BeautyRevealed | The Blog of Melissa J. Dillon

Hello all,

Our family is lucky to be where we’re at and, here in the NICU, we’re reminded of that often. We were especially reminded of that today when they wheeled in a baby who was born prematurely and has down-syndrome. Melissa saw the mother of the child crying as she left the NICU after being told the news. From what we can tell it seems they didn’t even have any warning about it and that it was a complete surprise. It really could be so much more difficut for our little Ava. In addition to praying for little Ava tonight we want to ask you if you’ll pray for the family of this baby. Her area is right across from Ava’s and we could barely get to Ava’s area earlier on account of the countless doctors and nurses that were overseeing this other baby. She has breathing tubes in and more wires than I’ve ever seen attached to a single baby.

As for Ava, she has been doing wonderfully since her surgery yesterday. Although the pain medication (morphine) has long worn off from the surgery, it seems as if Ava’s quite content and pain free. She is on a small dose of tylenol still but other than that she is just her spunky little self. It will still take a few days for the incisions on her to heal but it has been amazing to see her doing so well so quickly. She has been awake and alert for a good part of the day but she literally hasn’t made so much as even a whimper. At this point Melissa and I are actually wondering if the cyst they removed might have been causing her some discomfort previously. Whatever it was, she has been absolutely wonderful today. More than anything, I’m sure it has to do with God protecting her from the pain on account of all the prayers that have been sent up for her. She’s only a week old and yet she is already loved by so many of you. Thank you. Ava can’t wait to meet each and every one of you.

Sincerely,
Mark

Getting ready for surgery…

After Surgery…

After Surgery with Ventilator Removed. Still a little groggy!

Hey guys,

Sorry it has taken a bit to squeeze in some time for this update, but Ava’s surgery today went very well. She is now back in the NICU nursery recovering. It has been a hard day, but a very good one too.

They started the surgery at about noon today and were finished by right around 1:20 this afternoon. The surgeon discussed the results with us immediately afterward. He said once they looked at everything from the inside they were able to verify that it was in fact a cyst, but that that it was positioned a little bit differently that they were expecting. They made a small incision right around Ava’s belly button and they accomplished the rest of the surgery from this incision.  Doctor Acton (the surgeon) said everything went as smoothly as possible and that she should be able to breastfeed again after a couple of days. We have been told nothing else is stopping her from going home now aside from her recovery! She is currently hooked up to a ventilator and feeding through an IV again because of the anesthesia required for the surgery. She is also on a small amount of pain medication to help keep her comfortable. Without the pain medication she would be feeling pretty sore from the 2 to 3 inch incision on her stomach. She can still hear everything going on around her but she is very very sleepy still.

The biggest part about today is it now looks like our hardest days are behind us and we can focus on healing Ava’s body from now on and getting her healthy enough to finally come home. Barring further delays, her recovery time will probably be from 5-7 days at this point. Thank you for praying so hard for our little girl. We now have an end in sight! One of these days we will try to repay you for all of the kindness, generosity, and love we’ve been shown throughout the past 2 weeks (and really, 9 months). We owe everyone so much.

7PM UPDATE: They just took her off of the ventilator on account of how well she is doing breathing on her own. Apparently the ventilator couldn’t keep up with her.

Hey guys,

As requested, here are some more pictures of our little one. All of these were taken by Jodie, Melissa’s brother. Just this evening we heard back regarding the dye test they ran on Ava’s digestive system. They said the dye they placed in her went exactly where it was supposed to go and it appears she doesn’t have any sort of partial blockage at all. It’s a bit more encouraging news for us and little A.

Basically, they are now operating on the assumption that what is located in her abdomen is in fact a cyst completely independent of all her other organs and her intestinal tract. They will be operating tomorrow starting at noon and if everything goes as expected they should be able to take care of everything laparoscopically (a minimally invasive surgery that involves accomplishing most of the work through a small incision in her belly button). Barring further complications we may even be bringing our little Ava home by Thursday or Friday! And we are definitely ready. We’re ready to have Ava home safe and sound. We’re ready to have all of the wires and sensors taken off her. And we’re ready to bring her into a peaceful environment.

