Answered Prayer

We are not "out of the woods" yet, but this morning's sonogram brought a real sigh of relief. In fact, we have seen God's fingerprints all over EVERYTHING that's happened since Friday afternoon's initial worry.

The sonogram went perfectly well. Avery took a bottle and was VERY still throughout the process. Her fontanelle (soft spot) was still open enough for them to get a clear view of the brain and the technician was able to take 39 pictures to be sent to the Radiologist for analysis. On the spot, the technician was able to say (after heavy disclaimer reminding us that he was not the doctor) that her ventricles seemed a little dilated, but he would say she was within a normal range. He also said he didn't see any growths or tumors. (PRAISE GOD!)

Avery's pediatrician has already called us at home and his first words were literally, "Prayers were answered." (So thankful for a pediatrician who is also a believer in the power of prayer.) Dr. Nale still wants to go forward with the MRI on May 9th, and we agree. He said that the difference between analyzing the sonogram pictures and seeing MRI images are like trying to view it on your Granny's old black and white TV versus seeing it on a new plasma screen in high definition. The MRI will just give us a much clearer picture of her beautiful little brain (he didn't say "beautiful"... I'm taking some motherly creative license...) and we will know from that if there is ANY reason to be concerned. It was wonderful to hear him say, "The sense of urgency that I felt on Friday is no longer there."

Friends and family.... LOOK what your prayers to a Sovereign, Almighty God have done for our little family! Thank you for going to your knees for us. We may never be able to find the right words to thank you for your sweet prayers and words of encouragement during the past few days. We appreciate your continued prayer support throughout the MRI on May 9th, and we will keep everyone posted until then! We are truly blessed by each of you.

Resting in God's GOODNESS,
Stephanie, Collin and Avery Poage (Howie too!) :)

Encouragement

THANK YOU for your wonderful encouraging e-mails, voicemails, spoken and written words, scripture references, and mostly for your prayer!

We feel "prayed-over" today. Avery is having a wonderful, bright sunshiny day! Looking in her eyes, I keep thinking that everything is okay. That's our prayer.

Feeling VERY loved and lifted up--
Poages

We covet your prayers...

Life can change so suddenly.... I probably won't proofread this, so please forgive me if it's typo-filled and scatterbrained.

At Avery's routine check-up today, her measurements raised some red flags with her pediatrician. For those of you who understand the percentile structure, Avery was 50% on length which was fine, 10% on weight which was odd, and OVER 95th percentile on head circumference which is alarming with such a low weight. Up until now, it had been a little bit of a joke that her head was large since Collin and I both had bigger heads as babies. But with head-growth spiking as weight plummets, her doctor expressed concern that there may be an issue.

Avery will need to have an MRI to receive a diagnosis, and the earliest we could get her scheduled for an MRI was Wednesday, May 9th. There are a number of things that could be occurring here, but the doctor speculates it's Hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain." We have a sonogram scheduled for Monday morning, April 30th. The sonogram could possibly show confirmation of Hydrocephalus, but the MRI will give the doctors a clearer picture of exactly what's going on. An MRI is inevitable. If the sono shows nothing, they'll do it as a precautionary measure. If the sono shows "something" they'll do it to see exactly what we're dealing with.

They will put Avery under anesthesia for the MRI, which will be difficult to watch as her parents. If she does have Hydrocephalus, there is treatment. They will go into her skull and put in a shunt/tube which will remain in her body to redirect the collecting fluid and drain it out through her natural waste. (Frightening to think of this surgery, but we are so thankful to at least know that there is treatment!)

This is all very unexpected/shocking/hard to absorb at this moment, but Collin and I are resting in God's peace and we know that all of this has passed through His hands. This surprised us today-- but it didn't surprise God. There's PEACE in knowing that. It's the kind of peace that allows me to type this with tears running down my cheeks/chin/neck when all I really want to do is go peer into Avery's crib as she sleeps... I may be there all night. I hurt. I'm scared. I'm sad. I don't want anything to be wrong with my precious, seemingly-healthy daughter's brain. Nevertheless-- I have peace.

What keeps coming to mind as all of this sets in is something that was laid on my heart weeks, maybe months ago... That God brought Avery through us, not to us. Avery is not ours-- She is God's child. We are praying (and we ask you to pray with us) that the MRI shows a completely healthy baby girl, and that all this worry is for nothing. But even if it does show something is wrong, our position is..... Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Our sincere appreciation for your prayer,
Stephanie, Collin and Avery

Bed Head!

