Lead Me

a song that speaks to both papa and i...

Lead Me

Sanctus Real - “Lead Me”

I look around and see my wonderful life
Almost perfect from the outside
In picture frames I see my beautiful wife
Always smiling
But on the inside, I can hear her saying...

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes
They're just children from the outside
I'm working hard, I tell myself they'll be fine
They're independent
But on the inside, I can hear them saying...

“Lead me with strong hands
Stand up when I can't
Don't leave me hungry for love
Chasing dreams, but what about us?

Show me you're willing to fight
That I'm still the love of your life
I know we call this our home
But I still feel alone”

So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I'm called to be
Oh, Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won't You lead me?

To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can't
Don't want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up

I'll show them I'm willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

Father, lead me, 'cause I can't do this alone

happy halloween

this year i didn't make any costumes.

i didn't even make halloween skirts for the pumpkin patch like i do every year.

we did have costumes though...

taylor was tinkerbell
(a costume given to us by her older friend down the street).
and peyton was a fairy
(a costume lola/lolo bought her)
AND
a monkey
because she didn't wanna be the fairy anymore
(tay's costume when she was 1)
i think the costumes speak for their personalities
tay got to wear her costume to school too for their lil halloween party
tay and gavin
then on halloween we went to the lil chino carnival and played games and got candy
after that the girls went to lolo & lola's church for their halloween thing
singing...
face painting...
games...
peyton's bff
her bestest BFF
she was pooped and changed into her pj's

Baby Reagan update #2

another post by papa...

I know a lot of you are curious as to how Reagan has been doing. Simply put, currently she is doing well. She is eating, sleeping, pooping like most 2 week old babies do. There is however still many question marks in regards to her health. What we do know for sure is that Reagan has a hearing impairment, but we do not know to what extent. She will be seeing a pediatric ENT Specialist that can hopefully determine this. Her vision is still suspect. She has underdeveloped optic nerves, so the doctors can’t say for sure if she has vision. Again, we will be seeing a specialist that can hopefully give us more answers.

Reagan also had an MRI done at birth and they found several Brain anomalies. The doctors do not know how this will play out in the future, but they are saying that Reagan is at high risk for development delays. As I write this, my heart breaks and tears start to form in my eyes. I look back at when I first found out that we were having another girl, and remember the bit of disappointment that she wasn’t a boy, and then remember the secondary thought of: “I just want a healthy baby”. Those words ring so loudly in my mind. Many parents say it in passing taking it for granted, I say it crying to Jesus with every ounce of emotion and faith that is in me.

We are in search of earthly answers to try and ease our minds a bit. We do not know how many questions will be answered. We do not know what Jesus has in store for us, but what we do know is that no matter what happens His GRACE is enough for us. Although emotionally I don’t feel it at times, the fact still remains, his GRACE is enough! We get through every day by trying to focus on Jesus and not on the situation. We pray every day, that our hearts get molded to accept his will. Although the desire of our hearts as parents is for Reagan to be healthy, we pray that our hearts will be able to accept whatever comes our way. Disabled or not, we will love you Reagan Grace for who you are, and we thank Jesus for the miracle of life that has been given to us.

Thank you everyone for your support! Thank you to those that brought dinners to us, and most importantly, thank you to everyone that said a prayer for us!

1st sponge bath

tonight i gave reagan her very 1st sponge bath at home.
(sorry for the lack of pics)

pedi

little reagan had her first appointment with our pediatrician today.

happy to say she's gained some weight even though it doesn't look like it.
she came into the world at 4.3 and is now 4.8 pounds!
she's got a bunch of doctor/specialist appointments in the future.
we think she's gonna be okay!
God's watching over her!
thanks again for your prayers!

...i still need to post a birth blog...

pumpkin patch

we finally made our way out to the pumpkin patch as a family...

of course minus reagan since she's only 9 days old.
i've been trying to get papa to take us all to the pumpkin patch together since taylor was born-haha!

pumpkins galore!!
corn maze!
we'll definitely be back next year with reagan!

UPDATE on BABY REAGAN GRACE

a note shared by papa...

Thank you every one for your concern and I apologize for not updating you guys sooner. As with most news that we've been hearing these past few days, we get Good News and Bad News. The Good News is that the optic nerves are present! The biggest concern was that these were not present which would be a sure case of blindness. The Bad News is that they found a cataract in her left eye and that the nerves were underdeveloped. There is no immediate need for surgery, but the doctors want to monitor the cataract closely along with the underdeveloped optic nerves. The doctors also found low levels of endocrine which is indicative of a possible Pituatary Gland defect. They want to be 100% sure that this isn't an issue because it is life threatning the minute she gets an infection so they are going to run more tests to rule that out. If all goes well, they acticpate us getting to take her home this Friday.

