Cody & Cami at 6 Months

Cami 6 Months

Cody 6 Months

They resemble a bit. Not a lot, but some. I sure do love my little ones :O) (BTW Cami's 2 bottom teeth have broken through) They do have the same nose, coloring and same shaped ears. (nose is my side of the family the *shape* of the ears are mine, but the way Cody's stick out is courtesy of his daddy)

What I Was Going To Say....

Sissy Right Before Surgery

Before They Took Off Her Clothes

My Gorgeous Son Cody

This post was going to be titled "Tired" because that is what I am folks... Tired. Mentally, Physically, Emotionally... just plain darn tired. Then I read a post about ANOTHER baby dying this week. WTH????? Yes, I am up to 4 DECEASED babies this week. Not only that, but it would be horribly unfair to my fellow infertile friends who would eat a shoe to have a child and be "tired" like me. For those who do not know, let me take you back. (Mom- don't read any further because you don't like to talk about it) I was a "fertile" once upon a time. Yep, me... I could get pregnant w/o science. Can you believe it? When I was 19 I got pregnant by my then boyfriend. I got prenatal care- I told all of my family (he didn't) I wore clothes to "hide" my belly because he was scared that his parents would kick him out and we didn't have a home at that time. Anyway, I had a little girl- a little early and she was stillborn. Yep, you read it right... she was dead on arrival. No reason- just "it happens sometimes, just like with SIDS" So, naive Christy gets pregnant again- has a miscarriage and again and has a son at 21 weeks. He is also born dead. Doctor- still gives me no reason.... I find a new OB who sends me to a specialist (I still see the new ob and the specialist office) who determined that I had a blood clotting disorder that was killing my children. So, once I was pregnant again I would have to give myself blood thinner injections and take a baby aspirin and all should be fine. Well, then I couldn't get pregnant again. Then the fertility treatments started and went on and on and on. Then we decided on adoption- got home study completed all was done and then we switched to international because of a horrible experience with a birth mom. Got approved for international. Then gave it one last shot... I got Cody out of the deal. I am LUCKY to have my children. They are EVERYTHING to me. So, if I ever say anything to hurt you, I apologize. I do not mean to. I am just stressed. I am very, very lucky to have my babies to hold.

I try to "block" Charity & Gage from my mind a lot of the time. It hurts to think of them. However, this week it has been hard with all of the losses coming my way. I have to admit I am getting depressed. There are 2 songs that remind me of my kids- The Dance by Garth Brooks and Who You'd Be Today by Kenny Chesney. I love both- but both hurt. I had both of their names and Dob's tattooed on my ankles. That way they are ALWAYS with me. I was young and I had to "know" that they existed in this world. I Love You Charity, I Love You Gage. I will see you again someday. **forgive my hair legs, I do not have time to shave these days** Also, Cathy- if you are reading this- I am sorry that this had to be brought up but it did. You know he didn't tell you about Charity and you know about Gage. (I will also be getting Cody & Cami's names tatted as well, just not sure where yet)

Forgive Yesterday's Post

My mom texted me this morning wanting to know if I was drunk when I wrote yesterday's post. Umm, no I don't drink. So, I went online to see what she was talking about. I started laughing, laughing pretty darn hard actually. I updated my blog from my phone and somehow mixed in text messages from a friend into my blog entry. I still do not know how that happened. However, it did. So, for those of you who are still shaking your heads about "contact sports" and whatever else was on there- it wasn't supposed to be there, lol. Camryn did very well during and after surgery though she was pretty sore and in a lot of pain afterwards. I would appreciate your prayers that she heal quickly and as painlessly as possible. Thank you all for your support. I am going to try to upload "before" surgery pictures now but computer is giving me a hard time- so it they may come later.

