Communication..

On our drive to Utah that fateful August day, we had a lot of time to think and talk about everything. Enevitably you get to a point where there isn't much to say and all you do is sit and think.

This is never good, it allows your emotions to take control and your thoughts tend to snowball out of control.

When Bill was on the phone I was struggling with this and decided to pray instead of just think. After I calmed down a bit I looked out my window and was astonished at what I saw in the sky.


Yup, that was our angel. Giving me comfort and letting me know everything was in His hands.


Isn't that incredible?  I'm forever grateful for the way Heavenly Father communicates to us when we are in need.

Faith, Prayer and Miracles

August 2, 2011

I got up early in order to make it to the 8:30 ultrasound appointment in Idaho Falls. Unfortunately Bill was unable to make it to this appointment so I asked my good friend Nancy to come with me.

The lil' guy was looking great. He was cooperating and moving just the right way in order for Leslie (the u/s tech) to get the right shots she needed too.  Unfortunately that all crumbled to dust when we looked at his heart. He had fluid on the side of his heart.

When you have had 1 or more ultrasounds a week for 5 weeks now, you get pretty used to looking at your child. You know what you’re looking at and what you’re looking for.  When she moved over to his heart, my heart stopped. I saw the pocket of fluid before she even said anything.

She took measurements of the pocket and stepped out to call Dr. Ball with the MFM group.  When she came back in, she took more pictures and waited for Dr. Ball to call back. In the mean time I called Bill and let him know what was going on and that it looked like we would be heading to Salt Lake as soon as I got back.

Dr. Ball's instructions were exactly that, go straight to the University Hospital and see Dr. Byrne.  They also prepared me that there was a good chance we would be delivering him today and even though he was small there was still a good chance of survival with the doctors and teams at the U and at Primary’s.

So instead of spending the whole day in Idaho Falls checking items off my "to do" list, Nancy and I went to Walmart for my pills and headed home.

At this point I was a little foggy in knowing what to do or calling anyone so Bill took over and started letting people know and getting things planned out.

During the drive home, our wonderful friend Cathy came over to the house and got the boys all packed up as well as my bag all packed. Which I'm sure was a feet since looking back on the phone calls I dont know that I actually gave a straight answer as to what to pack.

When I got home we were pretty much ready to go. Bryan and Cathy so generously kept Ethan for a couple days until they headed down to Utah as well.

Bill, James and I all headed down to Utah with no idea about what was going to happen when we got there. I'm pretty sure we made record time getting down there and Bills parents met us at the University Hospital so they could take James back with them.

As things would go, we got there just after the Ultrasound Center closed and Dr. Byrne had just left.  Still knowing the situation, they checked us in and put us in a room where they could monitor the lil' guy. After a little bit they had a team of doctors come in with a portable ultrasound machine to see what was going on.

They started the ultrasound and I could not believe what I was seeing.  Where there had been a large pocket of fluid that morning was now just a sliver of fluid that you wouldn't even see unless you knew what to look for.  It almost made me second guess what we had seen that morning but I knew what I had seen and I knew the miracle that had happened.

We learned a lot about C-CAMs and C-PAM's that night. Those doctors were very knowledgeable and explained things so we understood more of what was going on.  After they got done with the ultrasound they conferred with each other and decided they didn't see any reason to keep him overnight and sent us home with appointments to come back the next day.

We were in shock, we basically went down thinking we may be having this baby today and ended up leaving the hospital that night.  The miracle we witnessed was just incredible.  Had we been able to get down before everyone went home things could have gone very differently. A testament to the power of prayer, faith and blessings.

The next couple days were a whirlwind of ultrasounds, heart echos, Dr. appointments and information.  We were able to meet Dr. Byrne, who will be the delivering Dr., and review everything with her. She shocked us both when she said her goal was to get us to 37 weeks before he would be born and that I could stay in Idaho as long as I came down to Utah every other week for an ultrasound at the U/S Center and had an ultrasound on the off weeks in Idaho Falls.

Driving home Friday was one of the best days I have had thus far. I could not believe the change in our situation from one day to the next.

We are eternally grateful for all the prayers and faith that were sent our way and to our Heavenly Father who answered those prayers and gave us miracles.

I promise... ;-)

I promise, at some point in the next two weeks, I will update the blog and ya'll will be sick of my posts.

We have had a very interesting last couple of weeks full of heart ache, tears, fear, blessings, peace, mercy, miracles, faith, love and prayers.

Thanks for being patient!

Update on the lil' guy

On Monday we went to St. Marks (MFM group) and had another ultrasound. So far things are the same as before.
The CCAM is still growing at the same rate as the lil'guy is, but it is not affecting him or his growth. His est. weight is 1.7 lbs, can you believe that?

The only thing that is changing is the growth is starting to push on his esophagus. Which is making it more difficult to swallow amniotic fluid. He is getting enough, but that means i have excess fluid. Yes, even more than I already had. Another thing to add to the watching list.

Knowing things could be worse we are grateful for no change and more time spent at home.

