Dear Jimmie- Happy 23 Month Birthday!

Dear Jimmie,

Happy 23 Month Birthday!!

This you right after you were born.

And this is you today!

Look at how you have grown next to your Rottweiler Puppy!

Look at how you've grown in your father's hands!

Here is your special "Watch Me Grow Montage"!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

You have gained 15 oz this month! You are 18 lb 13 oz. This is so awesome because you gained even though you got sick again and didn't eat well.

Your height has increased almost another inch. You are 33 inches long!

Your head has increased to 18 & 1/2 inches around!

You have 123 followers on your blog Jimmie!

Your "Faithfulness" Video Montage has been viewed 14,897 times. That's 394 times this month!

Your "Jimmie's Wonderful World" Montage has been viewed 996 times. And your "High Places" Video Montage has been viewed 728 times!

Your blog has been viewed 2,290 times this month for a total of 120,501 hits! You have a lot of very cool people who love to check on your progress Jimmie.

Physically you are doing well. You are now doing a very good job eating with a spoon! You have most of your teeth and when you are healthy you eat very well.

Sleeping is still an issue. You still wake up in the night, wake up early (4:30am) wanting to eat and you will not sleep at all unless you are in the big bed with mom or dad.

Communication wise you are now putting 2 signs together which is excellent for language development. However speaking is just not happening for you. You worked hard on saying "all done" the other day. You would say "ahhh" and then "dnnn" separately with prompting, but when you tried to put both sounds together it came out, "dnnahh". We are still highly suspicious that you may be dealing with Apraxia.

Christmas was wonderful and you got to come to Ma and Pa's and celebrate with us. You are so sweet and so much fun.

Our new thing that we do together is play "hide and seek". When ever you see me now you manage to communicate by acting it out and signing "more" that you want to play. You were so happy Christmas morning with the gifts, the people and the food! You are truly precious.

New Year's Eve was very low key. You were still getting through the latest virus and your daddy was working. So you and your momma rang in the new year together- sleeping. (-:

Dearest Jimmie, I can't believe it, but in a few short weeks you will be two years old. At this time 2 years ago your mommy was in the fight for your life! Today (Jan 14th) is actually the day 2 years ago that your mommy had the surgery to put in the cerclage that helped to save your life. Jan. 12th 2009 was the date it was discovered that you were in extreme danger. So amazingly and against all the odds you stayed in your mommy's tummy almost a month to the day we were told you were lost. That was an amazing time. While it was one of the darkest times in our lives it was also one of the most miraculous.

By the time your mommy was in the operating room she had almost no cervix left. She was mostly effaced and dilated to a 3. The situation was so dire that the surgeon could hardly do the stitch. Your bag of water was bulging out the opening. There were so many things that could have happened to end your life. The bag of water was eased back up where it should have been without breaking and the amazing surgeon was able to create a sort of a stitch that was better than nothing. However we were told things did not look good. Your mom was labeled the "sub-optimal cerclage patient". We were told almost everyday how little hope there really was for a good outcome. It was horrifying and exhausting, but we fought through. We fought for hope. We, who loved you, truly were "Much Afraid" (from the book Hinds Feet On High Places) Our companions were "Sorrow and Suffering". We climbed up the "Precipice Injury" stumbling and bleeding along the way, attacked by "Craven Fear". I will never forget how terrifying and hopeless that time was. How utterly impossible it seemed that your mommy would make it 3 weeks with you still safe inside her, when every few hours storms of symptoms would come crashing in.

I will also never forget how we were lifted up.

The Shepherd was faithful to us, he gave us his cordial of "Grace and Comfort" while Sorrow and Suffering tied their bodies to ours and helped us up the Precipice.

We were lifted up by the prayers and good wishes of family, friends and strangers. We did everything we knew to do to help you grow strong and healthy. TKM and electrolytes around the clock. The amazing doctors and nurses did everything medically they could, and they did so excellently. People brought meals, cards and words of encouragement. Friends and strangers sent prayers and support. People shared with me how they were up in the night led to pray, I was told about churches all over the country lifting us up in prayer. This blog started as a way to get updates to friends and family also brought us encouragement from strangers who became friends as they sent words of prayer and encouragement.

All of that was our cordial of "Grace and Comfort".

In the end we did make it to the top of the precipice. You were still born tragically early, but your life has been anything, but tragic. Right away you were special! You worked hard through your NICU days Jimmie. The nurses and doctors called you , "small, but mighty"! You only had one really rough patch that you fought through amazingly. We who love you had a new name, instead of "Much Afraid" we were now "Grace and Glory"!

I often think about how you are now and the little struggles of day to day life that sometimes bring us down. I think about how if back then, 2 years ago, before you were born, when all of the doctors were telling us how very grim your future was- if back then we had one blog post to look at- with perhaps a picture of you how you are now, beautiful, strong and healthy...

How stunned and awe struck we would have been at that peek into the future! It seemed impossible that your situation would be ok and yet it is.

It's much much more than ok . . .

You are here living life!

You are truly a miracle Jimmie and I will be forever grateful for you- my little hero!

Love,

Auntie Amber