised. i truly believe that we did not over react. Chrissy could have had major complications at birth, but i believe with all my heart that the reason she didn't is because God answered our prayers and the prayers of our friends and family. any one who would dare to say we over reacted or accuse of of being drama queens looking for attention - well i can show those folks her echos or her chart notes. (not that i think anyone would say that) i'm just trying to get the point across that while God might not have healed our baby in utero, he is carrying her in his hand everyday. HE not our doctors (all of which are great by the way) is why my daughter is sitting beside me sleeping and swinging, waiting for her next opportunity to eat, and doing it all without trouble breathing or with any tubes hooked up to her.
ok, this might have been a weird "first blog since the baby" but that's the stuff that's been rolling around in my head. rest assured- life is great. life with 3 kids is...well...busy. BUT it's great and i wouldn't change it for the world.
i feel like i should put a picture in here, but i'm on garret's laptop and he doesn't have many pictures. so that will be my goal for next time, or you can just check out our FB page.
real quick details just so folks have the info if they want it :
surgery is put off for a few months, unless chrissy's oxygen levels start dropping. she's currently holding strong in the high 80's so we're good for now.
we have weekly weight and oxygen level checks, and bi-weekly visits to the cardiologist for EKG's and all that stuff.
keep on praying for us.
