Scary stuff and a huge Miracle.

All of you parents know that in the hospital shortly after your baby is born they take them away to prick their tiny little foot for newborn testing, there is also a series of hearing test, etc. But, your baby is here and has 10 tiny toes and 10 tiny fingers and looks perfectly healthy... nothing to worry about right?! Life could not be more perfect... other than they need to hurry up and bring that sweet baby back because you have been waiting to hold him/her for 9 whole months!!

Well, after returning home from the hospital with our sweetest newest addition we received the scariest phone call ever. It was my doctor. The first words out of her mouth were, "please don't panic." My heart sank to the floor. She said, "Jozi Noel's newborn screen has came back positive for an enzyme disorder," and then proceeds to say it's ginormously long name.

I did not know what to say next.

I tried to gather myself and I remember asking how serious it was and what did that even mean? I mean she's been with us for days now and is perfectly fine other than the slight case of jaundice, but that's still pretty normal right? Everything else in that conversation still feels like a car wreck. I remember telling her I wanted to get pen and paper to jot the name down and she immediately told me "do not Google it." I still wrote it down. She also told me they needed lots of blood work from her and then these results would go to a major genetics center and we would know for sure if she had this after 4 weeks.

(Appartently, how newborn screens work: they test your child for lots of different things through that foot prick and if something shows up they then send off more bloodwork to make 100% certain they have this.)

4 weeks...

They seemed pretty positive, but this would make it defiant or not. But, while we waited we had to treat her completely as though she had this disorder. With this particular disorder she could not go over 3 or 4 hours without eating. Even during the night. Sounds fairly simple considering that is the life of a newborn. But, this would prosiest throughout the entirety of her life. If she ever got sick she would need to be hospitalized immediately for the fear that her body could not make the necessary enzymes to fight off the infection. Okay, after talking to Jared my thought process was: lock it down and get it together. The Lord will help us and we will deal. Besides, we had lots to do- appointments to schedule for blood work, jaundice appointments, etc.

That night I looked at that paper and despite Jared and the doctor telling me not to... I googled. I mean we don't know for certain she has it, but we don't really know that she doesn’t either. Right?

I googled. You would have done the same thing.

I remembered not being able to breath as I read that the enzyme disorder she could have was a lot of times mistaken for SIDS, because parents would accidentally over sleep and the baby would not get the nutrition they needed before that 3 to 4 hour span was up. Or the baby would develop an illness and not be able to fully recover from it. So this was serious. My child could possibly have something serious. This was a hard pill to swallow.

For the next two weeks I could barely put her down. Must least sleep. I just wanted to hold her. Or, watch her sleep. If I did lay her down it was a constant monitoring to see if her little chest was moving up and down. Which is the case with most new parents, but this feeling was like mulitiplied now. I just did not want to miss a second of my child's life. And I was scared.

Both my family and Jared's family all go to Lakeview Baptist Church, in Pickens. Joz was put on the prayer list of course. We of course were staying far away from germs.. not to mention she was born December 3rd, so all of this was happening during Christmas time. (Dec.= germ month of the year) Needless to say, we had not returned to church yet or anywhere for that matter. But, our church, family, and friends were fervently praying. We felt them.

That Wednesday night after my mom left church she came by for a visit and told me the entire church had come down to the alter to kneel and pray about her test results. I just cried as I rocked Jozi Noel thinking about all the sweet people in our church. But, right then I remembered feeling this overwhelming sense of peace I had not felt before about the situation. I felt like no matter the outcome of the results God was going to take care of her, and we would do the very best we could with His help.

Christmas was the very next week and we weren't supposed to get the results for another week after that. My doctor had been in contact with us on numerous occasions throughout the whole process and ended up calling three days before Christmas to tell us that the genetics center's office was going to be closed for the holidays (yes, holidays- meaning New Years as well) so the results were going to be prolonged. But, she said that she was going to make a phone call because she did not want us to have to wait any longer. I think they felt sorry for us. (I mean I had melted down in their office a time or two at our daily blood work visits for this stuff and the jaundice.) She was going to try and get them to speed it up. She even said she thought about driving there just so we could have peace of mind. I remember thinking how sweet that was, but we were probably going to have to wait it out.

Our doctor called back the next day. She had The Results....

Our baby was fine. Our BABY WAS FINE.

It was a false positive. There was a glitch. She did not have the enzyme disorder. She could sleep through the night.

I immediately got on the phone texting, calling, and letting everyone know our news. Two days before Christmas at that. The best present anyone could have given my family. But, I truly think with all my heart that The Lord doesn't make mistakes. That his hand was all over the situation and that he chose to touch that little body of hers.

That night we could lay her in her bassinet and sleep. And did we. Jozi Noel slept for over 5 hours. I think she was glad no one was bothering her for once. Ironically, she hasn't stopped sleeping through the night since. We normally have to wake her up in the mornings or she will sleep till 10!

I learned A Lot in those three long weeks. I learned how fragile life is. How quickly it can be taken from us. How much we should cherish each moment. Writing this is a huge reminder of that. I do not want to take this gift of life for granted. The eye opening lives we lived treating JN for that enzyme disorder opened my heart to parents who do live that daily. They are super parents and our normal doesn't compare to their normals.

Now newborn pics.. because I'm still in the rewinding phase remember. :)

This was taken in the hospital and is my favorite. So there is in color and in black and white lol.

And more hospital pictures...

I think the lady that comes around to all the rooms to take pics probably wanted to kill me for changing JN 10x's during the process. But, that's okay I'm glad I did.

xoxo, Brittany

P.S. feel free to comment so I know someone is actually reading. ;)