They will begin operating right at noon and we will be having a more detailed meeting with the surgeon to discuss further details tomorrow morning. Ava won’t be able to eat anything for 4 hours prior to the surgery and I know it won’t be the easy on her. She will also be put under general anesthesia during the surgery. I ask that you continue to pray for her whenever she comes to your mind. Please pray especially tomorrow around noon.

Hope you guys are all doing well. Thank you again for all the love and support for our little baby. We’ll have some amazing stories to share with her when she gets older! Whenever we know the results of the surgery I will post again.

God Bless,
Mark

To all those who have called, written, and commented: THANK YOU for all of your prayers and support. It means a lot to us and we don’t take it for granted for a second. Please don’t get offended if it takes us a while to begin returning calls! Hopefully this blog can serve as our primary communication device until everything slows down and we are able to start contacting everyone. I know we have about a billion voicemails to return. At the moment our days are completely filled by feedings, room and board changes, meetings with nursing staff, vast and overwhelming amounts of paperwork, insurance policy information, and a few moments of peace and quiet with Ava. We haven’t been to bed before 1am for a number of nights now—and nighttime feedings occur about every two hours. Thank you for spreading the word though about our little Ava. It’s amazing to see family and friends come together in support of one precious little baby. It has been very humbling experience. Please continue to forward our website address and Ava’s story to any friends you know who might be willing to pray for her.

As for Ava, we were able to speak with the neonatal surgeon and go over the most recent set of her ultrasound pictures, which were taken yesterday morning. From what they can tell, it appears she has either 1) A duodenal web, which is a partial blockage of the duodenum (the duodenum is right below the stomach), or 2) a fluid filled cyst which is completely independent from all her organs. Both of these things would be considered better than duodenal atresia, which is a complete blockage of her digestive system [and which is also what they thought they saw on the prenatal ultrasound]. The easiest and least invasive of these options would be a fluid filled cyst. If it is, in fact, just a cyst which resides independent from the rest of her digestive system then the surgery would basically end up being an outpatient one and we could likely be on our way home by the end of next week! If they determine it is a duodenal web then the scope of the surgery would be a little more detailed and the recovery time would increase to around 1 or 2 weeks. They will be running a dye test Monday and they will have the results the same day. And so it goes. More waiting is in store for us! At this point we just want to take her home and give her a quiet room to sleep in and a relaxing place to call her own. She is doing wonderfully though and she is by far the LOUDEST baby in the NICU—because most of the babies in the NICU are premature most of them don’t have fully developed lungs yet. Ava has made quite sure to let us know her lungs are more than adequately developed though.

If you think about it please also pray that Ava continues to feed better. We have been trying to breastfeed her but I think it is harder for Ava to feed with so many wires on her and noises in the room. There are all sorts of alarms going off in the room throughout the entire day.

Also please pray for Melissa. She has had to manage all of this while getting 2-5 hours of sleep a night lately. She wants to make sure everyone is focused on praying for Ava but I would ask that you also pray for Melissa. She has shown incredible strength throughout all of this and has been entirely focused on being there for Ava. She’s already an outstanding Mom.

That’s all for now. I’ll try and get an update put up on Monday night or Tuesday morning with the results of the dye test they are planning. We are going to try and focus on slowing things down this weekend and try to make sure we get some sleep. I hope you guys are all doing well and thank you again for all of the kind words we’ve received.

-Mark

Ava Winter Grace Dillon
Born at 4:12pm on March 3rd, 2010
7 lbs. 11 oz. & 21 in. long

Taken less than 5 minutes after her birth.

Cutting the Cord with the NICU team. Including a whole team of people from the NICU there were no less than a dozen people on hand for the delivery—primarily because of the concerns about the blockage in her digestive system.

Trying to get a bit of much deserved sleep in the NICU. This shows just a few of the cords they have to place on her to monitor things. She has a total of about 5-7 different cords coming off of her at any given time—placed mostly on her hands, feet, and lower stomach.

Hanging out with Mr. Ducky the Duck.

