Super Sunday

Hello everyone. So I know many of you were as excited for the Super Bowl as I was. Rachel was sweet enough to suggest I go join some friends and watch the game with them instead of staying at the hospital, but there was no way I was gonna leave my ladies and go to a Super Bowl party. Instead we had a mini Super Bowl bash in Ella's hospital room. Check-out me and my lil precious enjoying some BLT flavored chips. Yeah that's right BLT FLAVORED! So football aside Ariella had a good day and has been sleeping peacefully because we were able to get her overnight respiratory treatment done before 8 pm and we also did not have any trouble with placing the breathing mask on her. Once we got her on the ventilator she passed right out. We definitely need to be sure we get her over night treatment done on time moving forward, it makes a huge difference.

On another note I need to share something else with you all. I cannot say for certain I understand why it is we have been selected to carry this cross. It's easy to say something like, 'we are the best parents for Ariella' or 'she will bring us closer together and closer to God' and that may very well be, but I can't help but it think, there must have been an easier way to achieve that goal. But all that is besides the point; since we have been chosen to go through this I might as well share some of the lessons we have picked up along the way. The most important piece of learning this journey has taught us so far is that no one knows your child better than you and therefore you are the boss. God bless the men and women who dedicate themselves to studying the human body so that they can attempt to help preserve our health. Bless them for investing all of the time and resource and effort to become doctors, nurses, therapists, etc. These are incredibly intelligent people with lots of knowledge and ability. They are experts in their fields, but they are not the expert of your babies. You are the expert of your child/ren and if you are not comfortable with the direction that your child's/dren's care is going you change course. This may sound intuitive or even obvious to some of you, but I can tell you before this experience it was something I would have not considered. In some respects I was probably the ideal patient or parent of a patient because I put a lot of confidence in men and women with more education than me, when in reality no one has more education when it comes to our children than us. Rachel has understood this from day one and as a result Ariella's care is based on her specific needs.

Children are God's most valuable blessing and every parent is entrusted to treasure them for the little bit of time that we have them because every parent also understands they do not stay children and they do not stay ours for long. They grow up, they move out, they fall in love and then they belong to someone else. While they are ours we must treasure them and that means telling someone who went to school for a lot longer than you, who knows more about medicine than you that you disagree with their plan, if you do, and that you want to do something different. You are the boss of your children and no one on earth knows them better than you.