In His Grip and By His Grace

I read a fundraiser letter today for Cobb Pregnancy Services.  The person ended her letter with "In His Grip and By His Grace."  I liked that so I'm using it today to blog about the latest with Ethan.  Things are happening fast!

First of all, good news, he weighs 16 pounds 12 ounces (or so).  We are on a rigid feeding schedule every 3 hours, but it is working so I'm commited to it for now.  I even got us up at 4 this morning so we don't have to skip a feeding today because of a doctor appointment.  Yawn...but EVERYONE tells us the more Ethan weighs, the stronger he will get.  Come on 17 pounds!!  That was the goal for him by 9 months, and that deadline is fast approaching us on Friday!

We did see Dr. Williams last week.  He is putting Ethan in a STARband helmet.  You can see some amazing, sweet pictures at http://www.starbandkids.com/.  Some of the before and after pictures in the documentation makes me realize just how much this will help Ethan.  His head shape is so OFF because of him laying on his side so much to eat.  And that fights with his torticollis because he now has a flat spot and that is where his head automatically falls unless he is "on" and is holding it a different way.  Unless we position him just right, he sleeps on that flat spot...which just makes the head shape, neck muscles and possibility of surgery worse.  We DO have surgery scheduled for the middle of June.  However, his therapist is really excited about getting him in his "motorcycle helmet" and seeing what we can accomplish between now and then.  The doctor is fine with cancelling surgery if it isn't needed.  He would prefer that, too!

This is a picture of something similar to what Ethan will be wearing.  My first thought when I saw this is "ast least the little boy doesn't look MISERABLE!  He will have to wear the helmet all day, every day except for maybe an hour (for bathing and some of his therapy).  Please pray for God's grace for little Ethan (and for us).  He has to sleep, eat, watch t.v., play in this helmet and his neck muscles are NOT strong enough yet for him to hold his head up.  He is going to have quite an adjustment!  The therapist says this will help strengthen his neck, but he already works so hard...I'm just a sad Mommy today thinking about this next phase.  Glad they have this kind of thing to help, but sad nevertheless...

In His Grip and By His Grace...we can do this!

We did get the boys' hair cut on Saturday.  Jerry Potts from Bass Hair Salon made a house call and trimmed their hair.  They both did really well.  Colin had less patience and really just wanted to know what Jerry was doing.  When we held his head still, he got "sad Colin face" so we only trimmed around his ears.  We owe a huge thanks to Jerry for helping us out!