Super Stella

Yesterday I drove my sweet perfectly-perfect 6 month old baby girl to Dell Children's Hospital. The same route I knew all too well.  I was mad...  at life, the devil, our earthly bodies. Just mad. I wanted to be sad and I wanted to be mournful of the days I was there with Gibson, but I just kept thinking I shouldn't be taking her here. This isn't how the story goes...

Monday morning we went into Stella's 6 month well-check at the pediatrician. She's the epitome of a healthy bouncing baby girl- 'The Gerber Baby,' as she's referred to by multiple strangers a day. I can't even begin to write how God has poured love over my heart and is healing all the little broken and shattered pieces in the past 6 month through this child (that's a whole other blog!)

Her well check went like most do: weigh, measure, do some tricks for the nurses...
The doctor began to look at the dreaded growth chart. Then she looked at Stella's head. On the chart Stella's head had jumped in size pretty rapidly. In the past two months she'd gone up a good percentage and was now well above 100 percentile compared to her weight & height both around average at 50 percentile. The doctor examined my baby's beautiful round (perfect but large ) head and I could see the concern growing. She rubbed on her soft spot on the top of her head and explained that it seemed to be protruding a bit. And like a ton of brick - or something much worse she said, "I'd like for you to take her to have a cranial ultra-sound done. I want to make sure there's no fluid in the ventricles of the brain."  She said it as if she didn't want to give me too much unnecessary knowledge yet. Little did she know there was wayyyyy more knowledge there than I'd ever hoped to have about hydrocephalus.

Keep in mind our pediatrician knows about Gibson, but had NO knowledge of his issues.

I was standing holding Stella at the time and I could feel it welling up in me. I slowly and quietly said, "I'm really trying not to panic here, but that was the first thing they found wrong with our baby boy that we lost."  At this point I think I rambled on about how they'd checked Stella's brain every 4 weeks in utero, this couldn't be, they found no genetic link...

I left the appointment like the cool, calm, collected mom I was supposed to be.  Except I had an order in my hand to go have something I never expected tested on my baby girl.  I sat in my car crying, so confused and afraid to even ask God why... again. I know the 'why' is never answered here.

So we made our appointment at Dell. The dread of going there and the anxiety of what could be revealed filled me for the next two days.

We prayed hard.
I fell asleep both nights with my hand on my baby's head and my heart and stomach in knots.

I didn't really want to tell it to the world (or broadcast to the social media world) until we had more details.

A sweet friend prayed the exact words I needed Monday afternoon on the phone for me: She said, "God I pray that you silence the lies."
I clung to that, knowing that my God is a redeemer, he has been faithful and He IS good. No matter what He would be good.

But if I'm being completely honest, as I drove to the appointment yesterday I said, God I don't WANT to be brave right now, I'm tired of being STRONG. I really just want to enjoy my healthy baby girl.

I found my place and sat in the car. Afraid to pray. Afraid to get out. The last thing I said was, "God, you have control over this sweet baby's brain. And devil, you have no place here. You've messed with the wrong momma, AGAIN."

The scan was quick and fairly simple. Since her soft spot is still open they were able to do it via ultrasound instead of an MRI/CAT scan. Stella laid there cooing sweetly.  It was less than 10 minutes and I KNEW they did not measure any pockets of fluid. I've seen what it looks like, I've seen the zoom in and measure bit, the confused technician, the look of worry masked with a comforting smile. I've been there when they went to get multiple backup technicians to hopefully see something different.

She simply said, "The doctor will call you, I don't see anything of concern."  I said, "You didn't measure any fluid did you???"  And she said, "No."

In the afternoon we got the call from the doctor that everything was PERFECTLY NORMAL.  There was NO fluid in her ventricles.

We are praising Jesus and thankful again for each moment we have with these healthy babies.

I'm still not sure what the point of all of this this week was. I'm not sure why the devil had a chance to scare me again or make our heart doubt for one minute God's faithfulness. But if anything it proved His goodness even more. He silenced the lies. 

As the song says, "You drown my fear in perfect love."

And we will rejoice in that with our sweet Super Stella.