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Our sweet Lyla girl turns ONE today! I can’t believe it’s already been a year. We have been so blessed by this little beauty! Sorry we haven’t updated the blog since we have been home. This one will probably be our last, but here is a little of what has been going on since she came home from the hospital.
Thanks for all your love, support, and prayers this past year. They have meant more than you know!
I thought I would start a blog so that when I get a chance I can update it with new information and you can read it if you so desire.
The last couple of days Grace has complained that her pants were too tight. She declared to me at breakfast yesterday that she was wearing sweatpants to work and didn’t care. She had been feeling this tightness in her stomach every once in a while. Little did we know that these were contractions. We were concerned but not alarmed because she is just 25 weeks, just a few weeks over half way. Then she started bleeding a little. So she called the Vanderbilt midwives and made an appointment for this morning (5/14) at 8:00 just to be safe. We went to bed last night as usual, but Grace was having a tough time falling asleep because her stomach was hurting. She had a tough time sleeping the past couple nights before that as well so it wasn’t that strange. The pressure continued and it was becoming more and more timed, about every 5 minutes apart lasting for about a minute. Grace called the midwives again and they told her to take a 30 minute bath and drink lots of water and call back if it continued. Obviously I went back to sleep at this point (very concerned husband). She took a bath and came and got in bed. The contractions continued. They told her to call back if she had more than 5 in one hour. She had 3 in 15 minutes. I began to think to myself, “do we go in to the hospital? Surely not, its 3:30 AM so im sure we can wait till morning, plus Im really tired.” (again very concerned husband). I hadn’t even finished that thought when Grace said, “should we go to the hospital?” That was the first bat to the stomach. Grace has a very high tolerance for pain so when she said this i knew it must be serious. I said let’s wait for one more and ill pray over you. So I did, I prayed that God would stop her body from doing whatever it was doing that was causing pain but ultimately we would submit to whatever He had for us. Turns out God had other plans.
We got out of bed. Grace hopped in the shower to rinse off. I called her moms phone, her moms phone, her dads phone, their house phone, their house phone, their house phone, her moms phone, the house phone….you see the trend. By this point Grace was out of the shower and she said try Gabbi. I thought, no way she would answer, sure enough she did. I explained the situation and Mrs. Angela said she would meet us there.
Grace and I grab a bag and throw in essentials: Bible, toothbrush, and coconut oil. We’re off! After two u-turns on 21st, a trip back to the car to get the water bottle she wasn’t able to drink from (whose idea were ice chips anyways?) and a separate trip back to the car to leave my pocket knife because they don’t allow pocket knives in the hospital (sticklers!), we were finally in.
They took us to a room where a midwife was and she started to do some evaluations. About that time Graces mom showed up so I left cause their could only be one of us in the room. I went to the waiting room and began doing research because me being the expert I am, just knew it was Braxton Hicks. About that time Mrs. Angela came in crying and said, “she is in pre-term labor!” Bat number two to the stomach. This one stung. Kind of left my head spinning. They immediately take her and start carting her down the hall to the labor and delivery rooms Mrs. Angela and I following right behind grasping each others hands tightly. Grace was at 5 cm and having contractions pretty frequently. Scariest and most helpless minutes of my life to this point were happening in slow motion yet somehow blurry at the same time. To my knowledge at this point it was not possible to deliver a baby that early so I thought we would never get to meet Lyla. So many emotions: shock, disbelief, worry, fear, helplessness, peace, comfort, love all wrapped into one and expressed through tears and an in insatiable desire to hold my beautiful wife and repeatedly tell her I love her and that our God is a good Father who gives us good gifts. Neither of which I could do. Instead I had to watch as Grace lied crying and shaking on the hospital bed.
Several things happened very quickly, blood drawn for labs, IV put in, catheter put in, magnesium started to be pumped into Grace to slow the contractions and keep Lyla in the womb. Sometime after things seemed to calm down and everyone left except for me and Mrs. Angela. I asked to pray over Grace. I began, “……”. Nothing would come out except for tears. Mrs. Angela quickly jumped in and began to pray. What a comfort having her there.