Our whole world in less than 8 pounds. Notice the amazing amount of hair on her head. Every NICU nurse that has seen her has made some sort of a comment to the affect of “what a beautiful head of hair she has!” We couldn’t agree more!

Mark here again. I should have had this post up sooner but we’ve had a flood of additional checks, tests, and follow-ups since her birth. It seems every department has their own set of required follow up requirements for Ava and Melissa. In between everything else we also had to move all of our stuff into a postpartum room on another floor of the hospital. The main reason for this post being so late though is we’ve wanted to stay right next to Ava’s side as much as possible. She is currently residing in an NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) room with around 6 other babies with the entire room being overseen by a whole staff of world-class nurses and doctors. While every single doctor and nurse we’ve come in contact with has been outstanding, it’s still hard to leave Ava all alone in what must be such a scary place for her. And as I mentioned above, she has a bunch of cables, cords, and sensors attached to her so they are able to monitor everything. Here is what we want everyone to know, though. There appears to be absolutely nothing wrong with her aside from some sort of partial blockage in her digestive system. What this means is it is NOT the complete blockage (duodenal atresia) they thought it was prior to her birth. She is peeing and pooping just like any other 2 day old, which the doctors told us would not be possible. She is also starting to breastfeed, which the doctors also told us would not be possible. We haven’t shared this with many people (mostly on account of it not changing our opinion about Ava) but also worth noting is the doctors told us about a month ago Ava had a 1 in 3 chance of having down-syndrome. At this point we can say with absolute certainty she does not have down-syndrome. In addition to all this, Melissa was also able to deliver Ava without a c-section, which multiple doctors didn’t think would happen. I only mention this as a testament to the goodness of God and as a thank you to every single one of you who have lifted up prayers for her in the past 9 months. THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts.

We did have a few scary periods in what turned out to be the 18-20 hours of labor—the most scary of which involved Ava’s heartbeat dropping drastically and the doctor sending out a department wide page for an emergency c-section. A flood of other doctors came pouring into the room then proceeded to rush Melissa very quickly toward the surgery center while at the same time informing me I “wasn’t able” to follow them. As her stretcher left the room she was calling my name and I couldn’t do anything at all—I couldn’t even go with her. I’ve never been so afraid in my entire life. In the end Ava’s heartbeat returned to normal right before they were about to begin surgery and they proceeded to monitor her very closely until she was delivered. Again, this is a testament to all of the prayers spoken throughout the past 2 days and testament to the unfathomable goodness, mercy, and grace of God himself.

To summarize. Ava is beautiful. She is happy (most of the time). And she is unbelievably strong. Melissa did an unbelievable job with the labor and delivery. And I can say with complete confidence I am by far the weakest of our now 3 person family. If you can please keep Ava in your prayers tomorrow. They will be running some more tests to see if a surgery will still be necessary and if so, what type of surgery it will be. The possible surgeries still sound fairly straightforward but this doesn’t change the fact that surgery is something we would prefer to avoid altogether. Please pray for complete healing for Ava’s body. I will likely be writing about another miracle tomorrow afternoon. Melissa sends her love to everyone and I promise her blog will be back to it’s previous glory once she takes over the writing again. She’s still trying to work her way back to full strength and could still very much stand to benefit from your continued prayers. We’ll also have some more photos of Ava up soon. And I’ll do my best to get an update out tomorrow soon after we hear the surgeon’s opinion. Think that’s all for now.

Love,
Mark

Hey guys! It’s Mark here with an update for a change!

We had an appointment this morning at 9:45 and because we are 41 weeks along already, they told us it would be best to just get settled into the labor and delivery center in preparation for the birth of our precious little A. I’m actually writing this right now from the hospital room where we will be giving birth to little Ava within the next 1-2 days. Tomorrow they are planning on inducing, but for now they are watching her contractions to see if they naturally turn into true labor. The contractions are a bit unreliable at the moment…slow…then faster…then gone…then slower…then a little faster…then gone again. Things are progressing though, if not somewhat slower than Melissa and I would prefer! We are both very exited though and we feel good overall. There have been a ton of changes in the past couple of weeks and at this point we’ve pretty much just decided to take whatever comes—so long as we end up with a healthy baby on the other side of this thing. We’ve met about a billion more doctors, nurses, interns, social workers, registrars, and residents (what’s the heck does that even mean!)—but it’s been good overall. It’s truly an incredible hospital here and we feel very well cared for, which really helps with trying to process everything. We’ll be sure and give you further updates as things progress…

