Christmas Time

Saturday, June 21, 2008

friday, saturday, sunday...

friday ross and i celebrated 10 years of marriage! 10 years ago neither of us could have fathomed the road that lay ahead of us. great joys and great sorrows, easy days and hard ones, plenty and want...you get the picture. i love this man and would not want to have anyone else by my side than him.

for our anniversary we went to a restaurant called zinburger. it was great and we would totally recommend it to any of you here in town. during the summer between 5 & 7 all wine is half off by the glass or by the bottle. it had a great casual atmosphere and fantastic zucchini fries!

friday was a great day for us. we were able to go spend the morning with ramey and hear what awesome progress she is making. we met with a geneticist who was nerdy giddy with excitement about us. evidently there are no known reports of families who have two children with pulmonary hypertension and the other complications that both ramey and henry have had. next week a specific gene will be tested in relation to the adult gene for pulmonary hypertension. if there is a link then henry will need to be tested too. ross and i most likely carry some recessive gene that probably has effected the kids. all i know is that my God is bigger than genetics!

after lunch we went back to the house and picked up henry to take him to meet his newest baby sister. what a precious time it was to see him with her. he was pretty nervous at first- ramey is at the end of a pretty long bay that has many babies and many tubes. once by her bedside he asked us what we do when we are with her. i told him that we talk to her, to each other, pray and even sing. he immediately reached for my hand and then he said, "let's pray right now."

after a busy friday i realized that i totally over did it. saturday was a nice slower pace. our friend tonya came over and stayed with the kids for several hours and we were able to go back up to be with ramey. while we were there she was waking up from the paralytic that they turned off. she was moving her hands and her feet. when we would look at her face she would try lifting her eyebrows to open her eyes. it was so cute!

after coming back up from lunch i looked down at my girl and there they were, her open eyes. she was looking around a little. ross and i took turns talking to her and staring into those precious little eyes. her blood pressure (not a bad thing) would go up as we would talk to her. i didn't want to go home!

today, sunday, her eyes were open even more! she is doing so well. she is still coming off of her meds and ventilators. our guess is that she may come home in the next 2 weeks if not a little sooner. i am looking forward to holding her again. i just want to lay her head on my chest and smell her hair for as long as i want to.

here are some specific prayer requests for us-
1. pray that the nurse practioner would be able to get a new arterial line into her arm tonight. it didn't work earlier and so they will try again here soon and try for her arm again or her leg.
2. pray that ramey would continue to heal and respond well to the weening process that the dr. has her on.
3. pray that my body would make drastic improvements on the healing front as well. i am having some chest congestion that is hard to cough up with all my other pain.
4. pray for ross as he returns to work tomorrow morning- he would prefer to stay home till ramey gets home but that just isn't possible.

answered prayer-
1. the swelling in ramey's left leg is drastically better. the ultrasound did not show a blood clot so it seems to be dependant edema and it is resolving.


here is a picture of ramey from her one week birthday. enjoy!!

6 comments:

laurie said...

I am so grateful that you and Ross had some time together on Friday! Your marriage is such a blessing to us. And what tremendous strides Ramey is making..Praise God!! We will keep praying those specific needs as well as for everyone in your family to feel connected and loved during this transition. Love you guys!!!

Unknown said...

Mandy- you are amazing. A C-Section is hard enough to recover from and then you're taking care of your amazing family and taking time to celebrate your marriage! We serve an amazing God, thank you for letting Him shine through you! You and baby Ramey and the whole Newman Crew are in our prayers!

Ericka said...

Praise God for those 10 amazing years!! Isn't it amazing to see all that God carries us through? You are an awesome woman of God whom I aspire to be more like. Ramey is beautiful & I am so thankful for all the progress she makes.

Elizabeth said...

Happy Anniversary, Newman's. I'm so glad you and Ramey are doing better. I'll be continuing to pray for you all.

Unknown said...

Dear Mandy and Ross, I am praising God for His tender care of you and Ramey. I continue to pray for you both that God will pour His strength and wholeness into your bodies.

With love,
Jan Persons

The Hamiltons said...

Mandy- We have been praying for you all. We were on vacation last week but Barbara keep me up to date. I was so glad to get home and read all of your blogs. Your strength amazes me. We will continue to pray for you all and can't what to see the whole family together.