We have to say a special Thank You to some unsung heroes.  They are the ones who are behind the scenes....they are the team at the Children's Organ Transplant Association (COTA).  Savannah has the honor of being featured in the COTA calendar this upcoming year.  We consider ourselves honored to have any association with this amazing organization....a group of people who know their children.  Their little miracles are not just names...I know this.  I know this through my conversations, through my emails, their cards to Savvy, they are loving caring people who dedicate their lives to helping families at their most desperate time.  Thank you to each and everyone of you unsung heroes!

(Click on the picture and watch Savvy's Thank You card to COTA)

Thank You COTA

Today was Super Papi's first day at his new job.  Last night we finished cleaning and packing up the house and making the final move to South Florida.  It was a long weekend and I think I will journal about it tomorrow because today...today is a very special day and I do not want to take away from the awe that today is for Robert and I.

At 1 am this morning....Savvy woke up.  I took her out of the crib snuggled with her in bed and gave her a bottle.  We stayed up and giggled and played tickle tickle with Super Papi....she was simply happy and we were simply overwhelmed with the love we have for this little Warrior Princess.

A year ago....same early hour we got "The Call".  "The Call" that would change our lives..."The Call" that we waited 8 months for..."The Call" that told us that our baby girl was going to have a chance at life.  She was going to be blessed with a new liver and have the chance to reach her second birthday.  A milestone we reached just a few weeks ago~a chance...all we ever prayed for.

For 8 long months we waited.  We feared. We prayed. We bargained. We did everything in our power to give Savannah a chance at life...but we knew that without a new liver she would simply die.  Biliary Atresia was going to win and we would not experience the joys ... the simple joys that parents get...the joys of midnight bottle feedings, temper tantrums, giggles, playing on the grass, hugging Winnie the Pooh, the joys of a child....simply being a child.

Then on December 29, 2007 we got "The Call"...we were overjoyed which immediately turned to sadness...sadness knowing that there was a family out there...a family that lost the greatest gift of all that was giving us our greatest gift...

We gathered a bag..we had just returned to the Ronald McDonald House and everyone was asleep except I heard Blake...cutie little Blake demanding a bottle~so I knocked and threw the door wide open...(Yeah Rob....I am going to share the story....only because we need to be reminded that even in the worst and best of times there are just some funny times!)...well...there stood Jen's hubby holding on to Blake and I was so excited that I told him that we got the call and we were running to the hospital and he was excited and I ran downstairs and saw Jen and gave her a hug and we put Savvy in the car and headed to the hospital.  As we are leaving Camden in the rental car....I started to process what had just happened....

Ah...I tell Robert I just walked in on Rob (Jen's hubby) while he was in his room in his underwear....ah...We were excited and then exchanged an awkward pause...I started to laugh....boxers or briefs....I will Never Tell!

We were so nervous driving to the hospital we actually went down the wrong way of the road...luckily it was so early in the morning there was no traffic.  I remember calling CHOP and asking if we needed to get an ambulance to take her and they told me just to get there as soon as possible...we went back and forth on what that meant...but they assured us that we would arrive on time.  We ran into the ER...got to the "liver" floor ... we waited in an all too familiar room...and then the nurse came in and said, "Congratulations we have a match" and then we were taken to the OR.  The whole time we were so nervous that things would not work out....just like the month prior... That is when it hit us I believe...we had to hand over our little girl to a group of doctors and nurses so they could take out her liver and place another one in her...she is only a year old.  She could die.  Without it she would certainly die but even with it ... the process of an organ transplant...we may never hold her again...that was when we asked to have a final family picture taken...it was surreal.

I will never be able to express the emotions ... the rollercoaster that you are on while waiting for your baby to come out of surgery after an organ transplant.  I prayed.  I prayed for my Savvy.  I prayed for my donor angel and yes...although it is hard to type...I even imagined my daughter's funeral...her small coffin...I could not help but think of all the possibilities.

Dr. Rand came to our room and told us that the surgery had been a success....we were numb...I remember her surgeon telling me that it was not over for us...the transplant was the beginning of the rollercoaster ride...and I remember telling her how happy I was to be able to get on the rollercoaster.

This year...so much has happened....it has been a rollercoaster....but We are on the RIDE!!!!

So this morning as we giggled with our little Warrior Princess we thought of our donor angel as we do everyday....we would not have today...this morning....this moment if it were not for the GIFT of an organ donation.  This saved our Savvy...this saved our lives.

So with great respect we celebrate the life we have been given with our Warrior Princess.  We honor and pray for our donor angel.  We thank everyone of our doctors and nurses that fought for our Warrior Princess....we thank you for loving her enough to pray for her .... to continue to keep up with her life.... and most of all we thank the family that made the decision in their grief to save our daughter's life.

Savvy is adorable!  Okay...we all know that is my "official" thought on that ... she still has a cold...she is putting up with two stressed out tired parents who are trying to clean up the house, packing up the house, doing a yard sale, move stuff to storage, celebrate the holidays, travel back and forth to Ft. Lauderdale (yes...Super Papi has done this atleast 8 times in this past week that I have counted....I don't think I have left any out)...keep track of a Warrior Princess who is the queen of taking her diaper off and running around the house naked as you chase her to put them back on her....and oh...yeah...did I mention....tired..well....any time we think of complaining we simply think back a year ago..and we say THANK YOU for allowing us the gift to be super tired and caring for our Warrior Princess!

Merry Christmas to everyone. We wish you and your family health and happiness.

