The Almond Branch Promise

Can't believe we are already at the halfway point of Jaxon's SECOND YEAR!! Please watch this video and read my post below. You can also click on the video link below:

JAXON'S FIRST YEAR video
^^^^^Click here ^^^^^

The Lord gave me a word for Jaxon when I was still pregnant and doctors were insistently telling me that I would deliver him at 23 weeks (17 weeks early and the earliest doctors will resuscitate a baby). The world was becoming chaotic and the Lord just gave me peace and put on my heart Jeremiah 1:5-19, that my Jaxon Jeremiah has a great calling on his life to be a refuge for the sick and the broken, those persecuted and weak, for all in need. And He assured me that this calling on his life would not be robbed from him, that it was an "almond branch" promise- the almond branch represents God's faithfulness to perform His word. He said of the vision Jeremiah had of the almond branch "I am watching over My word to perform it". Nothing about the promise could slip from His watch. He is focused on it. He's intense on it. From that moment, sitting in my hospital bed with IVs, medications and in active labor at only 23 weeks pregnant, I never doubted Him. I had such peace about our situation. I still thought my Jaxon would arrive within hours as the doctors had said, but it didn't matter. My Jaxon wasn't a statistic anymore, He was a WORD from GOD! All the resources in the world could never hold up against that. If God can speak all life into vast emptiness, I had no doubt His word was life in my son. Of course, now we know the great miracle He performed for our family in giving us another 25 days before delivering Jaxon. This is a video my husband made for JAxon's first birthday of his first year. I hope you will watch it and see how great is our God and what amazing and wonderful things HE has done for our family! I don't ever want to forget where life took us during that year because even though it seemed impossibly difficult, many of the greatest moments of my life happened because of what we went through.

Spring Cleaning

Our house has become so crazy overrun by toys, clothes and, weird enough, medical equipment. I'm not talking about thermometers and tylenol, no. I'm talking about cannulas and oxygen tanks, stethoscopes,  pulse oximeters, etc. Jax is doing so well now that I hardly use any of it anymore but it is still so hard to get rid of. After talking to many preemie moms, I know it's typical and probably somehow connected to the ptsd that most of us suffer for years after our preemies are born so at least I know I'm not crazy, but I still really want to get rid of it all to prove to myself that I am confident and moving forward in this rocky long journey. I decided to just allow myself to do so slowly and progressively so I am giving myself to the end of this year to be rid of it all. But to be sure I continually work towards this goal, I will make myself get rid of at least one thing every single week. This week I'm going easy on myself. (Week 1 and already trying to cheat the system) today, I am tossing out all the gauze. I was going to get rid of the tegaderm (transparent tape that held his cannula on his face) but anything that had to do with his oxygen, I find it the hardest to part with. I know that sounds so dumb because you would think I would celebrate while getting rid of it all, but for some reason, I have some crazy bizarre attachments  to all his oxygen-related equipment. Maybe in a few weeks for those things, so I'll just keep my first step a baby step with the gauze. So farewell gauze! I really hope I'm not suddenly going to need you tomorrow. (Whoa! See? I'm already regretting choosing the gauze. I might need it for something. I mean, the last time I used it was probably 6 months ago, but you never know right?) Ok, be brave. I can do this.  People live their lives every day perfectly fine without 2 pounds of gauze in their medicine cabinets. And......it's gone. Now I just have to run it out to the trash can before I decide to dig it back out. :) so, there you have it folks. I have officially proven that I can, in fact, move on from this crazy, sterile, medically equipped lifestyle I have lived since December 1, 2012. 

But, for more interesting news, Jaxon will soon be starting back in his speech therapy. We got all the issues worked out and are now just waiting for them to call to schedule his next session. Also, his eeg did not show seizure activity so we are waiting for an appointment with the neurologist to discuss other options. His developmental assessment with his high risk doctor went well. He did excellent with cognitive and fine motor skills. He was good with gross motor but of course, his speech was extremely delayed. But we are already in therapy and working with ent and audiology for that. He will have another abr as well as his follow up with ent and audiology next week.  His high risk doctor mentioned a possible assessment for hearing aids but that will depend on his abr results as well as the ent's opinion. Well, that's about it for the update. I just got a new phone (switched from iPhone to galaxy) so trying to figure out all the different ways to do things so I gotta figure out how to load pictures but I will ASAP.  For now, this will just have to be a boring colorless post, but later I'll add the photos and it will be ***mindblowingly***  awesome!!! I'm talking pictures of gauze in the trash can, medical equipment shoved in cabinets....it's really going to be epic! So hold on to the edge of your seats so you don't shoot through the roof in anticipation and hopefully within a few hours you can reread this with the photos and know that you are finally a fully satisfied and complete person.

Ok, just added two photos but can't get the others. The first one is of about a third of our supplies. The diaper picture is Jaxon diaper he wore the first 2 or 3 weeks in the nicu. Look how tiny it is in my hand! (It was in the med box so just had to revisit a bit)

Parents of Preemies Day

Want to wish all my fellow preemie parents a happy Parents of Preemies day bc not only are our little miracles strong fighters, but we as their parents, who sat at their bedsides for countless hours every single day praying and crying and cheering them on at every moment, the ones making those life-altering decisions not knowing for sure if it's the right one but hoping with every ounce in us that it is, staring at our phones all hours of every sleepless night hoping it doesn't ring but ready to answer the instant it does, researching every possible diagnosis, medication, machine, treatment, and every other even remote possibility our baby may ever have to face, creating community with every other Nicu/preemie family we come into contact with because they are the only ones who understand our desperate hopes and our desperate fears, celebrating every single milestone (and by the way, a preemie milestone is even as simple as "he drank 10ml today!!!!"), we as the parents of little miracles are also strong fighters! 

We stand strong for them even when inside, every part of us is crumbling. If someone breathed in our direction, we felt like we may topple over and break into a million pieces yet every day we got out of bed, went to the hospital and fought every battle that day with our little ones. A preemie parent meets many superheroes along their journey, from their little superhero fighter to nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, etc but know that every time you met one of those superheroes, they also met a superhero in you!!! Whatever stage in the journey you are, if you're still carrying your soon-to-be-preemie inside you or in the Nicu, recently out or if your preemie is 30 years old, you are a hero and you're amazing! I hope you are blessed today and have a wonderful parents of preemies day!!!

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