James Update

James at 26 weeks, 2 days

Hi everyone! We just wanted to give a quick update on Sweet Baby James. Tommy, my mother, father, and I went to the perinatologist today to check out our little man. We are SO happy to say that James looked absolutely perfect! His omphalocele has not changed in size and his intestine continues to be the only thing involved. We had another fetal echo cardiogram and were able to see all of the chambers, valves, and a perfect aorta! We were also excited to see the inflow and outflow of each valve. It is such a nervous feeling walking into the ultrasound room, but each time we are told this "looks perfect" and that "looks great", we let out a huge sigh. I had the privilege of seeing the ultrasound with my mother as she had never seen a level 2 or 3D ultrasound. There were happy tears and many thoughts of our angel, but it was a really great thing to see that our baby boy is doing so well. He weighed in at 2 pounds, 2 ounces and was measuring 2 days big. None of our other babies ever really measured large. In fact, they usually measured about 5 days small. We are still praying for growth, growth, growth!!!! We are hoping to make it to 39 weeks before we meet our newest miracle. I have to say that James was making the tech laugh as he moved all around during the entire ultrasound--he never stopped fidgeting! He is already head down, as all of my babies like to do at about this time. Because of that, the above pic is the best we could do. The poor tech tried to get a good face picture for about 20 minutes, but James wouldn't cooperate, just like his big sissy! He is hiding behind a hand, a placenta, and an umbilical cord. He also has his face pushed up against my placenta, so his little nose is a little mushed. He is looking a lot like Emily, which means he will be his Daddy's boy! We look forward to meeting him in a few months, but not too soon.

I wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We had quite the time here. My parents, my 3 sisters, their spouses and children all came to town to celebrate with us. I have to admit that having 10 adults and 11 children in our house kept things pretty upbeat. Of course, we missed our Luke like crazy. There were times during the weekend that I just broke down, wishing that Luke could be here with us and imagining him in a high chair spitting out all of his food. We missed him a lot and I relied a lot on others to help me get through the sadness. Thank you to everyone for making our first Thanksgiving without Luke as painless as possible. We are so thankful that God sent us such an amazing soul and that he has blessed us with yet another miracle. We are truly blessed with extraordinary children and we thank God for all of them!!!!

Forgive me if this entry is all jumbled as I am trying to get downstairs for dinner. I just wanted to give an update on James. Once again, we appreciate all of your prayers for our family. We are still praying for no chromosomal defects and continued growth for James. We are also continuing to pray for a miracle and that James' omphalocele disappears. We are so thankful for all of you, especially during the past almost 9 months. You have no idea how much you have helped us through this extremely difficult time. God bless you all!