Following the Call....

We received a call for another little baby boy that needs a home...he was born premature as he is a premie and was born on 9/6/2011....he is a twin.  For many days mom and dad visited him and his sister in the NICU in LA....until OCT 26...yes many days after he was born, and they found out he has down syndrome.  He has no visible traits so nobody tested him, why would they?  Mom is in her early 20s.  Then he began to have a hard time eating and they realized he had a hole in his heart, leading them to eventually test for ds.  As soon as mom and dad found out, they stopped visiting :(.  Mom is very attached, but they have filed for adoption as they do not want to parent him, only his sister.  We are willing to bring this precious little boy into our home, but we need to go to LA.  He will be having heart surgery probably the same day as Eli, crazy huh???  We would not need to be to LA until before Christmas as we need to be here with Elijah boo.  Sooo, we need to raise close to 2000 to bring this munchkin home (we do have a grant, but his fee goes a bit above this) ....do you have a heart for adoption for special needs kids?  So many of you have helped with Eli, we hesitate to ask again....but this baby boy needs a family!!  Our paypal is located at the top left corner, would you consider helping us?  Thank you!!!

Update From the Heart of Caleb....

Please if you are reading the blog right now, please pray that Eli's heart will be healed before his surgery. It would mean so much to me and my family and Eli has been progressing very well.  He has been smiling, breathing normally, and much more amazing things that he shouldn't be able to do until his heart is healed.   So, this is the update from my heart, Caleb.

P.S. Eli has grown into our family very well.  Now he is the cutest little baby we all know and we love him very much and that is it.  By the way from now on, there will be a weekly update from Caleb's heart.  Goodbye....

Update from Mommy....Gosh I love that Caleb!!!!  What a heart for his family and God :)  Brings such smiles and warming to this mamas heart!!!

Eli's surgery has been rescheduled for Dec 1st...we go for a cardio appt tomorrow, will update with any new news.

Getting Ready to Come Home....Or At Least We Thought.....

We were able to go back up to the NICU after our huge fiasco with Elis BM changing her mind....what a joy it was to look into his little face and bright eyes and know he was mine.  Yet, my heart ached, so badly for his birth mom.  I can't imagine the pain she was feeling!! I held and rocked Eli for a few hours and found it very hard to leave him there in the NICU but knew all the nurses would love on him in our absence.

Nick and Leslie were awesome and offered to keep Caleb on Saturday so David and I could go up together to be with Eli alone.  Caleb wasn't allowed in the NICU accept for scheduled visits so he was having a really hard time, he wanted to meet his brother!!!

David and I went and stayed the day with Eli and were given "lessons" on all of his care, which really was just his g tube.  But on this day, I got him to take an entire bottle!!  They nurses were amazed.  The plan at this point was for him to come back with us to Nick and Leslies on Monday and we would probably be released to come back to NY around Wed or Thursday.

That weekend we stayed at the Ronald McDonald house for two nights so I could go to the hospital through the night and feed Eli.  (We were staying about 30-40 min from the hospital).  The RM house is great!!  It is $10 a night and you have chores to help with the daily upkeep of the house.  There is always food and often people volunteer their time to come cook for the families there.  This is on my list of volunteer opportunities when Eli is a bit older.

When we went back to Nick and Leslie's on Sun night we were excited to think that Eli would be coming home with us in the morning.

David called morning and night to talk to Eli's nurses to get an update on his care, however, this mornings update was not what we wanted to hear.  Eli had blood in his stool and they were thinking he had an infection.  After much testing, it was confirmed and he was going to have to be off food for 10 days and then slowly reintroduced....our stay just got extended by at least 12-14 days......


ELI UPDATE.....Surgery is on Nov 16th at Strong Memorial Hospital.  We are trying to raise funds to get stay near the hospital and for David to be able to get back and forth everyday for the 7-14 days he will be in there.  If you feel led to help us we have an auction on Facebook under A Place in Your Heart for Eli.  OR you can use our paypal button, but please specify what you are donating for as our paypal goes directly to our adoption fund, but they will release the $ to us if you specify it is for surgery!  Thanks and I will update this blog daily during our hospital stay....