Joy comes in the morning

Pin It Yesterday evening Ivy had her 3rd open heart surgery. Yes I know there are a lot of jaws being picked up off the floor right now.... But lets remember who we are talking about and how incredible she is!!
Ivy's mitral valve was not making her surgeon happy! Her Echo late yesterday revealed that the cleft was wide open again and just not holding the patch. When we got here, Ivy's MV regurg. was 10 (on a scale of 1-10). After the Boston repair the MV regurg. was 3-4. And yesterday, the echo revealed it was back to 10. They wasted NO time. Dr Baird, Dr Del Nido and Dr marx got together. They called some other members of the team in, and looked at all the data. They agreed that this was not acceptable and they asked for consent to go back in. Because they care!! They know that severe mitral valve regurg is not going to allow Ivy to thrive like we expect her to if untreated. They also do not settle for half (donkey) jobs here! They aim to repair what you have, but they were feeling like they may end up using a mechanical valve on Ivy due to the valves condition.
Bryan and I felt this was the right thing to do and had total peace about it. We felt the need to keep this step to ourselves as it was happening so quickly and we had so much going on with the family all leaving today. Ivy did fantastic in her surgery. She went on and came OFF bypass without a problem. She had hardly no bleeding. They used all the same lines and drains and she was already intubated. She came upstairs with her chest all closed up, minimal swelling and looking much like when she went down. Her regurgitation is now about a 2 and that is necessary because if she had no regurgitation on a patched valve, she would get stenosis. 
They did not use a mechanical valve. She is too tiny and they would have had to use one that she would quickly outgrow. Also it would be sure to get stenosis if they attempted to use a larger one. The were able to use a patch, more like a ring, that is actually tissue of the intestine. Her own tissue will grow right with it, and her body will absorb it as its own. They feel it was the right choice for the little jellybean and she is recovering beautifully tonight. They do not expect this to slow her recovery. In fact they feel she will get off the ventilator easier and recover quicker now. 
I knew you all were still praying. The peace we felt was proof. And the strength of our girl...... Just amazing!!!!!
Pictures soon. My family is leaving this morning (so sad) and I will have lots of upcoming boring days to post. I miss them already. And based on the craziness going on at their hotel last night, I think they might just miss me already too!!! And My baby Lexi..... not hearing her joyful self for weeks is going to be hard. But I'm getting pretty good at hard things I think. And all the fun ahead will get me through!!! Nat, Bryan, Chris, Jenna, Laurie..... please feel free to stop by and love on my sweet Lexi for me! Mrs. Richardson, .. Extra hugs at school please :)
Daddy is going to have a blast with his little pumpkin while I am gone. And big sisters and brother are too! Pumpkin Patch, Halloween, 3 year forever family day celebration are all coming up!!!! 
And Ivy Joy will be here, just getting strong as an ox over the next few weeks. I can't wait to post a video of her walking. She may just skip walking and run!!!!!!
Love to all!!!
Good night! Pin It

Life with the Littles

Pin It I have so much to post and have meant to do it in several posts but that is not seeming to happen easily these days. I have loads of emails with questions to answer and so many people to thank! I want to share how the girls are doing together too. So bare with me, this post might be very long!


Today is Bryan (Daddy's) Birthday. It was a sweet day of watching my darling husband love on his 2 little girls! This man is so sweet to watch, he is the perfect example of what unconditional love is! He Loves so big and so real! His sweet girls Rylee and Cassidy gave him such a special treat this evening and we had friends over tonight to play games and eat the yummy desserts Rylee made just for her daddy! I love this man with all my heart! Happy Birthday Babe!

Not a day has gone by in the week we have been home that I have not gotten several emails from wonderful people sharing their love for Ivy and telling me that they are praying for our sweet baby girl. Imagine a classroom full of kindergarteners praying out loud for complete healing, 5th graders at school, 5th graders at youth groups, women walking, running, driving in the car, in the work place, in the home as a family. Children, waiting for their own mei mei's in China, praying daily for Ivy, asking to see her on the computer, asking God to heal her! College life groups, Thank you from the bottom of my heart for every prayer said for our daughter. We truly believe God hears every one of them and He will grant Ivy complete healing, giving her a testimony worth telling the world about! We love you all!

Lexi And Ivy

 How are the girls doing together? They are so cute together!
How are they sleeping? We end up with Lexi in our bed almost every night because they wake each other up so much! The beast (home oxygen unit), chinese babbling in the middle of the night, the sound of someone in the room when you have always slept alone, me  coming in to make sure Ivy's cannula has not slipped out of her nose, It's all still too much for Lexi to sleep through. This time is so temporary, we don't really stress about it. In another month we will have a healthy little Ivy and a new normal around here. Until then we are just rolling with the punches and thanking God for every minute of it!

