The best gift

I got an email tonight from my friend Cheryl Muhr with a link to our pictures she took when Brody was five days old. What an amazing Christmas Eve surprise - I am in love with every. single. one.

Click here to view the slideshow.


I have so much to be grateful for.

I am so grateful.

There are no words...

I don't have the words to describe how much I love my strong little boy, or the words to express how grateful I am for Jared and the husband and father that he is. This has been the longest week, and there are no words that say how thankful I am that it is over and we are all here together.

A week ago today was the single most terrifying event of my life, a living nightmare. I was asleep and Jared was putting Brody in the crib. He woke me up to tell me that Brody had gotten choked and how he pulled him out of the crib to make sure he was alright. Just as we were talking about taking him to the pediatrician the next day Brody started flailing in his crib, he wasn't breathing and his little body struggled to grasp for air. Jared grabbed him and did everything he could to get him to take a breath. He was turning blue and I was frantic as Jared tried and tried again to get him to breathe. We called 911 and finally he gasped for air.

As I waited downstairs for the ambulance to show them where to go I had no words as I prayed the same prayer I prayed for the next four days straight. Please Heavenly Father, please, please, please.

Monday morning he underwent surgery at the best children's hospital in the country. Our parents all got there right after he went back, I have never been more grateful to run into my mom's arms than when I saw her down the hallway. The surgery went great and we got to hold our little boy as he came out of anesthesia in the recovery room. He looked great, he was in great hands and we knew we were in the best place we could be to help him.

About two hours later in our recovery room it happened again. The nightmare replayed when I laid him down to change his diaper. His body went rigid as he flailed to take a breath. Luckily the nurse walked in right as it was happening and called for the rapid response team. We spent the next three days in the ICU, our parents by our side helping us take shifts and keeping us sane. I really can't describe the terror and fear I felt just watching him and holding him and pleading please, Heavenly Father, please, please.

After countless tests and workups the doctors can't find exactly what caused the episodes, they say that his airways my have been swollen and weakened by the reflux he was having from the pyloric stenosis which the surgery fixed. I was comforted when Dr. Stein, the attending physician, said that this is his past, not his future. We continue to meet with his pediatrician, ENT doctors, and the surgery team in the next couple of weeks so we can keep a close eye on him. But when we were being released to go home I was overcome with panic, how can I ever sleep again. How did I sleep through the first one, how could I ever live with myself if something happened and I wasn't there.

When my mom told me at the hospital that my aunts had gone in together and gotten a monitor for his crib that signals if they stop moving or breathing I sobbed. I am so, so grateful to both of them for an answer to my prayer. I had no idea how I would ever sleep again, or if I could even function without constantly watching him to make sure he was breathing. After being home for a couple of days now I can honestly say that it has saved my life and sanity to have that monitor. We could not be more grateful.

I also want to say thank you for everyones thoughts, prayers, notes, and messages. We have felt your love and continue to feel it as Brody gets better and grows stronger. We are so glad he is home and count our blessings.

I never anticipated how much I could possibly love him. Or how much more I love Jared, when I thought there was no possible way to love him anymore than I already did. They are my whole world and my whole heart. I look back on the week and it makes me grateful that we live close to family, for their love and support, thankful to the doctors and nurses at Texas Children's, and most of all relief that it is all over and we're all here together.

The day after he got home he found his thumb!!