Again thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.
Here are some pictures from the ultrasound. I'm not one that has to have the 3D ultrasounds because really, I think they are a little creepy. However the tech turned it on while he was in a good position. Even though I still think it is a little creepy I do think it is cute, because he is mine and is inside me.

Complication

At our 20 week ultrasound they found a complication with our lil' guy.

He has a growth, known as a CCAM, on the outside of his right lung. It sits in between his lung and the ribcage.



To find out more details of what we are looking at, they sent us to the MFM of Utah at St. Marks. There we were able to get a better view of the growth and they were able to give us some scenarios for the upcoming future.

Basically there are three ways for the CCAM to develop:

a. (promising and what we are all hoping for) Around 28 weeks the growth will cease to continue to grow along with him and will stay as it is until birth. After birth we would meet with a pediatric surgeon and schedule a time for it to be removed.

b. (not a good as the first but manageable) It will continue to grow at the same rate as he is, without any fluid building up around the abdomen, heart and lungs. After birth the growth will be removed so the right lung will be able to continue developing and so it will not inhibit his breathing.

c. (trying not to think about it) It will grow at a faster rate or fluid will develop putting stress on his organs, mainly his heart, and send him into heart failure. There are two options for this: they can go in and put a shunt in and drain the fluid, however it will leave pockets that will eventually fill again. second there is an in-utero surgery that can be preformed to remove the growth. Both come with high risks and lower survival rates. Both options tend to start pre-term labor and if it cannot be stopped then the baby is delivered. Both of these options usually take place around the 28 week mark so you can see the risks there.

For now the lil' guy is doing remarkable. He measures exactly where he should be. His organs, including his heart, are all functioning perfectly normal. He is more active then Ethan or James to the point where it wakes me up already. Ethan loves to feel him kicking. He puts his hand on my stomach and waits. Then laughs and laughs when he gets kicked.

So what do we do now?

We have weekly ultrasounds with the Tech at my OB office to measure, check for fluid and make sure the heart is not under stress.

We go into the MFM office whenever we can so they can see the progress.

We keep going day by day and week by week watching for the signs of distress.

We fast and pray that everything will go as it is supposed to.

We pray for strength and rely on the prayers and support of all those we love.

We are heading to Utah for the 24th and will see the Dr at MFM on the 25th. I will keep updated as much as I can.

Thank you for the prayers and support.

A moment not captured very often

All we can figure is that Ethan got into the camera on my phone and took this shot while we slept.

I love it. I didn't even change or edit it.

Thank you Bill for these moments.

Hiking Henderson Canyon

A couple weeks ago we went with the hiking group up Henderson Canyon. We knew due to the rain clouds that there was a good chance we could get rained on but wanted to go anyway.
Needless to say it poured on us. Luckily James didn't mind at all and Ethan loves playing out in the rain.







(from my iphone again, sorry)

My Garden 7-5-2011

I'm so excited to have a garden this year that I will be posting updated pictures as regularly as I can. Here are the first pictures I took (sorry iphone again).

Cars 2

As I said before, for Ethans birthday we let him pick 4 friends and we took them all to see Cars 2 in Idaho Falls.

(Again.. taken from the iphone)

Baby Fritsch #3

Last week we had another ultrasound and the lil' guy cooperated enough to give us an awesome profile shot..




I would have to say.. He looks a lot like James.

My three sons!!

On Thursday we went in for the 20 week ultrasound and found out we are having another lil' guy..

We didn't get any pictures but hopefully I will get some from the ultrasound tomorrow and I can post them.

In the mean time I thought ya'll would like to know!!

p.s. I also have pics from Ethan's swimming lessons that I would love to have posted this week but in all honesty it wont be until after the 4th..

ZOORASSIC PARK

Since it had been so long for any of us, Saturday we all went to Hogle Zoo. The weather was great and when we got there we got a special treat... it was Zoorassic Park.

Needless to say Ethan was loving every bit of all the animals, the train (even though it got derailed while we were eating lunch and we weren't able to ride it), and all the dinosaurs scattered around the park.

We had a great time and enjoyed being in the warm sun.












not sure what this was all about.. All Ethan would say was he went in the cage.

A weekend in Utah... part 1

Last weekend the weather was supposed to be cold and rainy so we decided to head down to Utah for some sun.

On Saturday Bill and Grandpa E took the boys to the park.

it is June 9th right??

because it sure didn't look like it this morning...







Yup that is SNOW!!!

anyone have a warm beach they can send me??

Land Slide

As I'm sure many of you heard a couple weeks ago there was a big land slide that closed down the Hoback Junction on US 26. This happens to be the route a lot of people take to get to Jackson.

Needless to say our traffic was, at times, ridiculous! You could sit at our blinky light for ages (alright I'm sure it was only like 5-7 min) waiting to turn left onto the HWY.

When they finally opened it back up we went for a drive to see what the devastation was..

As you can see, the effort to clean it up and the residual effect on the landscape was pretty immense.