5 Months Old!

I absolutely cannot believe that my little girl is a whole 5 months old! That sounds so big to me. It is absolutely amazing that this rolling, giggling, talking little creature is the same baby that I carried for 9 months. Today I find myself thinking a lot about my birth experience and how excited I am to be able to do it all over again eventually.

These last 5 months have been filled with some pretty big challenges, but as I look at Brooke, who is so healthy and happy, I feel so blessed that we have overcome all of those obsticles. It is remarkable how God has provided John and me with the strength and endurance through the tough times. Even moreso, I am thankful that God has allowed Brooke to grow big and strong. I was just remembering all of the things that we have been through and it affirms my faith and trust in God everytime I look at my precious baby.

The following is a list of things that we have been able to conquer...

1. As soon as my milk came in, Brooke began to spew.
2. When she was 2 weeks old, they had to do an ultrasound on her to make sure her insides were all working properly. She screamed the whole time:-(
3. When she was 3 weeks old, they found blood in her stool. They told me that it was something I was eating so I had to eliminate dairy, eggs, soy, and beef from my diet.
4. When Brooke was 4 weeks old, they told me that I had to stop breast feeding because there was still blood in her stool and I was "harming her more than helping her." I was SO upset.
5. Once the whole bloody stool issue resolved itself, (we never really found out what was causing it for sure) she was having some other problems so they ran a series of bloodwork. They found a large amount of irregular white blood cells in her blood and that her sedimentation rate abnormal.. Both key indicators of leukemia.
6. After 4 series of bloodwork and many weeks of waiting for results, Brooke was ultimately given a clean bill of health. We still don't really know why her blood work was abnormal, but she's totally fine now.
7. Reflux has always been an issue, but hey, who cares? Our baby is healthy and there's nothing majorly wrong with her.

As I reflect on these difficult circumstances that seemed so big at the time, I regret allowing them to cause me to lose sleep and to become so sick to my stomach that I couldn't eat. Honestly, God really worked through Brooke's health issues to prove to me that He is bigger and stronger than any problem that we can possibly encounter.

I suppose that my dad's sermon today on God's sovreignty really spoke to me. God doesn't have to heal us or fix our problems, and sometimes it's not His will to make everything perfect again. I'm just SO thankful that in God's big plan that he chose for all of these issues to be something we could grow through.

In essence, I am filled with so much love for Brooke. I am so thankful that I, out of all of the capable people in the world, have the wonderful blessing of being her mommy!