-Mark (Ava’s very excited dad)

“I will lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

~ Psalm 4:8

We’re back from the hospital with no inducement. I must admit that I’m a little relieved. I would love for her to come naturally and when she’s ready if possible. But they did say that they will not let me go past next Tuesday without being induced if she doesn’t come before then. (A few weeks ago they had pushed back my due date from February 23rd to March 1st due to some recalculations). So by March 2nd they will begin the labor process if she hasn’t begun it on her own… and whatever is safest for Ava is just fine with us.

Today they did another ultrasound in which they tested Ava Baby’s breathing movements, body movements, muscle tone, and amniotic fluid. They do this test weekly for high risk pregnancies. She passed with “flying colors” they said… which made her Mommy and Daddy very proud! (She must take after her Daddy who always did well on his tests!)

We’ve been reading and singing with Ava everyday… she l.o.v.e.s this time and especially moves all around when we start to sing to her. I think she is already worshipping God in the womb! Our “little birdy” loves to sing.

This last Friday the pastors and an intercessor from Bethany Church prayed for little Ava. James 5:14 says, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” One of the elders asked if he could lay his hand on my belly, and when he did she kicked twice with such force that it almost took my breath away! When she did this, I thought of the scripture in Luke 1 that talks about the babe leaping in Elizabeth’s womb. I have no doubt in my mind that our little girl has been feeling the love and power of the Holy Spirit as all of you have been praying and interceding for her.

Again we thank you for all your love. Each day we are humbled by the outpouring of blessing and care we have received from all of you. I cannot wait to share all of the emails, notes and messages with little Baby Ava as a testimony of God’s love through His people.

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently…”

~ Psalm 37

After a few days of many practice contractions and signs of labor, all has grown quiet in the the last 24 hours. I had felt like Ava could come at any time, but now am feeling strangely like nothing is happening. I’ve read that this is normal, but with my arms aching to hold my little one, the time seems as though it is crawling by. Now that Mark and my mom are here with me, I’m ready! We’re just so excited to meet this precious gift from the Lord.

Tomorrow, though, we have appointments again at Fairview, and we were told last week not to be surprised if they decide to induce me due to being a high risk pregnancy. We normally would want to wait until she’s ready to come on her own, but they have some concerns that they are keeping an eye on, and our first and foremost priority is her safe delivery. We will keep updating the blog to let you know what’s happening… I’ve had requests to let you know when I am going into labor, so that you can be praying during this time (Bless You!), so we are hoping to be able to blog right from the delivery room (isn’t technology a wonder these days??)… but obviously sparing you all the details of childbirth!

We are continuing to pray and believe for a miracle in our little Ava. Our prayer is that she will show a clean bill of health on her x-rays. But we trust God no matter how he chooses to work in her body. Tonight the scripture that Jamie prayed over her was in Numbers 6:

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”

“He who keeps you shall not slumber.”

~ Psalm 121:3

Mark made Ava Baby a lullaby playlist on my iPod, and I’ve been playing it over and over while I’ve been here at Jamie and Angela’s house. One song in particular has actually ministered to me so much of the love of God for our little girl, and it makes me cry when I hear it. I just know that the Lord is letting me know that He is taking care of our precious daughter and that I don’t have to fear.

Hush, little child, wipe that tear from your eye
Don’t you be scared of the dark
For someone is watching to guard as you sleep
Protecting each moment you grow
He’ll take care of you
He loves you
He’ll take care of you, my darling, for me
He’ll take care of you
And love you forever and ever
He’ll take care of you, my darling, for me

The scripture that I’ve been praying over her today is from Psalm 91:

“{She} who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.’
He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge;
His truth shall be your shield and buckler.”

Thank you so much for your continued prayers.