Untitled 3

Lorena's 1st Christmas

January 3, 2009

Hello Everyone,

As the year is drawing to a close I can not help but reflect on this past year. It was not only the most difficult year of our lives but also the most blessed year. With hearts filled with thankfulness to our Lord for having blessed us so richly with 3 wonderful children. Through the most difficult times in our lives the Lord gave us strength. This year started with much worry and many tears over our little girl but as this year is ending we have a little girl here who fills our house with joy and laughter. What a truly precious year this has been.

I am thrilled to be able to say that Lorena has made great progress in these last 2 months. A lot of things have happened in these past 2 months both development wise and with her eating.

On November 2nd Lorena figured out how to wave to people.

On November 5th Lorena's 1st tooth poked through and now she has her 6th tooth almost poking through already. First her bottom 2 came through. Then usually the top middle teeth would come in but with Lorena it was a very unusual that she got the teeth beside the middle once first. So Lorena has been teething a lot these last months. It was funny because Janita was experiencing discomfort too from getting a wisdom tooth in at the same time and so we were bugging her that both our girls were teething.

On November 12th Janita went for an eye appointment and found out that she too needs glasses. More glasses for Lorena to pull off. She always grabs them off their face as her little hands are so fast.

On November 18th we were in the hospital again for her feeding problems and a big change was implemented. Lorena would no longer get fortified milk. She had been growing well and was no longer on the bottom of the growth curve. This meant it was now save to try to starve her a bit in the hope of getting her to drink her bottles and get her off the NG tube. She would get her milk like normal kids without fortifying it to make it more calories. She was getting 25% less calories. At 1st there was no progress, she still did not take her bottles but we did notice a change in eating her solids. Were as 1st she would not open her mouth and we sort of pried a spoon between her lips to get something in then she started to actually open her mouth wider and wider. She started to enjoy eating and now she is actually leaning forward with an open mouth for her food. Also she started to want more and more and we keep on increasing the portions she is eating. On Nov. 18 she was still only taking 20 to 30 ml of solids but today she is eating around 80 to 90 ml of solid foods per meal. We have also seen an improvement in her not being so picky anymore as to what we feed her. She is eating what ever we give her including all the veggies she did not like before. Also she has started to make great progress and is actually drinking about half of most of her bottles now. Still not enough to take away the NG tube yet but for the 1st time it is looking very hopeful. What was also very encouraging for us was that with this change of no longer giving her the fortified milk, she no longer spits up at all but the biggest improvement was that we could drip in the bottle in half the usual time, just 30 minutes now. This was a very welcome change indeed as it was getting so hard to sit with her for 1 to 1 1/2 hours per feed and actually keep her from getting bored and restless. This was giving us some time back again and for the first time we felt like Lorena was becoming more like a normal baby for the hours of care we had to give her.

On November 25 Lorena figured out how to start sitting up by herself after crawling. Lorena is currently crawling very fast and loves to walk around as long as she can still hold our fingers yet.

On November 28 Lorena started to eat whole Gerber graduates (kind of like little cereal pieces except these melt better in her mouth). This is a big improvement as before we would give her just tiny pieces and she would choke and spit up. She hated anything that was not smooth. Still now we feed her mostly smooth food but we are introducing more food with less smooth texture now. These Gerber graduates have helped her to learn how to chew.

In December Lorena has learned to pull her self up on her knees. She has been waving at lots of people and was imitating us and would shake her head in the no motion and yes motion. It was funny how on our visit to see a doctor in the hospital Lorena was shaking her head no when the doctor was having conversation with us and shook her head no. It was so distracting to the doctor that she quit the conversation with us for a bit to focus on Lorena. We all had a good laugh. Lorena is making some effords to sound like she is making real talk but it is off course just baby talk.

At the beginning of December we all went to get flue shots. The doctor recommended it and because of Lorena's situation they were free to all of us.

As is our tradition we opened Christmas gifts on Christmas eve. Lorena I think liked playing with the wrapping more then the gifts it self. She was fascinated by the Christmas tree and all the pretty ornaments and wanted to touch them every time we walked by the tree with her.

Christmas day was a nice quiet day and for the 1st time in years we celebrated it with the 5 of us. It was a very nice and relaxing day and we all enjoyed it very much.

On December 29th we took Lorena into the Hospital again for her 1st RSV shot. Lorena qualified for one more season for these shots and off course we want to do everything to try to keep her healthy. Lorena is bigger now then last year so now she gets a needle in each leg. She was so relaxed and suddenly they poked 2 needles in at the same time and she cried like never before, I think because it caught her totally off guard. Lorena gets a booster shot soon and then an other RSV shot each month until the cold season is over.

December 31st on New years eve we had a big celebration. We invited a lot of our friends over and had a house full with 30 people. Lorena did not make it until midnight and we put her to bed around 9 pm. We bought lots of sparkles and Janita & Jeremy and all their friends had a blast. It sure looked pretty all those sparkles in the back yard. We were going to buy some fire works to light but we found out it is illegal to do any fireworks in Calgary. It was very special to end the year with many of our friends around us.

Now it is already January and a new year has begun. In just less then 2 weeks on January 16th Lorena will be a year old already. We can hardly believe it. I can't help but wonder what this year will bring. We continue to see doctors at the children's hospital and continue to pray for healing of her heart and eating difficulties. When we last went in on Dec. 29th we found out that she did not gain any weight, this is not a big concern as we are making progress in getting her more interested in eating however it is also important for her heart that she would continue to grow. So in January we started to add a table spoon of margarine to her food in order to give her more calories and hopefully it will help her to grow again.

Lorena is also interested in trying little sips of juice or water from a cup, sippy cup and has even learned to drink from a straw a little. Still these are just tiny amounts but it is a start and it is looking positive. We read on the internet that feeding problems are a most frustrating thing for parents and believe me we understand them and so all these little improvements seem huge to us.

As we start a New year we want to wish all of you much happiness and the very best for this coming year. Thank you all for all the support you have given us in this past year. We will never forget and always be grateful for all the support we received and all the prayers at a most difficult time in our lives. God has answered and He has been good to us.

We wish you a Blessed New Year

from Lodewyk, Rena, Janita, Jeremy & Lorena