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I have good news, bad news, and worse news. So what do you wanna read first???

Let’s hear the good news first.

Mary Elizabeth & Andrew have a new baby cousin!!!!

Daniel & Amber had their baby girl on 1.27.10 at 11:07pm.
Jubilee Anna was born weighing 8lbs 3oz and measuring 21 inches in length. As you can see she is beautiful and had a full head of hair. Both Mary Elizabeth and Drew just loved her. And both got turns holding her. Especially Mary Elizabeth, she got a lot of time holding her. For instance, Mommy was desperate to hold her niece Jubilee for the first time, but of course Mary Elizabeth took a turn first and didn’t want to give her up. So finally we said "OK now, Mary Elizabeth- it’s mommy’s turn to hold her, that’s enough"… Mary Elizabeth replies "OK but let me tell you a secret first". Mommy leans down and listens while Mary Elizabeth brushed her hair back and whispers "NO!" ever so matter-of-factly. So you can see, she was very much in awe over her new baby girl cousin. 🙂

Well with all the joy of that, we then moved on to Monday, February 1st where Mary Elizabeth was to have a small procedure done in the hospital. Back in October, she had her tonsils removed. They planned on scoping her while under anesthesia today to see how she healed from that surgery in order to discuss the (long) process of trach removal and where to go from here. They also were going to do some minor lasering in the mouth area.
As you may suspect- she did not heal how we wanted or expected. While the area techincally healed fine… she had some regrowth of tissues in the back of her throat/top of her airway that narrowed the area a bit. So this needed to be taken care of. They removed/lasered one side and said they would do the other side in 6-8 weeks. Which we already scheduled for April 8th. The goal will be to take care of that other side and hopefully she won’t have any problems there from here on out. If that’s the case we can readdress the trach removal process. But for now that is put off. Prayers are that she will not have any regrowth or any complications that would prevent us from moving on. This was a speed bump in our the road, and while it was bad news we are trusting the Lord to handle it and praying for the best. We ask that you keep her in your prayers as well.

So this news of course was upsetting, but in the back of our minds we knew it was a possibility as it comes with the condition and unfortunately that’s something we have to deal with. Disappointing to say the least. But when they came out to tell the news of the regrowth, the also carried a jar in their hand and handed it over. You see, this is what we call "worse" news. Because it was more than bad news- it was unexpected and really upsetting. The jar was said to contain her TEETH. Yes, handed over a jar of her two front, top teeth. Shocking and unexpected and well it threw us for a loop. Apparantly during the scope they came out. Mary Elizabeth’s teeth are not in great condition- they are baby teeth and have not been able to withstand the oral problems she has had. It doesn’t help that she has little/no saliva. So yea, they were weak and perhaps even a bit loose. And out they came. Now at 4 1/2, we can’t imagine WHEN her adult teeth will come, so a toothless smile might be what we see for a while. As if she doesn’t have enough issues right? Mary Elizabeth deserved to have this not get her down too- so we made it a happy thing and her Grandma’s sister – Aunt Fil made a little pouch and she put the teeth in it and placed it under her pillow that night. And thus, she learned about the tooth fairy and was able to get a little present today with the money she got from the tooth fairy!

We did hear from her dentist (who also came down to see her during the surgery as he works in the same hospital)…. he said from her April 2009 xrays, the adult teeth were closer than most her age. She does already have one of her 6 yr molars… so perhaps she is a bit ahead of the game with her adult teeth. Where as normally girls start losing their teeth at 6-7 yrs, she may have been one of the ones to lose them at 5- 5 1/2 years. So we are praying the adult teeth come out sooner than we may think. He will see her in the spring to take another look at how things are going.

In addition to ALL OF THIS… (plus without the nitty gritty details of the hecticness of the day and whatnot) she has to start seeing a orthodontist, yes… in the city. This is not because of the whole tooth thing, he is a specialist that works with other patients like herself and was referred by her surgeon. He will help guide us as in what we can do for the future jaw surgery. They said typically they would do this as a teenager but we discussed her issue of the teeth not being lined up- making it hard for her to chew and not helping her speech issues. So they are going to see what can be done earlier – and if we actually have to wait that long- because originally we thought about 6 or 7 years old for that. We shall see though. It’s just another list of things we have to figure out and deal with.

Anyway, on that note.. I’m not quite sure how we’d handle all this without our faith. Our strength comes from the Lord.
We will keep you posted as always, keep her/us in your prayers and be on the lookout for January photos to be posted sometime this week! 🙂