Sunday May 26, 2013

The little warrior continues to make great strides in her progress and development. Her latest efforts include rolling over on to her stomach and than onto her back again with great ease. She is able to roll to her left with almost no hesitation; she still has a little difficulty rolling to her right. She has started to learn to pull herself up when she falls on her back. Actually it's really cute, if Ella is sitting up and falls to her back, one of us will extend a hand for her to grab, she grabs our hand and uses it as a lever to pull herself up and once she is back to sitting upright she claps her hands to applaud herself for her efforts. It is one of the cutest things you will ever see, we have to try and get some video of it. We did, however, include a video from family dinner earlier this week, where Ella was showing off by copying her mom and brother by flexing in her muscles. Below you will find the video along with a couple of pictures taken by our very good friend Miguel, who is more than an amateur photographer. As you can see the baby is amazing, she is so much fun and such a good time. Everyday she is making incredible strides. Keeping praying and please keep checking the blog for regular updates.

Plus One Defense Systems

As this is Ariella's blog we are very careful not to muddy the waters with a lot of non-Ella related content. In this case, however, we feel ok letting you know about an exciting development for one of Ella's lead investors. Plus One Defense System (www.teamplusone.com), voted by the Hartford Advocate reader's poll as the number one Martial Arts Center in the region, is celebrating the grand opening of its new 9,000 sqr ft facility in West Hartford. We want to congratulate Darin Riesler, Sensei and Owner of Plus One and the rest of the Plus One family on moving into their new state-of-the-art facility. The new school is equipped with an MMA cage, boxing ring, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training space, full fitness gym and traditional Martial Arts training space. We pray God's blessings on Plus One Defense. They have been a tremendous blessing to our family and we are so excited to see them grow. If you are looking for a place to train, grow, connect or just hang out please visit Plus One Defense Systems, 9 Tolles St. West Hartford, CT.

To further illustrate what an incredible man of God my Sensei is, as part of the opening ceremony Sensei asked people to bring cans of non-perishable food products to be donated after the grand opening. Please read the testimony of how God used Sensei Riesler to be a blessing to yet another family with the donated food.

Sensei e-mailed this to some of us this morning - 

"Yesterday, after the grand opening was finished, I put the donated food into my truck, and Mar and I left to go home.  Short version... I ended up going to some churches in an effort to try and give the food and non-perishable items to one of them.  They were all closed.  After going to enough closed doors, I said a prayer that God would help me give the food to where it was supposed to go.  The very next church I went to was obviously open.  The parking lot was packed and there were cars parked on the street.  So, I parked, and I started to walk inside.  I was stopped by a man who was driving (I think with another member of his family) and I was asked if I knew what time services were.  I told him that I did not know, and we got to talking for a minute, and it turned out that he was coming to the church that day to talk with the pastor to see if the church could help him... because he needed food.  (You can see where this going.)  I ended up giving him all of the food.  In the process of doing this, the man said something like, "This is more than I need.  I don't need this much food."  I told him that, as he came to the church because he wanted to talk to the pastor about his need for food... now he could go into the church and tell the pastor that he was there because he had more food than he needed."

What an amazing man of God he is, please pray for Sensei Darin and Marlene Riesler and the rest of the Plus One Defense team (www.teamplusone.com).

Tuesday May 21, 2013

I realize it has been some time since our last posting. Our precious little warrior has been fighting off a cold the last several days. Thank God it has not been anything too serious, but the extra mucus and runny nose has presented some challenges for the baby overnight. Because her nose is running she has been getting post nasal drip down the back of her throat while she is sleeping, which has resulted in her vomiting when she gets her treatments and suctioning. It hasn't been an issue during the day and we are happy to report it has been better the last two nights. We believe God that the cold is passing and Ella is doing much better. We also wanted to let you know that Ella's eating training and speech pathology appointments are going very well. She has been able to actually eat very small amounts of baby food and has been clearing her own secretions if/when she gets junky. That is one of the most exciting developments in her overall improvement and it is a reason to give God great praise.

Monday May 13, 2013

After a weekend of celebration and acknowledgement Ariella decided she was going to punctuate the festivities with another first. For the first time in her life Ariella was able to support herself in a crawling position on fours. This is something we have been working on for a while, Dad decided to prop Ella up on all fours and support her chest to help strengthen her arms, shoulders and back. It was a technique we learned in the hospital. Usually we can get Ella up onto her hands and knees, but usually she will kick her legs out or she won't be able to support her upper body, not this time. This as soon as dad propped Ella up on all fours, she stayed there, strong and sturdy and resilient. This was going to be the day when she wouldn't immediately fall or weaken; this day she was going to declare once again through her strength in Christ Jesus - I Am More Than A Conqueror!