 Lexi is very helpful and concerned for Ivy. She does not understand why she poops in her diaper or why she makes such a mess with her food. She just looks at her like she's crazy!

 The girls did fantastic today, but it's been hard work for mama.

Lexi is very patient and she has no problem sharing me!

 Ivy however, has a hard time sharing her new mama. Especially when the 3 of us are alone together. (most of the day!)
She is just learning about having a mama, and she see's Lexi as a threat. This is so good in terms of bonding. But she is still learning who is who and what is what. She is finding her place and in the morning when she wakes up she wants me 100% and that is tough when I am trying to get both of them bathed, dressed, fed and loved on. 

Up until today she would scream and have a fit as soon as Lexi got anywhere near her walker. I figured out today that she is afraid someone is going to push the walker. She would start crying as soon as Lexi got within a few feet of her and I thought it was just her getting mad at Lexi for just being here again. But today while I was vacuuming I moved her walker a little bit and you would have thought I stepped on her. She just got so upset and cried with angry screams. She must have been pushed around by the kids at the orphanage and not liked it one bit! She clearly had issues in the walker with someone! So I told Lexi to just keep away from her when she is in the walker and it was all good.

 She absolutely LOVES to watch Lexi play. If Lexi laughs, Ivy immediately joins right in laughing, cracking herself up! She babbles is Chinese in bed at night. This wakes her sister up but it is really cute!

 If I am having trouble getting her to eat something, all I have to do is get Lexi to take a bite (not always an easy task) and she will just follow suit!

 If she see's me put Lexi's hair flower in, she reaches up on her own head to make sure her hair flower is in her hair too. And if it's not she will grunt and groan and point and shout mama until it is!

 She is messy! She loves to feed herself and she loves to pour anything she can from one cup to another. Or in this case her dress!

 Thanks to the Bigs, my little girls have also been able to get some alone time with mommy every day. The Bigs are amazing and anyone who would not want to be a sibbling in the Sammons house is CrAzY!!!! They make everyone feel like they are the only person in the world! They are always working to make things easier around here and they do it with a smile! They love their sisters in such a big and mighty way and I tell you what, I'd sure love to be their sister!!! Oh but being their mom is pretty amazing too! 

These adorable shoes are from Sherry's in Guangzhou. They are so sweet!! They have a little china doll on the top of them! Socks are from Serendipity!


This brings me to all the questions. 
The girls are still getting to know each other. I would not say they are in love with each other yet, after all they did just meet a week ago! They are finding their roles and learning new roles. We have lots to work on, Ivy will soon see that there is plenty of mama to love all the kids in this house! She is only 1, we don't expect her to play ~with~ her sister yet. But she loves to play side by side. Lexi is very close to her big sisters and I think they will be harder for her to share than any toy or other thing in our lives. Right now she is doing so good. She is sweet and helpful and so patient during the day when Ivy is most fussy and we are stuck home so much. The other day Ivy was really fussy and difficult to make happy. I said, oh Ivy what are we going to do with you. Sweet Lexi looked at me with a bit of disgust and said, We just gonna keep her and wuv her forever!!! Oh my heart!!! She took that literally and it just melted my heart. Yes baby we sure are! Forever!!

 Look at me with no oxygen? We had just gotten home and I was switching her from the portable to the home unit.

She actually puts her face right up to me when I am putting the cannula in her nose. She knows it makes her feel better now! Such a smart girl!


Rest of the questions~
Deborah, the outfit you asked about (yellow, green, pink) is Georgia Grace! I am a sales Representative for them so if you want help finding something oh so cute and girlie... Let me know!


The darling outfit above is the Flounder from Serendipity and the crop cardigan is Baby Gap.


Karen and Michelle, the carseat covers were made by my mom. 


Karen, I brought Ivy 1 outfit for each day in China because I had issues with my laundry getting ruined last trip. They did not separate the colors and all Lexi's pinks turned gray. This time I used them for some of Brady's laundry and they gave our stuff to someone else and gave us some mens clothing instead of our own items. The people who got our clothes had checked out already and so we got NO laundry back! I guess I am not very lucky with laundry in China!


And  finally, those pictures I promised.... HA HA HA!!! IT DID NOT GO SO GOOD!

This Happy Girl Was Ready For Some Fun!

But This Little Girl Was Not

Usually she hams it up when she see's the camera. But when Ivy doesn't want to do something <3

She's not going to do it.

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