Camryn's Surgery

Camryn had surgery at 11:00 am this morning to place a g-tube in so that she could eat and also wrap part of her stomach over her esophagus to help with her reflux issues, We are hoping that this corrects most of her feeding issues and her reflux issues as well. Dr Horwitz is her main surgeon and he believes that her surgery has come through quite well. She had to have some of her stomach "wrap" around her esophagus to prevent her reflux,so we are hoping that that is the end of that. Sissy was sure a trooper through it all as well. She is such a smart, intelligent little girl and I hope that all of these surgeries will not effect this. From what I hear Dr Horowitz is an excellent Physician and that makes me happy that my little one does have him as her surgeon. So, please keep your fingers crossed that things keep going in the right direction for her. God Bless and Amen

Pictures & Updates

Mommy, Cody & Cami

Mommy, Cody & Cami

Cami Chewing On Her Little Hand

Chewing On Her Little Hand Again (Big, Pretty Eyes)

Beautiful Baby Girl

Camryn's 2 bottom teeth are coming in slowly but surely. She has been chewing on her sweet little hands for quite a while. I put my (gloved) hands in her mouth and I could feel her teeth right below the surface- so they should come through any day now. She is still having surgery on Wednesday 2/23, but I still do not have a time yet. They always do this and I do not care for it at all. I wish they could give me a time and date at the same time. However, I guess I have to be glad to get what I do. I got a $100.00 donation towards Camryn's medical care this morning as well. (Melissa- I will be emailing you her address to send a bracelet) Cody is doing well and was able to see his sister yesterday- he acted like he didn't care on bit and just played with her toys and ignored her. He was pretty good at doing that at home as well,lol. He fell asleep on the couch in her room and I got a picture of him that I will post. I then fell asleep in the chair and woke up with my whole body killing me. Won't be doing that again. Cami still has a ton of secretions that she has to have suctioned many times a day and still gets breathing treatments every couple of hours. Will write more later, thank you all so much for everything.

