A Prayer Request

Good Morning Team Ariella,

We have received a prayer request from a fellow team member. Judy Collins is a friend of the family, she, like Rachel, is the mother of a daughter with special needs and along with her husband Rich are also adopted parents, their family is so amazing and beautiful and full of so much love. Judy has a friend in the adoption community that needs our prayers. The Bartlinski Family of Baltimore added to their already large family, full of love and grace in December 2010 by adopting, Teresa "Fang Fang" Bartlinski. Teresa was born and China and when the Bartlinski's got her home she immediately blessed them. Teresa was born with an extremely rare heart condition that necessitated a heart transplant, which she received, however her body is rejecting the new heart and the baby now needs a second heart transplant surgery. Her story has been featured on ABC News, several local Baltimore new outlets and is all over FaceBook. You can read more about Teresa'a amazing story and be encouraged by  this family's overwhelming faith by visiting their blog at http://ourplacecalledhome.blogspot.com/. This is a wonderful family and I know their testimony will be a blessing to you. Most importantly pray for Teresa. At Team Ariella we know that God can do the miraculous and turn the situation completely around or He can preserve us in the midst of our difficulty. Let's rally around this family and glorify God with them for He is love and desires to see His children come together. Thanks Team for your support.

 Teresa "Fang Fang" Bartlinski

Thursday June 27, 2013

We have to admit, Ariella's progress at times is hard to truly appreciate without knowing how far she has come. Some of you may have forgotten, while others of you may not have known that Ariella barely ate anything through her mouth when she was first born. We tried very hard to nurse, but to no avail. What we did not realize at the time, was her inability to nurse was the result of her muscle weakness, which made it impossible for her to swallow correctly and furthermore, because her swallow was so weak she could have easily aspirated and drown in her own secretions, which she came close to doing following her muscle biopsy back in January. Given how far our precious warrior has come over the last several months you can imagine that we are so grateful to God for Ella's unpredicted success. Please enjoy the following vidoes of Ariella doing what only God knew she would do, EAT THROUGH HER MOUTH!

Still conqueroring

I know it has been a awhile since the latest Ella update and we want to apologize for the delay, however, the wait has been worth it. A week or so ago we posted a picture of Ella standing in front of our living room couch holding herself, completely unassisted. At that time Ariella was able to stand only for a brief amount of time. She was standing for 15 - 30 seconds, well our miracle warrior has been getting stronger and stronger. Recently we recorded Ariella standing for more than two minutes! She is so amazing and it doesn't stop there. She has been doing a much better job of holding herself up on all fours as well. She has even started to lurch forward as if she is going to start crawling. Her gross muscle movements, have been a place of considerable weakness for a very long time, but through the grace and strength of Christ we are watching our baby overcome barriers she has had since birth. And glory be to God it doesn't stop there.

A couple of days ago Ella had a follow-up to her modified barium swallow. This is the test that determines how strong and how effective her swallow is. Her previous swallow study showed that her swallow was intact, but very weak. Well we have been saying for weeks that Ella lives to show people what she can do, especially when they say she shouldn't be able to. The results of her most recent swallow study show that Ella's swallow is still intact and is getting stronger. We have been cleared to continue to try and feed her through her mouth anything that she may be interested in tasting. In fact last night Ella was eating some of her mother's miso soup and today she drank almond milk from a cup. To say that this little blessing has increased my faith would be an understatement. Ariella is the embodiment of God's healing power. She is living proof that God is real, alive and cares for us. 

Happy Father's Day

Hello my friends, Rachel here! It really is so interesting to me how different Father's Day is from Mother's Day. As a mom I certainly don't want to take anything away from the job that we have, at the same time research shows that children without an active, responsible and caring father in their lives are more likely to struggle in life.       

God gave us equal but different roles in our families and each is vital. In this house we recognize the importance of a Daddy, a Father, a Head to the unit and we celebrate him for all that he is. While our son little Charles has lots of supportive people in his life, none can match his dad. 

Through his dad Charlie has learned the wonders of Christ, he has learned discipline, honor, faithfulness, playfulness, and kindness. Ariella has found her dad to be a fierce protector and personal trainer. It is because of his belief in her potential that she can stand, is eating more and more, and that she faces every challenge with steady determination.  Through Charles I grew close to Christ, watching him face adversity and knocking it down. 

You see, my husband is more than a conqueror because he draws on God's strength to do what needs to be done in our lives. He prayed that God would give him a heart to be all that I needed him to be, that he would be the father Charles needs to grow into a true man of God, and that he would have a heart to care for Ariella and all her medical needs. God has answered his prayers and more. Happy Father's Day my love and thank you for being all that you are to our family!

Look at God's Work!

This is what it looks like to be more than a conqueror. Ariella is standing by herself during a therapy session. Never doubt what our God is capable of doing. Your love, thoughts, prayers and investment have pushed our baby to STAND! Thank you Jesus!

Monday June 3, 2013

We have been meaning to write this post for a couple of days now. To say that we are excited just doesn't quite describe it. As you know, or maybe you have forgotten, our precious Ariella has difficulty swallowing as a direct result of the muscle weakness that she is fighting to overcome. In fact Ariella had a great deal of difficulty nursing or drinking from a bottle becuase she could not swallow effectively. This is how the baby ended up with a temporary feeding tube being inserted through her nose (NG Tube), which was eventually removed and a more permanent feeding tube was surgical inserted into its current location in her stomach (G tube/Mic-Key button). The feeding tube has allowed Ella to get adequate nutrition so she can grow and gain much needed strength. Although we are grateful that our baby gets fed, we have never been satisfied with the feeding tube, however this is what we have had to do to keep her alive and healthy. 

Ever since Ella's hospitalization in January we were not allowed to try and feed her through her mouth. However, because of your prays and support over the last month we have been taking the baby to see the same speech pathologist that was treating her while she was in the hospital. Marnie, the speech pathologist, has been doing an amazing job working with our baby, she has also given us a number of techniques that we can use at home. We have been using these techniques and working with our baby to develop a stronger swallow and praise Jesus it's working! In fact the techniques are working so well that Ariella Christina, the living miracle, the little conqueror that continues to seek out and take on new challenges was DRINKING this weekend. Yes drinking from a spoon, and EATING from a spoon. That's right the little girl who continues to prove she is more than just some diagnosis, the little girl who was not supposed to see her first birthday, the little girl who was too weak to swallow is now EATING AND DRINKING. She is not eating and drinking enough to get her complete nutrition so she still has to continue to get formula through the feeding tube, but she is getting stronger. Everyday a little stronger, everyday a little smarter, everyday God does something else to draw us closer to himself and to build our faith through Ella's testimony. Please continue to pray for our family as we pray that through this blog and the sharing of our warrior's progress you will grow closer to the God that has given our Ella new life and makes new life available to us all.