Being a Mom is so strange at times... Mainly because the weirdest, most random things can completely melt your heart. Today I experienced this very thing.

Avery has had a rough couple of nights this week (probably more teeth coming in) and the exhaustion must have finally sunk in because she CRASHED this afternoon and took a long, hard nap. When she woke up all cheery and smiley, I couldn't keep my eyes off of her and her cute little "bed-head" hair! She must have slept on it wrong because I couldn't smooth it... but honestly I didn't care... it was really cute!

Here's a video of her duck-tails hair, and it also shows her sitting up for a couple of seconds! :) (And then she topples over and you'll hear me assure my mother that the edge of the bed is further away than it appears!) :) We all survived!

Bootie-Scootin Boogie!

One step closer to crawling for Avery! She SCOOTS, and she goes backwards, but still it's a form of transportation and it involves hands and knees... so it counts. I hope you have time to watch the top video (2 minutes) that was my attempt at catching the "scoot" on tape. I kept talking and distracting her though, so it's not a very fluid scoot... Must learn to keep quiet while trying to video tape Avery. If you don't have 2 minutes to spare, check out the sped-up version below. We did this for laughs... but it's kind of fun to watch and hits the high points of the full version. (Also, it's oddly reminiscent of my own baby home videos on 8mm film... Sped-up with no sound. Gotta love the early 80's!)

Special thanks to Glen for helping us get these videos to a size that could be posted on the blog! The Grandparents would hug you if they could! They love these videos.

Hope everyone's doing well!

Shower "Power Nap"

This post isn't particularly dignified or news-worthy... but I had a few cute pictures I wanted to post and I thought I should also share the story behind them.

Well, it hasn't happened yet... but Avery is REALLY working towards crawling and at any moment our world could completely change from "She stays where we put her" to "Where in the world is she?! Check the doggie door!"

Now usually this isn't a problem -- the situation that Avery is becoming "mobile" more and more -- because I can keep an eye on her and scoot her back to the middle of the blanket and away from Howie's toys, etc. However, it gets tricky when it's time for me to hop in the shower and there's nobody to keep an eye on our little wiggle-worm. (Howie isn't exactly "babysitter" material.) So I had to resort to putting her in her bouncy seat in front of a Veggie Tales video so that I could feel confident she'd be in the same place I left her when I was through.

When I came back to see if she was still watching, she was napping. But this was no ordinary nap... She was napping like a cute little old man reclining on a Sunday afternoon with her hands folded in her lap and her little head tilted to the side as if on purpose. I thought it was precious! I had to share... No offense to Veggie Tales, of course! I'm sure it was a very entertaining (yet soothing) video.

I'm dreaming of a White.... EASTER??

Ahhhhh... Nothing says "Easter" like being curled up in the living room under a warm blanket watching the snow flurries outside the window and sipping a hot cup of coffee. ...Wait... What?! Sounds crazy, but it's true! SNOW. In TEXAS. In April! Somehow it just felt more like Christmas than Easter, didn't it? Strange...

We invited my Mom and Dad in town for the weekend and had great plans to go see "Dallas Blooms" at the Arboretum, but the weather had a different agenda. Nevertheless, we found lots of ways to make Avery's first Easter a memorable one. (Special thanks to Northpark Mall, Dudley's Dye, Cream of Tartar and Charlie Brown.)

It's always amazing to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and to reflect on what this holiday means. I hope everyone had an incredible Easter Sunday!... Snow and all!

Avery in Aggieland!

The wonderful thing about being a "stay-home Mom" is that you don't HAVE to stay home! :)

Collin had to go to College Station on a recruiting trip last Monday and Tuesday, so Avery and I decided to tag along! Avery had never seen the city where her Mom and Dad went to school, dated, etc... and it was prime time to introduce her to Aggieland! We were barely there for 24 hours, so we didn't get to see or do very much, but we visited some friends and got to see the Bonfire Memorial which was very special to me since my first "real job" was in the Bonfire Memorial Design Competition Office. It's amazing to see it finished! For so long it was just an idea.

We'll have to go back to College Station again soon. I had forgotten how wonderful it is... What a peaceful break from the "big city" lifestyle! It was wonderful.