Cami Is 6 Months Old Today

Well, I finally have Internet again *yay* Cami is 6 months old today, but she is sick right now. She had a fever of 102.3 last night and they gave her tyl*enol and it went down to 98.1. Yesterday morning she vomited and was put on antibiotics in case she aspirated her vomit. I am learning how to take care of her trach and I do not like it one bit. They say it doesn't hurt her but I disagree. She cries while it is being cleaned. You can't hear her because she doesn't make noise anymore since she has the trach, but you can see her little face crying. You have to take off the ties around her neck and clean with a peroxide/water mixture all around her neck and especially around her trach. Then you have to use sterile water to rinse all the peroxide mixture off of her and then put her clean trach ties on and put her plastic "nose" on. The whole time you are doing all of this you have to hold her trach itself so that it doesn't come out. It takes 2 people to do all of this. The nurses all tell me that Camryn is the toughest one they have. She fights them and sometimes it takes 3 people to do her trach care. She is a tough little girl, lol. I haven't changed her trach yet though, just did trach care. I had a meeting with the Doctors, 2 nurses and the social worker yesterday about Cami's progress and things that we need to work on. I agreed that she needed a G-tube because with her ng tube (tube that goes in her nose) She pulls on it and I know that Cody will pull it out. It is uncomfortable and probably very painful to have it put back in time after time. So, I agreed to the G-tube placement- that way I can feed her straight to her tummy and then close the button and it is covered by clothing. So, I don't have to worry about anyone ripping it out. They did a mri/cat scan or something like that (I can't remember what they told me) this morning. The results came back that she has reflux (I already knew that) So they have started her on a medication to help with that and are also feeding her continuously to keep her tummy full all the time so that the acid doesn't build up. I don't know how that will work out when we go home- I guess only time will tell. Once she is over being sick I guess they will schedule her g-tube surgery. I also learned that some of that stuff that Cami will need at home to survive is not covered by her insurance. So, somehow we now have to come up with another $1300.00 dollars. I don't know how though. I don't understand why the insurance won't cover it either. However, the insurance will cover nursing 12 hours a day at first to help out. That will be very helpful with her trach care and stuff. It will be hard because she doesn't make noise- so if she is crying I won't hear her. I will have to look at her constantly to see if she is crying. I will have to get her on a feeding schedule and stick to it so that she won't be crying due to hunger. That will be hard though because at the hospital she is on continuous feeds so her tummy is never really "empty". I guess we will get it all figured out. Out of the $1300.00 needed to bring her home we have about $300.00 of it. So, we are in need of $1000.00 to bring our child home. I checked with the hospital about getting help there (financially) but they didn't have any program available. Apparently the insurance is paying about $11,000 already to bring her home. So, I guess that they feel that we can at least come up with $1300.00 I don't blame them though. It is life. If we can get all of the equipment needed, we may be able to bring her home maybe the first or second week of March. So, please help support us by donating for a beautiful pink "praying for camryn" bracelet from Melissa and beautiful ribbons by Tina. Part of the proceeds come to us to help Camryn. I promise you that the money is being spent on Cami. It is not being spent on us or Cody. All of the money donated will go to Cami- to get her home. I will post pictures of the Ribbons and Bracelet. You can go to Cami's facebook page "prayers for camryn" put that in the search at the top of the facebook page and you will find how to order them. Thank you all so much for your continued support & prayers. We love all of you. I am an animal lover- always have been. I would bring stray dogs and cats home all the time. I know my parents were not impressed with me. Once I was old enough to live on my own- I took in lots of strays. I had them spayed/neutered, gave them their vaccinations, had heart worm tests, gave them heart worm preventative, cared for them and found them homes. The ones that I could not place stayed with me. We spent thousands of dollars over the years caring for pets. That is why I have so many now- I love them- they are just like my children. a friend gave me this quote the other day and I thought I would put it on here. I was telling her how much I appreciated all of you standing behind us, praying for us in our time of need and giving us your hard earned money to help us keep our home. I was in tears with gratitude to all of you. The quote is this "Give and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return. Luke 6:38 NIV I have not looked this quote up- I just copied from her email. She was telling me that God sent you all to us to help in our time of need because we have always helped others in their time of need and that since you helped us- you will be helped in your time of need as well. If you could, I would appreciate you emailing me at christyfaglie@yahoo.com if you gave us a donation. Please email me with your name and address and if you could- the amount you sent us. The reason being is that I wrote down all the info in my spiral and it was torn up by a little 19 month old boy and I need the information. So, please email me with the information. Thank you all so much for your continued support. We love all of you very much. Remember to email me with the information. I have something that I want to send to you. Even if you did not donate money, but sent a card or letter- please email me. I hope you enjoy the pictures- I will put more under Cami's tab if I can figure it out. **Happy 6 Months Baby Girl, you are loved by many**

Love,
Kevin, Christy, Cody & Cami

Still No Internet Access

Sorry, still do not have Internet access at the RMH. They still do not have the internet fixed. Camryn is doing okay though. I talked to the Doctor about putting in a G-tube so that she can eat. Right now she has an "ng"tube which goes down her nose into her tummy. I do not want her going home on that one though because She pulls at it and I am sure that Cody will as well and I do not want to have to put it back in repeatedly because it is not comfortable for her. So, I will update more on that later- I am at my cell phone company paying the bill and using their internet- so I have to go.

Much Love to you all,

Camryn Surgery Update

Cami came through surgery okay. Sorry I didn't update earlier but the RMH changed internet carriers and we do not have internet currently there. I will update more later- having to borrow someone elses computer to do this. I took a lot of pictures so as soon as I can- I will post them as well.

Thank you for your prayers!!

Pictures & Surgery Update

I was told tonight that Camryn's surgery has been moved to 9:45 am. So, I will be there very early in the morning to spend some time with my little superstar. She was soooooo happy tonight and I was impressed. The nurse mentioned that she had not been in such a "sunny" mood until I showed up. AHHHHH... I love my little Froggy girl :O) These pictures were taken tonight- her vision in one eye is coming back and I am beyond happy about that!!! She has to wear a patch on her good eye 3 hours a day to try and help her blind eye to work again. We shall see.... Well please keep my beautiful baby girl in your prayers (I know you do) Also, please keep a little boy named Samuel in your prayers as well- he went home to Jesus a couple of days ago and keep his mom in your prayers as well as she is not doing well at all. Also, keep Samuel's adoptive family in your prayers as well- they are hurting right now. They have lost their son.