Happy Mother's Day

I don't imagine there are too many women when they first learn that they are pregnant consider all the ways in which their bodies are going to change. One of Rachel's doctors described it as a foreign entity invading her body and taking over from the inside out. That's fairly accurate. Neither one of us fully appreciated the extent to which this would radically impact Rachel and to make matters worse I would perpetuate this false notion that there was no possible way God would allow Rachel to have anything, but a perfect pregnancy,labor and delivery. I was very wrong, but that didn't mean God wasn't with us.

Rachel carried our precious daughter for 41 weeks and endured a very challenging pregnancy. As if that wasn't enough she then endured 36 hours of labor in the hopes that she could have a natural birth; not realizing Ella's initial condition would make that impossible. After a day and a half of laboring, my Wonder Woman under went a C-section operation that would also have a lasting impact on her body, in order to deliver our daughter. 

Throughout this blog we often refer to Ariella as our little warrior or little conqueror and quite frankly for her to be reaching the milestones that she has along this journey she has to be a warrior, a Christ ordained fighter, conquering all manner of challenges. Yet, when we consider everything that her mom endured to get her here is not hard to see where Ella got her warrior's spirit. 

Today we not only celebrate Rachel's first biological Mother's Day, but we celebrate all the other mothers that had no clue what they were signing up for when they first took the test that resulted in those two parallel lines. This goes out to Gavin's mom and Corbin's mom and all the moms from the nemaline myopathy facebook group. This Mother's Day we salute mom's who decided not to terminate their babies even though the doctor's told them that their child's life was going to be full of adversity. For every mom who decided being a mom doesn't entitle you to an easy life, but it does mean you are going to love someone more than anyone else has ever loved before and certainly more than that little person could ever possibly love you in return. And for the moms that were blessed with a standard, boring, uneventful pregnancy and delivery don't apologize or feel guilty for that, bless God for it because being a mom comes with enough other challenges that entitle you to recognition and celebration today as well. 

Ella and her Nana, Ruth L. Davis

This goes out to my mom, Ruth Loving Davis, one of my heroes and a great mother in her own right. I am who I am today because of the values and beliefs that my mother deposited in me from birth. When others tried to speak curses and death over me she spoke blessings and life. Today my mother is my prayer partner, confidant and role model. Today we celebrate moms like Ruth, who managed to defy the odds and produce two quality guys who fear God and try to obey His Word.
 



Wonder Woman and her litle Warrior

And to my Wonder Woman, my first conqueror, to the warrior that has been modeling warrior behavior for our daughter from day one, Rachel I salute and celebrate you today. Thank you for never giving up, thank you for continuing to fight. Thank you opening our eyes to see that being a mom sometimes means instead of staying home to care for our child you have go to work everyday in a difficult situation to provide the much needed income and medical benefits our daughter currently can't live without. Thank you for serving as a role to other mothers who feel guilty for not being able to be there for their children the way they have been told all of their lives they were supposed to be. Thank you for being mom the bread winner, mom the provider, mom the more than a conqueror. To Rachel and all the other mothers reading this today, Happy Mother's Day, the Botts Family celebrates you.






 

Saturday May 11, 2013

Ella inside mommy 7 months

For Rachel and I, finding out that we were going to be parents together was amazing news. To say that it was more amazing than normal, may not be fair because I imagine most couples that are actively trying to get pregnant consider it amazing when they find out they are pregnant. However, it was especially amazing consider my wife's journey to this point. Rachel had spent most of her adult life caring for other people's children, whether they were her nieces and nephews, younger cousins, children at the Boys and Girls Club; everywhere Rachel went she was playing mommy number 2 to someone else's child. Well when we find out that we were pregnant it finally meant that she would get to be mommy #1. It mean that she didn't have to share and that when this child called her momma, it would not be some cute nickname; it would be real.

