Photographic evidence

Babies are born everyday. Mom's get pregnant and nine months later a perfect beautiful baby is born. We have all heard stories of perfect and healthy babies being born to mothers that did not do anything we all hear we should do to ensure a healthy pregnancy. Babies come in hospitals, in taxi cabs, in an aisle at the local walmart, at home, in tubs of water, in public restrooms, in 3rd world countries with no medical care, in sterilized delivery rooms and in the most unclean places imaginable. Birth is an everyday occurrence and one that we all see and hear about so often that we often forget about the MIRACLE that is a baby. A miracle straight from God that no man can ever recreate. A miracle that no man can fully explain. A miracle that man has taken for granted so horribly that it has become to mean nothing to so many people. A miracle that is often looked at as a mistake or a problem that we can choose to destroy if we so desire. Oh, the tears that God must shed each time one of his precious miracles is looked upon in such a way. As if the pricelessness of a newborn baby is not miracle enough to prove the existence of an Almighty Creator, he sends an even more evident miracle as further proof for us fool hearted humans to again show us His love, mercy, protection and power. For our family, that evidence arrived 7 years ago-January 25, 2003-14 weeks earlier than expected in the form of our perfect and beautiful 2 pound 4 ounce Kalysa Glori. Every time Kalysa has another birthday, I can not help but spend the day marveling at the wonderful Lord that we serve that (for some unknown reason) thought me worthy enough for Him to hand deliver my own personal package of perfection as a way to prove to me even further of the love He has for me and to remind me of the faith that He so longs for me to have in Him.

I thought I would share with you some of the photographic evidence I have collected that is proof positive that I serve an Awesome God!!

At 20 days old on her very first Valentine's day. The nurse had put heart sheets on her tiny incubator mattress and a precious little bow in her hair before we arrived for our daily visit. Not long before I got to the hospital, Kalysa ripped her ventilator tube out and was breathing well on her own so they did not put it back in(one of 3 times she ripped it out before it stayed out for good). This was the first time I got to see her entire perfect face unobstructed. I could not have held back the tears with the Hoover Dam when I saw her laying there. Unfortunately, after several hours on her own, she was getting really tuckered out working so hard to breath that the ventilator had to go back on later that day so she could get some rest.

When the ventilator tubes were removed for good (at about 5 weeks) we were able to spend our visitation times actually holding our tiny baby. This was the first time I got to hold her whole little body in my arms, and yet another day that the Hoover Dam would have been no use! We finally were able to participate in all diaper changes and dressing her up and getting her ready to learn to suck and breath at the same time so that she could go home.

Home from the hospital at 69 days and up to 4 pounds and 9 ounces. This was still about 3 1/2 weeks before she was even due to be born. Here she is all dressed up in her first Easter dress. You can see the wires from the apnea monitor she was sent home with. She stayed strapped to the monitor(meaning I was also strapped to carrying that stupid thing around) for about 5 months as a precautionary measure. She did not need it at all. It did not go off one single time for any medical reason but as she got a little bigger she was able to move around enough and twist the connectors that were detecting her breaths out of line just enough to send that awful siren blaring through our house. I tell ya-no one would have been able to sleep through that if there ever had been a real emergency!

With Keslee being only about a week from her 1st birthday when we finally brought Kalysa home, she kinda thought she got a new baby doll. She was the same little mothering soul then that she is today. Kalysa always wanted to be moving and Keslee was more than happy to be sure the baby's swing did not stop moving or to set and lightly bounce the bouncy seat every time the batteries died on the vibration function. She was always so gentle with her new baby but I still was not confident in her ability enough to actually let her push her around in the little shopping cart. Although she REALLY wanted to, we just used it as a photo op! Kalysa would have been about 3 months old in this picture.

As a comparison, we used the same little shopping cart when Kalysa turned one year old. She still fit just not as comfortably!

As soon as Kalysa came home from the hospital, she had an occupational therapist that came to the house twice a month to work with her and help us to make sure she was meeting each of the normal milestones. At birth they told us it was possible that she may be blind or deaf or have any number of mental delays that would last a life time. Her therapist came until she turned 3 years old and then we sent her to a special ed 3 year old pre-k class for about 3 hours a few times a week. At 3 years old, she was the only kid in the class that did not have to have speech therapy(which is a very common need-the ventilator tube pressed up on the roof of her mouth for the first 5 weeks of her life and basically reshaped it. It is very high!). Her teachers agreed that she really had no special needs but they loved her so much that they did not want to disqualify her from the class. She worked on ABCs and writing her name while the others did various therapy sessions.

At 4 years old it was so evident that there were no mental delays that the special ed teachers were forced to give her up and let her go to a regular pre-k class.

She loved going to school and was sad when she did not have homework like her brother did. She was the only one of the 3 kids that was not so sure about our decision to pull them out and begin our homeschool adventures. Of course when UPS delivered our first big box of curriculum and she saw all the fun "homework" that was just for her, she lost that apprehension and got excited! She was our first homeschool graduate when she finished her first homeschool year and got Kindergarten graduation pictures made.

Now here she sits, on our bathroom counter seven years after we first met her, awaiting a birthday present that she has been longing for for months......

BANGS! I think I got them a little short because she was to excited to sit still but they will grow out a little and be perfect. She loved them....especially after I pulled the rest of her hair back into a pony tale and her sister looked at her with awe and love and said "Oh Kalysa! You look just like a cheerleader!" Now what 7 year old wouldn't want to hear a compliment like that?!?

SEVEN YEARS! I just can't believe it has been seven years since we were given the miracle that completed our family. I can't believe that after seven years and as many pictures as I like to take, Kalysa has still not learned the art of the fake smile for the camera! This goofy scrunched up grin(or a super wide, all teeth showing, eyes bulging out smile) is what we have always gotten when we try to make her smile for a picture. With her smiles it is either real or nothing even close to looking real. :)