Praise about Hannah's heart!

Thank you so much for your prayers for us and little Hannah, especially today as we visited the cardiologist.

They performed an echocardiogram on baby Hannah, and the dr.'s exact words were "she is a perfectly healthy baby."

The right side of her heart is NOT enlarged as they thought was the case beforehand, and at this point there is no reason for us to see a cardiologist again!

Praise the Lord with us!! We are soo thankful for answered prayer.

We truly serve a God of miracles.

"In God we have boasted continually and we will give thanks to Your name forever." Psalm 44:8

"Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things." Psalm 72:16

More on Hannah's heart...

Our pediatrician called us a few days ago to let us know that they found what they call a "mild abnormality" of Hannah's heart on the EKG. Apparently the right side of her heart is larger than normal. That's about all the information we have at this point.
Dr. said that if we were going to continue to be in the area, they wouldn't take any further action until she is 4 months old. But, since we are moving (see the last post--"A New Chapter"), she recommended that we see the pediatric cardiologist here just to make sure they are doing all they possibly can to check things out.
So, we have an appt. for Hannah with the cardiologist this Wednesday, September 29th.
This news was definitely not what we were hoping and expecting to hear and though they called it "mild," an abnormality is an abnormality and we are obviously very concerned for our precious little daughter.
She is doing well and appears to be so healthy; we wouldn't know anything was wrong if they hadn't told us, but of course we want all the information we can possibly get.
We just want to ask for your prayers...

1) That the Lord would heal Hannah and that they wouldn't find any problems with her heart when she is checked on Wednesday.
2) For peace for us as parents and that we would trust completely in the Lord and His plan for our little girl.
3) For wisdom for the drs.
4) For Tony and I in the pre-moving and moving process (we plan to leave the south on October 5th and take 3 days to get to our destination in the midwest), for as little stress as possible!
Thank you soo much for your prayers. We will keep you updated.

"I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your wonders of old. I will ponder all Your work, and meditate on Your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples."

Psalm 77:11-14

And now some more pictures... :)

A New Chapter (guest post by Tony)

Hey everyone, as some of you have probably heard, there is a new chapter beginning for the Myers household. As many of you know, Charity, Hannah Beth, and I will be entering into vocational ministry at B.B. Church in the Midwest.** I will be working primarily with the high schoolers in the assembly, as well as helping in the preaching ministry from time-to-time.

How did this come about, you might ask? Well, with Hannah Beth arriving, Charity wanted to pursue her dream as a full-time mom, so she is not teaching this year. With this I needed a new job. Working at EJ Aquatic Center has been nice, but it is not quite enough to support a family. So I began looking for a job.

At first we were looking to stay around "D", but nothing fleshed out. While this was happening, I was getting calls from different churches around the U.S. to enter into ministry. Well, after much praying and thinking, we chose BBC. This is a church we are familiar with, and we already know many of the people. We also have a desire to work with these kids.

We don’t know what the future holds. Maybe we will be back in "D" someday, or maybe in the Kingdom of Swaziland…who knows. My desire is to work in pastoral ministry. Overall, the focus is the LORD Jesus Christ and His Gospel. We are thankful to be a part of His work.

-Tony

**Abbreviations have been used in place of specific names of cities and churches for security purposes.**

Hannah Elizabeth's birth story, part 2

So here's the rest of Hannah's birth story...sorry it has taken me a while to post this, but snuggling my precious baby girl (as well as feeding, changing diapers, and sleeping!) have been higher on my priority list than blogging lately ;)


Soon after the dr. came and broke my water at around 10:00 p.m., my contractions started. I was so thankful that I didn't have to be induced (big answer to prayer) and didn't need any pitocin at all.


12:00 a.m., August 31st--Epidural time, just when the pain was starting to get pretty rough.


