Moving Forward

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.



We feel extremely blessed today. We gaze in wonder at our sweet baby, and cannot help but praise God for the gifts that He has given us. We know that as time goes on, our memories will dim, but we pray that we will remember how God has healed our diseases, redeemed our lives from the pit, crowned us with lovingkindness and compassion, and satisfied our years with good things. We feel that He has pulled us back from the edge of a cliff, and given us more than we dared to hope. He has been so good to us.

This is my last full day in the hospital, and Lord willing, Hope's as well. The neonatologist has cleared us to go ahead and start preparing to take her home, and will be monitoring her today to double-check that she is completely ready to come with us. She is nursing as well as any of our other babies did. This morning, they pulled her NG tube (the tube that was going through her nose down into her stomach so they could feed her supplemental meals) because my milk has completely come in. She and I are on our own for feeding, and they are just going to watch her today to make sure she's getting enough. David's assignment today is to jury-rig the carseat so that we can get her home. He went to JoAnn's last night and bought several different sizes of foam padding, and today he'll be working on that to get it to fit into the carseat and provide support for her encephalocele. And tomorrow, we'll be discharged!

I am looking forward to bringing Hope home and introducing her to the big kids (Rose has now graduated to this elite status :) I am looking forward to resting up and being able to attend holy week services at our church. I am looking forward to being able to introduce her to many of you, and letting her testify to God's amazing power in our lives. Thank you for your unceasing prayers for us. Thank you for letting God work through you to minister to us and encourage us. We would ask that you would continue to pray that Hope would grow strong and healthy for surgery this summer, and that God would continue to be merciful to her and to us.