A week ago today......

A week ago today I gave birth to my beautiful little girl. She weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces, and was 19.5 inches. We witnessed many miracles with her already. She has been in the Nicu for the past week and it is uncertain when she will come out. Day to day things change. Good news...not good news. So we are taking things hour by hour and finding happiness in the little things.

Right after she was born Scott got strep throat(awesome.) So he was unable to see her for a while. It definitely made things harder for the two of us.Especially when it came to naming her. I normally always have a name picked. I think with her I was just so focused on her surviving that I couldn't focus on a name. We had got it down to 2 names.....Birdie Lou or Davy jean. All week I tried to call her by one or the other and I ended up just calling her baby girl. One of her Nurses wrote on a paper The choices and had everyone in the Nicu vote. The vote ended to today, I still couldn't choose. So I told Scott your gonna have to do this, it's too much for me. So he did. This is your hint................

Introducing DAVY JEAN SCHULTZ!! Named after Grandpa and Grandma. Thank you everyone for all your prayers. (please keep them coming)

One week left

A week. I can't believe I only have 1 week (5 days now)left! I've been wanting to share my pregnancy story with you, but every time I've tried I couldn't put it into words. I've thought a million times on what i would say, would I keep it simple or would I tell ever painful detail. How do you write about the hardest thing you ever gone through?

Well I'm going to try and go the simple route.......

Early October my very inspired Ob asked me why I wasn't doing my AFP screening. He barely even had to speak about it, before I knew i had to take the test. I felt stupid for even thinking other wise. A week later my results came back with the possibility of my little girl having Trisomy 18 or s.l.o.s. Time literally stopped here. Life was a painful slow motion. I have had many friends with false positives, but I knew deep down something was wrong. We went in for a in depth ultrasound. The first thing the Doctor said was " OK, she has a cleft lip and palate. Now if that's all there is, thats a good thing." Uhhh......what?! A good thing?! I know now that that would have indeed been a "good thing". The Doctor recommended getting an amniocentesis.Which was an easy decision for us. We felt it was necessary for our little girl. A week later our results told us she did not have Trisomy or s.l.o.s. But that she had high levels of protein in her fluid and combined with the cleft palate, my once again very inspired Doctor felt we should test further. We did a new test called microarray. It basically goes over every tiny DNA strand in the body. 2 LONG weeks later we get a call from our Genetics councilor who wanted us to come in right away. At this point I was just praying for an answer or a diagnosis, or a "hey it's only a cleft lip." What we were told was our daughter has a rare chromosome deletion on the short arm of the 1st chromosome. What this meant.....they really couldn't say. As of now there aren't any cases of this particular deletion documented. They gave us some maybes and some percentages. All her major organs are looking great. But it will be mainly a wait and see. I do know that having faith in god's plan for me has been my comfort. The fact that she has made it this far is a blessing. I have had an amazing out pour of love and service from friends and family. I could really go on and on about heartbreak, despair, inspired people and faith but just know that I have experienced all four and more. Thank you to every one who has kept us in their prayers. We need them.

happy birthday maxon

Today Max is 9!!!!! We celebrated a day early with his cousins, Xoe and Xanthe. We started off the morning with cinnamon rolls, pancakes and cereal. Then Max got to miss school and go to Knotts berry farm with his Dad and cousins. Even though Max is only 9, I'm starting to see a teenager emerge. He is very witty and sarcastic. He always rates things, like movies, his day, etc and nothing gets above a 78%. He rated his Birthday day a 75%! It takes a lot to impress this kid. His loves are video games, reading, telling jokes, adventures with Dad and Weird Al songs. He is a very sensitive and caring older brother. And even though he thinks Dad is more fun, he thinks I am funnier. And I'll take what I can get from him!

*** Max's school just called and he is throwing up, poor kid. Good thing we celebrated yesterday!***

Two and a half weeks left!!!!

Wow, I love my fat face. Even better check out my franken-hand. I'm officially over wearing the arm braces. They are not worth it. Plus I gotta show off these bad boys. This last week I gained 4 pounds in water weight(literally over night.) And it had to happen the week of my sister in laws wedding. So yay for water retention!
Usually by this time in my pregnancy I am nesting like crazy. I've painted my whole house(and my sisters), reorganize things, you name it. The closest I have come to nesting this time is picking my clothes up off the floor. Luckily my nieces came over today and helped me clean up the house. Thank you Xoe and Xanthe, you rule.