Mercy Update!

It’s always fun to be able to post positive updates, and many things have gone well since my last update.

Life with a G-tube is so much better than when Mercy had a nasogastric tube. She’s not gagging as much, she’s moving more freely and developing more quickly now that the NG tube is out, and we’re not having to hurt her putting it back in. She’s rolling all over the place right now!

She’s gaining weight. Since the G-tube surgery, we stopped fortifying breast milk with formula. We weren’t sure she’d gain enough weight with just straight breast milk, but she is. Praise God.

Her eyes got a clean bill of health this week. This is huge! She had underdeveloped portions of her eyes that affected her peripheral vision, and we wrestled for quite a while about whether or not to get surgery to prevent further degeneration. Ultimately we decided against the surgery, and her eyes have improved to the point that most ophthalmologists wouldn’t even know there had been a problem. Praise God!

Mercy was baptized on May 19th. We had waited so long for the day we could welcome her into our church family. Driving to Mercy’s baptism, with my dad and some of our kids (it takes us two vehicles to get us all anywhere anymore), the weight of the past eight months hit me hard. The drive to church takes us along the same route that I had taken in September to get to the hospital on the night Mercy was born. I remembered how I had been sure I had lost my daughter, and how I had been bracing for the very real possibility that I had lost Erica as well.

But God, in his mercy, saved her. And Erica. And as we listened to our dear friend and pastor Marshall recount all of God’s mercies toward our family to get us past so many obstacles to get to this day (1lb 6oz! 5 surgeries! 7 months in the NICU!), surrounded by our church family, rejoicing together, gratitude overwhelmed all other emotions.

Thank God we’re where we are, with you all. I probably (hopefully) won’t post again until the end of July, but save the date: sometime around September 6th we're going to throw a birthday party for a little miracle with all invited.

Love to you all.