1:30 a.m.--I was really starting to wonder how far I had progressed to this point, and so I asked the nurse if Dr. P could come back and check to see how far I was dilated. To say the least, I was soo ready to meet our baby girl! Tony's mom and grandma were in our l/d room at that point, so they stepped out while I was being checked. I was ecstatic to hear that I was 10 cm, so Dr. said that I could go ahead and start pushing when I felt pressure. I was thinking...this could still be a while. In a matter of just a couple minutes, everything was ready for baby's arrival and the pushing had begun.


1:47 a.m.--I think I counted only 8 pushes (about 10 minutes or less...what a HUGE blessing!) and baby Hannah Elizabeth had arrived! The dr. placed her into my arms right away and she started screaming! That was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. She let us know right away that she has a good set of lungs.

Tony cut the umbilical cord, and we just stared at our precious, ALIVE, breathing, beautiful little girl!

The only words I can really use to describe it are "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"



On a side note, Tony's mom and grandma were out in the waiting room wondering why it was taking so long for them to check to see how far I was dilated. After they got me taken care of and and Hannah was cleaned up, the nurse came out and told them they could come back in the room now. They couldn't believe it when they already heard the noise of a screaming baby coming from inside our labor and delivery room.

(Meeting Hannah for the first time, and recording her scream on Grandma's phone to send to others!)

We were all in amazement and thanking the Lord for how smooth and quickly everything went. I have no doubt that it is due to the fact that SO many people (many of you!) were praying for us. We can't thank you enough.

Holding our beautiful Hannah Beth in our arms has brought back so many emotions and memories of our precious Alethia Joy. Oh how we wish that we had a 19-month-old little Alli running around, entertaining her newborn sister and making us all smile. Having Hannah here, those moments of leaving the hospital room, coming home to the nursery (this time all joyful occasions, praise God!), finally getting to use the blankets, diapers, wipes, and little pink and purple outfits, all have made us miss our Alethia Joy even more. The thought that one baby "replaces" another couldn't be further from the truth.

But how incredibly blessed we are to have the privilege of loving, cuddling, kissing, and raising little miss Hannah Beth. Cherishing every moment...

"Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things."

Psalm 72:18

Thank you so much to those who prayed and are praying! Sweet Hannah was such a trooper and did great during the EKG. The only time she cried was when they had to pull all those sticky things off of her body :( Poor thing. We will find out the results in about 2 weeks.

On another note, our precious little girl is growing like crazy! She already weighs 8 lbs, 2 oz.!

Hannah's heart

I will finish Hannah's birth story at a later time, but for now...would you please pray for Hannah's little heart? She has to have a follow-up EKG done today because her heart was skipping a beat every once in a while right after she was born. Please pray that it goes well and that the drs. will say her little heart is healthy and doing better! Thank you!

4 years

Happy 4th Anniversary to my wonderful husband, Tony!

I am soo thankful to the Lord for you.

You are an amazing husband,

and an incredible father...

to Alethia Joy for the short time we held her in our arms...

to baby Grace who we never had the chance to hold,

and to Hannah Beth, our precious gift and blessing. I absolutely love watching you hold her, love and cuddle her, and desire to protect and care for her.


Thank you for your desire to raise our little one in the grace and knowledge of God.

Hannah Elizabeth's birth story, part 1

Monday, August 30th--

2:00 p.m. -- Tony and I went to the dr. for our last scheduled o.b. visit and ultrasound. They did the ultrasound and biophysical profile first and the u/s tech mentioned how low baby girl's head was. Everything went well although I was disappointed that I couldn't really see her sweet face because of how low her head was. Little did I know it wouldn't be much longer before I could see her face in person!!

Next we saw Dr. F (my favorite one, who delivered Alethia-he was also scheduled to deliver this baby girl if I was to be induced on Thursday, Sept. 2). He listened to baby's heartbeat and then said he would check my cervix. I was really curious to know if I had dilated and effaced any further. The first thing Dr. F said was, "Wow, her head is really low..are you having contractions?" I replied, "No...., "wondering why he was asking. He said, "You're 5 cm dilated and I could stretch you to 8 c.m...and 100 % effaced. I think it's time to go to the hospital and have this baby!"