We still don't know long term affects of her hydrocephaly. Reagan is considered high risk for developmental delays so they are putting her (and us) on different programs that help identify developmental problems in the early years of her life. For now we are considering ourselves blessed to have such a beautiful baby. Regardless of the outcome of it all, we thank Jesus for the miracle of life and the healing that has already taken place.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and concern. Your support means a lot to us!

october 14, 2010

the day our lives were changed once again...

i went in for some routine prenatal appointments early that morning and never made it home.
my high bp once again led me right to the hospital and into the operating room!

introducing baby reagan grace
born at 36.3 wks
4.3 pounds

i'll have to post the full story at a later time!

MRI

So I had the MRI today...let's just say I hope I NEVER EVER have to go into one of those again. They all lied and told me it was as big as a tanning booth (not that I even know how big that is) or at least as wide as the table I sit on at the doctor's office. It sooo was NOT. It was tight. I had to stop starring at it when I got there cause I was starting to get freaked out. All I could do was keep praying. Ugh! Luckily it was open on both ends. So I was slid into the "coffin" and thank goodness my head could see out the other end. I was laying on my left side and I kept my head positioned so I could see out the other end. It was the longest hour of my life!!! And to make things worse I had to have these headphones on so that I could hear the commands of the tech-cause there were points where I needed to hold in my breath and let it out. It was loud in there. There were all kinds of loud sounds. I think I would've been a lil more comforted if there was music playing. All I could do was keep praying and singing songs in my head. I could not wait for it to be over!

Anyhow, so one of the doctor's that would be there during the MRI, happened to be a friend we knew. He's a resident there and happens to go to Jino's dad's church.His name is Jed. The doctor performing and also reading the MRI was Dr. Gibbs. So it made it comforting knowing Jed was there and is a christian and was already aware of the situation and had been praying for us. So he and the other doctor were able to read the images right away but didn't have much to tell us because the doctor wanted to read it more in depth so she said she'd get back to us. But Jed called us later to give us his thoughts on the MRI imaging.

So, in a nutshell, in regards to the kidneys and heart...those were the least of their concerns. The kidneys no longer appeared brighter than normal. In the begginning of the MRI the kidneys were full and at the end of the MRI they were empty which means the baby went pee. So it appeared to backed up but it wasn't. As for the fluid around the heart appeared to not be around the heart but more around the lungs which is normal. So praise God that's all good now.

But their concern was that the ventricles still appeared enlarged. Then, of course they found something else. They found fluid around the cerebellum which is not normal and behind the cerebellum they found a cyst. They also said the corpus callosum was thinner than it should be. So those are the main concerns right now. This was only what Jed thought of the readings (and kinda went over with the doctor) but these aren't necessarily to be quoted because it's not the final prognosis of Dr. Gibbs or the pediatric neurologist. Those were the readings of Jed but clinically he didn't know how that translated. We won't know until we hera from Dr. Gibbs and also from the pediatric neurologist.

Praise the Lord it so far appears to not be the kidneys or the heart. My honest, gutt, motherly instinct feeling is that Reagan is ok. But who know what God is preparing us for. Please keep us and the baby in your prayers.

week thirty six

3 weeks left
unless she needs to come out earlier.

here's what's been going on in a nutshell....

sooo basically it's been an ongoing thing...i've been seeing high risk doctors throughout this whole pregnancy and not just cause of my hypertension. they found one of the ventricles in the brain enlarged so they've been monitoring it. so far it's still stable (i had an ultrasound today)-praise God but today in that ultrasound they found something else...fluid around the heart and brightness in the kidneys. i'm not sure what it all means. the doctors didn't say much just that they didn't know why/what was causing it all and that they would be monitoring it closely. praying the mri can tell us more tomorrow. and that reagan's ok and won't have to be delivered tooo early. please keep us in prayer! it's stressful. i'm already an emo preggy mama so everytime i think about it, i start to cry. we know God's in control and we are ready to accept whatever the outcome will be with baby reagan.

road trip

papa and taylor took a road trip to san jose with auntie krissa and uncle joe to san jose to witness the marriage of nic and kristen luna!

on the road...
wedding day...
auntie krissa curled her hair
the ceremony
congrats to nic and kristen luna
reception
good daddy and daughter bonding on the dance floor.
she's our dancing machine!
with the newlyweds
and the next day after the wedding
they waited around and galavanted as uncle joe joe golfed pebble beach
i love this pic of her
thanks for the pics auntie kris!

one month...

exactly 1 month left
til my scheduled c-section
(if not sooner)
till we meet baby reagan grace!!!!

yay!!!
it's been a loooooong journey.
one i shall share about in more detail in another blog!

in one month exactly we will be a family of 5!