I love all of you just as Jesus does. I do not judge and I am no where near perfect. My heart however, is always in the right spot.

Thanks for listening to my rambling. Please keep all in your prayers

Much Love

Surgery

Cami is scheduled to have surgery again on Friday. I am not sure of the time yet though- they are supposed to let me know today sometime. The Doctor is going to go in and widen her airway again. This will be the second surgery to do this. He will be able to tell us how well her body "took" it the last time as well. I am praying that over time her airway will stay open so that we can get rid of that horrible trach. For now Sissy is just on blood thinners for her heart issue. Will talk more about that later- I have got to get to bed now.

New Blog Design

Just wanted to let everyone know that my new blog was designed by Christie at http://bushelpeckdesigns.blogspot.com/

She does wonderful work (as you can tell by my fancy new blog) So, if you are interested in updating your blog and please let her know that I sent you her way.

I absolutely adore my new layout. It is so clean & uncomplicated.

Thanks Christie for all of your hard work!!!

Cami's Heart

I received a call at 5:21am telling that Cami has had a really rough night. She has been transported back to ICU. Cami was born with a hole in her heart on top of everything else and apparently while I thought they were staying on top of that- well, they weren't. She has the jerk cardiologist coming to see her this morning that I paid $1628.00 for her to see out of pocket when we were between insurance companies. Please keep her in your prayers- thanks

Grieving

I have been pretty wrapped up in my own life for quite some time. Enough time that I just noticed today that a very sweet little girl has lost her fight with Leukemia. I have been following this blog for a few years now http://thedailylois.blogspot.com/ Sweet Lois passed away on Feb 3rd. Rest in peace sweet baby girl. Fly with the Angels sweetheart. My best friend lost her little girl Chloe to Leukemia as well on 8/15/07. Chloe had just turned 2 in July of that year. Though Kristy is strong and knows that she will be with Sweet Chloe again I know that she still deeply mourns her passing. So, if you do not mind- please visit Lois's blog and offer a comment to her grieving family.

Thanks,

Christy

Time Flies

My favorite picture of me & Cami- she is so beautiful :)

Sorry I have not updated in a bit. It was not a purposeful evasion- more of a 19 month invasion, lol. Cody has been with me all week which means that my internet time is about zero. I haven't talked about Cody in quite a while. He is a very active little guy and when he is around- my attention is on him. Since we are at the Ronald McDonald House it is even more so since our room is small, he doesn't have all of his toys, no dogs to play with and no yard to roam. Today was my nephew Michael's 1st birthday party. I took Cody and he had fun and he got to run around in my brother & sil's back yard and it wore him down a bit. My mom and step dad took him afterward so that I can spend some time with my baby girl. Birthday parties are still hard for me though. I now have children, but my sister does not and I know that feeling entirely too well. So, my heart hurts for her and all of friends who face infertility issues as well. I haven't seen Cami in 3 days. Why? well because for 2 days I didn't feel well and then Cody did not- so I could not take a chance with Cami's health. I will be posting new pictures tomorrow though so that you can see her in all of her glory. Not sure if I posted it here yet- but Cami was moved from the ICU to the IMC. So, that is great news!! Still not sure how long she will be there- but it is a step down so that is great!! Well, will update again later.

Difference

The difference in my kids is quite significant. We knew before Cami was born that she would likely have learning issues and be behind. I guess I just didn't know how much. While things have come easy to Cody- Cami has to fight for everything. I guess that is the way it will always be. Do I love her less or any differently than Cody- of course not. I thank God every day that he gave Cami to me because she is truly a blessing to us. We Love her and are happy to be her parents. I am happy that Cody will be there for his sister (I hope he will) However, with that being said I hope that Cami will not have the trach very long. I hope that her body wins this war and that the trach will be removed.