Then we had a consultation with the NICU doctor who basically told us the statistics of Lylas survival rate and probability of having severe neurological problems. Pretty grim numbers, I’m not going to lie, but much better than we initially thought. But no big deal for a God who spoke the universe into existence…BANG!
Soon after Mr. Joe and my parents showed up. I explained to my parents what was going on as they were both crying. Then God spoke clearly as I talked:
Scenario 1: God takes Lyla home early. Or I loved the way Maleah put it in a prayer over Grace later on, “God has her in His hands right now and it’s ok if God chooses to literally hold her in his hands soon.” Lyla is safe, God is glorified.
Scenario 2: Lyla has some type of severe neurological problems resulting from a premature birth. Oddly enough I feel like God has been preparing me for this for some time now and with his continued faithfulness and grace I am ready to embrace that because I know that God can teach Grace an I so much about himself through that situation. In the end God is glorified.
Scenario 3:
Lyla turns out to be a happy healthy baby. Obviously the best case scenario, after all we do serve a God who works miracles. What a testament to His faithfulness and grace this would be. Oh how everyone would rejoice and praise Him! God is glorified.
You can see how if the goal of our lives is “to glorify his name” then really it’s a win-win-win! God is glorified in all scenarios. God gave me that goal for my life (toglorifyhisname) in college and it is something I cling to to this day. Are some of those scenarios harder than others? Absolutely! Is God less glorified? Absolutely not. As Piper always says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Grace and I have decided we are satisfied in whatever God has for us because our Father gives good gifts and He will walk with us through it. He will never leave or forsake us.
Back to the story:
Shortly after, Jason and Elizabeth stop by and pray for us and encourage us. That was a huge blessing because they took it upon themselves to run point for letting everyone in our church know what is going on and Jason made himself available to me 24/7 for whatever we needed. That’s what we call servant leadership in action, proud to call him my pastor.
Then came the flood of text messages and calls telling us of prayers that were prayed and how loved we were. Grace and I were completely overwhelmed as I read all of the text messages out loud to her, some of which I could not get trough without choking up and passing my phone to Grace to just read. All morning afternoon and night was a flurry of text messages, calls, and visits from loved ones who brought snacks (delicious!), love, and tears. Allan was on his way to Georgia, turned around in Chattanooga, drove 2 hours back to sit with us in the hospital for a while before continuing on to Georgia. I say this to point out what a great friend Allan is, but also to point to the means our God uses to demonstrate His love for us. God smacked us in the face today with how blessed we are with family and friends. We cannot thank you guys enough, we love you!!
Currently:
I am writing this as Grace sleeps beside me (the prayers for rest and comfort are working people, keep it up!). They said that we will be here until Lyla comes, if that is 6 hours or a few weeks. The ideal is that she wouldn’t come for a few more weeks or so so that she would grow and develop. Right now she has about a 75% survival rate and roughly a 35% chance of having some type of neurological problem. The chances go way down with each day she can stay, particularly at this stage. A week is a huge help. But she currently is at 5 cm, her water hasn’t broken, and he contractions have slowed to pretty much nothing. Praise God!! That means Lyla gets to stay in longer and develop more. It’s pretty much just a waiting game to see how much we can let Lyla develop before her body says its time. If/when she does come early Lyla will have to stay in the NICU roughly until her due date (August 22). During that time Grace and I can come see her as much as we want. They have taken her off the magnesium now and she still isn’t really having any contractions, that’s a great sign. Since she is off the magnesium she will be able to eat now they said. They have successfully given Grace 2 steroid shots (they have to be spaced 12 hours apart) to help speed the process of Lyla’s lungs developing. She is breeched so if she doesn’t reposition Grace will have to have a C-section. I have about three weeks of time that I have saved up for work (Praise God!) and I intend to stay by my best friend through it all! 🙂
The goal/prayer:
The goal for now is to keep Lyla in there as long as possible because each passing day greatly increases the chances of survival and decreases the risk of problems.
Grace wanted me to give a huge thanks to everyone who sent in text messages, called, stopped by, and prayed. She said she felt very loved and supported today and can’t thank you enough. She asked that you would please continue praying.
Updates on Lyla's Status 