Wow, a flood of emotions...excitement, fear, joy, anticipation...is this really happening? We're going to have this baby today or tomorrow?? Wow.

I realized then that Dr. F wouldn't be the one to deliver baby girl and I asked who was on call at the hospital. They told me it was Dr. P...and I was so relieved! She was my 2nd choice :)


3:00 p.m.--We headed home and gathered all our things together. I still wasn't feeling at all like I was in labor, so we kinda took our time a bit and made sure we tied up loose ends at home and didn't forget anything (although we knew if we did, it would be fine because the hospital is only about 1/2 mile or less away).


3:30 p.m.--Walked into those big huge hospital doors, a moment I had been dreading because of all the memories of the last time we were there..leaving with empty arms and broken hearts.

But this time I felt hope..baby girl was moving actively and we trusted the Lord that He had her in His hands. When we were getting checked in, they asked me which labor/delivery room I wanted. Apparently it was kind of a slow evening on the l/d floor. I found out later that they asked me that question because they were being sensitive to the fact that there might be an l/d room that we would want to avoid. I didn't remember the number of the one where Alethia was born, but the one we ended up in looked basically the same...but I figured they pretty much all look the same.


4:00 p.m.--And so the waiting began. We got settled into our room and started making phone calls and sending out many texts to ask people to pray and let them know that we were at the hospital!
Soon after we got into our room, they hooked me up to the heart rate and contraction monitors. Baby girl was moving around so much that it was hard for the monitor to consistently track her heart-rate. It made me nervous to see the heart-rate number on the screen and then see it all of a sudden disappear. But I was comforted by the fact that she was so active.

It all seemed very surreal...a flood of memories from Alethia's birth came back to me and I felt so many mixed emotions...so much anticipation of what was to come and yet still fear that something may go wrong.

4:30 p.m.--I had tested positive for Group B strep, so they got me started on an IV. They told me that I needed to have the antibiotics in my system for at least 4 hrs, so they would plan to break my water at about 9 p.m. and hopefully that would get labor started on its own. (I was still not having any contractions at this point).
So we waited some more...my mother in law and Tony's grandma came and kept us company and that helped pass the time. It was really cold in the l & d room (though it felt comfortable to me), so Tony was glad he had brought his sleeping bag to curl up in!

9:00 came and went, and I still wasn't having any contractions and they hadn't broken my water yet.

10:00 p.m.--Dr. P came in and broke my water and shortly thereafter the "action" started.

To be continued in part 2...

Behind the Name...

Just thought I'd share the significance behind Hannah Elizabeth's name.

--Hannah is the Hebrew word for "grace." God has shown us an abundance of "grace" (unmerited favor) in the midst of loss and pain. Hannah is truly an undeserved gift and we thank the Lord for her!

--Elizabeth is a family name--Tony's maternal great-grandmother and paternal grandmother were both named Elizabeth.

--Elizabeth is also a Hebrew word (Tony studied Hebrew in college and seminary) and it means "consecrated to God" or "pledged to God." We thought that was very appropriate...before Hannah was even conceived, we desired to consecrate to God any future children that He may bless us with.

--Both Hannah and Elizabeth are Bible characters who were barren, but the Lord miraculously blessed them with precious sons (Samuel and John the Baptist) who grew to be godly men of faith. Hannah's story begins in 1 Samuel 1 and Elizabeth's story begins in Luke 1.

--John 1:17b says, "Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Alethia's name means truth, Grace was our second born, and now Hannah is also our "Grace."

--Tony would like her to be called "Hannah Beth," so we'll see if that sticks :)

P.S. She is doing great--eating well, gaining weight, sleeping lots, and we can't stop staring at her and snuggling her! Enjoying every minute with this precious gift. She's a week old today and it already seems like she's growing up too fast!!

Coming next...Hannah's birth story

Baby Hannah Elizabeth

Holding onto her "big sister" Alethia Joy's necklace, so precious.