Ella inside momy 9 months

Ariella represents a dream some thirty plus years in the making and this Mother's Day weekend is the celebration of a dream not deferred. This is Rachel's first "official" Mother's Day, but I know that there are a lot of young people both near and far that have been wishing Rachel a Happy Mother's Day for many years. So wherever you are if you know Rachel to have loved you and treated you like her own, join with Charlie and Ariella and wish her a Happy Mother's Day. BGC kids, TC4 kids, Martinez kids, Rivera kids, her God children, nieces, nephews, cousins take a minute and celebrate this woman who has spent her life giving to others.This weekend lets give some back to her. Let's this be an epic Mother's Day weekend. 

Friday May 10, 2013

Parallel lines never looked so good

If you would be so kind as to indulge me I would like to take the blog in a slightly different direction for the next couple of entries. I will still be updating you as to the little conqueror's progress it will just be in a more round about way. Having said that I believe you will still enjoy the entries and you will not observe even the slightest drop off in quality.

proud soon to be parents

So a little insight about the author of these entries, he has never been a big holiday guy. Don't get me wrong I enjoy celebrating as much as the next guy, I just never really got swept up in the whole, today is special because a group of people a long time ago and so now the rest of us are stuck celebrating whatever occasion we are celebrating forever and shame on whoever doesn't celebrate whatever we are supposed to be celebrating. Well in my young, less mature days, I would absolutely stand by that opinion, however over that last several years, I am beginning to understand the thinking behind why we commemorate certain things on specific days each year. 

Ella still in momma's belly - 2 months

Life can get crazy for all us, especially for those of us that have children, and if any of those children happen to require special or additional attention, you can say good bye to having any free time. It can become very easy to get caught in all the different things that make life crazy, it’s easy to forget the importance of taking the time out to celebrate the important people in your life and remember certain events that have shaped the course of history and our present reality. In fact because of how crazy life can get for us if there weren't certain annually scheduled events we might go years without celebrating the important people and events in our lives. From holy days that were instituted by God in the Old Testament to our modern holidays certain people and events need to honored and celebrated. Chief among individuals worthy of celebration, mothers.

It is impossible to overstate the value of mothers in our society and more specifically the value of this family's mother. Three years ago Rachel married her husband and overnight became the mother of a 7 year old boy. Rachel embraced Charles as if he were her own and through him the Lord began to further prepare her heart to be a mother full time. As a result, Rachel Botts is the epitome of mother. She embodies everything God wanted from the representative of the species chosen to carry and give birth to humanity's babies. Rachel is a mother through and through. It is in her bones, it is her calling, it’s what she was created to do. Rachel has spent most of her life mothering other people’s kids, my son included. And while we had no idea what was coming for us, the night Rachel told me she was going to be a biological mommy I knew it was going to be epic. 

Ella still in momma's belly - 4 months

In November of 2012 we started down a path that would bring Rachel to a place where she would start to fulfill her destiny and become the mommy God purposed her to be from birth.

Check back throughout the rest of the weekend and join us in our salute to one of God's greatest mommas - Rachel Theresa Botts

Tuesday May 8, 2013

Ariella continues to astound the as she makes more and more progress. She met with her chiropractor this week, Dr. Sharon Vallone. Dr. Vallone specializes in cranial-sacral therapy and works with children that have nuero-muscular disease, many of whom have many more challenges  than Ella. In any event Dr. Vallone was absolutely blown away by how much Ariella has grown and the extent to which her range of motion has increased. At this point Ariella is rolling over almost at will; she is even working on trying to sit-up on her own. She is an amazing little girl that defies convention.

As her physical development continues to improve so does her cognitive development and social skills. Enjoy the following video of a conversation between Ella and her big brother. Charles is so amazingly patient and kind to his little sister and she is so rough with him. I don't think we will have to worry too much about little boys being fresh with this girl, she will definitely be able to fend for herself.

Thursday May 2, 2013

This week Ella started back to getting her occupational therapy treatments. We met with a therapist at one of the hospital's outpatient facilities. Below you can view a series of brief videos of Ariella continuing to do amazing things. The therapist continued to remark at how impressed she was with Ariella's development and range of motion. Because of your continued investment, both financial and in prayers our conqueror is doing more and more than anyone ever expected.

This little lady is amazing and never ceases to amaze. Please know that your support is so very much appreciated.

We also want to take this opportunity to say congratulations to Uncle Troy and Auntie Andrea, they welcomed Ella's newest cousin to the world this morning. Jackson Arthur Botts was born Thursday, at 6:18 in the morning. We praise Jesus that everyone is healthy and doing well.