September 20, 2007

Kyle (holding) a straw at 7 months

Kyle with a straw at 3 days old

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)

Kyle is 7 months old today! For old times sake I thought I would take a picture of Kyle with a straw. Look how big he has gotten! Mr. Kyle now weighs 11 pounds and his length is 22 1/2 inches. His original weight was 1 pound 6 ounces and his length was 11 1/2 inches. This means that our big guy is eight times bigger than his birth weight and has doubled his height.

Kyle started at the sitters on Monday. It was especially hard to leave him the first day, but we are comforted he is in such good hands. A wonderful Christian woman, who also babysat Madison until she was about 4 years old, is taking care of Kyle while we work. Nana, as the kids lovingly call the sitter, never had children of her own and considers the kids she watches "her babies". Each morning when we arrive at Nana's, Kyle greets her with a huge smile. Right now Nana is only watching one other child, a little girl named Jade who is two years old, so Kyle gets lots of attention.

As our lives return to normal we continue to seek God and listen to what he wants us to learn from all this. We don’t want to be like the Israelites who saw God in action (Red Sea parted, manna every morning, water from a rock . . . ) and soon after each miracle they forgot and fell back into their old routines. We want to keep our dependence and desire for God as we have felt Him in such a real way and seen His love in action. This Psalm became a favorite when we did not know if Kyle would survive and it is still our prayer:“O God you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live.” Psalms 63: 1-4

In Christ,

Jennifer, Joe, Madison and Kyle

September 10, 2007

"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and goodness. " 2 Peter 1:3

Kyle is sleeping through the night now!!! Up until about a week ago, he was still waking every 3-4 hours to eat, but the last few days he has slowly weaned his feedings to where he now goes to bed around 9:00 pm and sleeps until about 6:30 am. Mommy and Daddy are loving it! Perfect timing too, as mommy goes back to work full-time next week.

We have some updates from the past two weeks for everyone...all good ones! First, Kyle has recovered very nicely from his hernia surgery. He was sore for a few days, especially when we would pick him up, but now he is back to his smiley self. His sutures have both fallen off and his incisions look great. We have one more follow-up appointment with the surgeon and then this part of Kyle's recovery will be behind us.

Another piece of news is that Kyle's eyes are healing and developing perfectly! The retina specialist does not need to see Kyle again until next year! He would like us to follow-up with a pediatric opthamologist in 4 months as a precaution, but that is so much better than the weekly trips to Akron Children's Hospital that we had been making to see a specialist.

And the last bit of news is that Kyle has had a series of developmental assessments over the past month. Because Kyle was born weighing one pound, six ounces, he is technically considered disabled and as such our pediatrician has put us in touch with state agencies that can assist Kyle with his development. According to the information we received..." It can take three to five months for the state agency to decide if your child is disabled. However, we consider certain medical conditions so limiting that we fully expect any one of them to disable a child. These include:

• Total blindness


• Total deafness


• Cerebral palsy


• Down syndrome


• Muscular dystrophy


• Birth weight below two pounds, 10 ounces"

With Kyle's birth weight below two pounds, 10 ounces he is considered disabled (at least until he is one years old and re-evaluated) so he was automatically entered into the program. The government sponsored program that is used to assist children with disabilities in Ohio is called "Help Me Grow." Over the past month, we have had a series of meetings and evaluations with Kyle's Help Me Grow coordinator as well as some Early Intervention Specialists. Last week we received the official report from his evaluations and Kyle is "above average" and "doing much better than expected" in all areas. We received a report on his physical health, emotional development, social development, motor development, language/communication skills, and cognitive development. At the time of the evaluations, Kyle was not quite three months old adjusted age (remember when assessing his development, the doctors count his age from his due date, which was June 7). His scores in every area were that of a 3-5 month old! They said Kyle is actually ahead of where they would want/expect him to be developmentally. Praise God!!! I included the states definition of Kyle's Prematurity above, "a medical condition so limiting we fully expect it to disable a child"...because with Kyle doing so well, it is just another example of the Lord's hand prints in all of this. God has certainly blessed us and continues to do so.

One more note about the Help Me Grow Program...While we have the choice to withdrawal Kyle from the program, at this point we going to have him begin working with the therapists once or twice a month. It is a home based program where his therapist will actually come to the house and we feel at this point we'd rather be proactive with his development and catch any potential problems as early as possible. So, in the next couple weeks a therapist will begin coming to house one or two evenings a month.

Thanks for keeping Kyle in your prayers. Everyday we are thankful for his health and happiness.

God Bless,

Jennifer, Joe, Madison and Kyle