Robert, Ana and Savannah (Warrior Princess).

Savvy is sick.  I have a call in for labs this week and we have our fingers crossed that we can get squeezed in during this holiday week.  We are heading to see Dr. Wonderful this afternoon.  I am hoping that is a "normal" sick thing...just hard to judge with Savvy.  I so wish she gets better soon...we have wonderful plans to spend Christmas Eve with my aunt, grandmother, and mom.  We are also in the mist of moving this week so that of course makes me nervous...

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We saw Dr. Wonderful and she was wonderful of course!  Turns  out that Savvy has a regular old nasty cold....woohooo...okay not a WOOOHOOO because she is miserable but a woohooo because it is not a liver thing!  We even get to skip labs since the numbers will be thrown off due to her cold.  It is going to be hard to leave Dr. Wonderful...she spoils us.....leaving her as a pediatrician is going to be hard!

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Our sweet Bethany got THE CALL!!!!!

Please pray for our sweet little English rose...that her surgery go smoothly and for the amazingly selfless donor family and their angel that has given our Bethany her Christmas miracle.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bethanysalmon

Miracles do happen!  EVERY organ transplant is a miracle!  Please if you have not done so PLEASE consider becoming an organ donor.

Savvy is sick..bummer...but hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for her.

Okay I confess...I had no intention of sitting up and writing a journal entry today.  I went to bed at 9 pm!! This is new territory for me...and I was so excited!  But Savvy does not seem to be feeling well.  She is having a hard time breathing through her nose.  I am hoping the humidifier will clear things up.  In the scheme of things I am sure it is no big deal....it is just hard to hear the cries through the monitor when she is suppose to be sleeping...takes me back to a year ago in half a second!

Well, we are moving.  I mentioned this a while back but it is official.  Robert accepted a new job in South Florida and we are very excited about it.  Woohooo for Super Papi!!  We have boxes everywhere and it is feeling very real now.  I am hoping that my little Warrior Princess is not going to wake up sick....we have plans to celebrate Christmas at my mom's and then head back and finish packing up and cleaning up....but a 4 hour drive with a sick toddler won't cut it....okay...I am rambling cause I am tired.  Oh...gotta go Savvy is awake again.

December 18, 2008

I was just looking at the picture of Savannah under the Christmas tree at the Ronald McDonald House last year ... I remember that this was the first picture that I REALLY saw her yellow eyes...Really saw them.  I had Mami blinders on ... denial... I know.  So I have to put a holiday picture up of Savvy this year.  No more yellow eyes!  We pray that we never see her beautiful eyes yellow ever again!

Aiden needs our prayers

Our sweet Aiden is in the hospital again.  He is very sick and his parents are very scared.  Please keep Aiden in your prayers.

Aiden's fever has broken and he has woken up...he is still very sick but I am happy that he is having a better morning....please continue to keep him and his family in prayers and positive thoughts.

She is just ridiculously cute!  I can't help it..she is!  She is so smart and so sweet...I love her with all of my heart!

We have been lucky.  Savvy has not had any reaction to the flu shot nor to her chicken pox vaccination! Woohooo for the Warrior Princess!  We are trying to get an appointment to have her accessed developmentally.  We know her speech is behind but you know for a little girl who did not have her body working her entire first year of life...nutrients not exactly getting to her the way she was suppose to get them...but we are so proud of her because she did everything right!  She fought and fought and survived!!! We can not ask for more!!! I hear the song..."All I want for Christmas is You"....and if you only knew how true that it is...that is all I wanted...ever wanted and will ever want for Christmas or any day of the year!

So, she is not putting words together.  We know she understands them and she understands them in two different languages.  We know she is happy.  We know that she is as healthy as her body can possibly be considering everything she has gone through.

Tonight Savvy is going to have a big night.  We are going to go to a holiday light show with our friend, Jerilyn.  I can not wait to see Savannah's big bright WHITE eyes light up when she sees all of the beautiful Christmas decorations!!

Please light a candle in honor of our donor angel this evening.

http://www.compassionatefriends.org/..._Lighting.aspx

We are blessed to have Savvy here today, this hour, this moment....but as you know this was only possible because of the selfless gift of our donor angel's family.  On December 29, 2007 - They lost their baby and in their grief they gave us ours.

Just too funny not to share.....

A continuation to the This is My Life blog:

Last night we went for a walk to look at our neighbors lights...sooo pretty!  We walked and enjoyed the lights and Savvy found ANOTHER house she fell in LOVE with...this house has a motorcycle driving Santa who is about 6 feet, a giant snowglobe (the only snow we see in Florida), and a big Nativity scene.  As you can imagine Savvy stopped and waved and "talked" to baby Jesus and the Wise men. She was so excited she would run in and out of the yard screeching with excitement.  We were there for such a long time...she loved every minute.

We continued our walk and waved to the UPS men who were driving around the neighborhood dropping off holiday goodies.  Savvy had a ton of fun and we finally made it home after a long walk.  We put Savvy behind the baby gate to play with her toys and I joined her.  I was tired so I decided to lay down on the floor....little Ms. Savvy decided she wanted me to read a book to her.

Okay....here comes the funny...THIS IS MY LIFE PART.....

Savvy grabs her book and sits on my face!  I started laughing and asked her why her dress was wet?  I picked her up and started to yell with laughter for Robert....

WHERE IS SAVVY'S Diaper??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I look all over the living room and did not find it...Robert looked in the garage, kitchen, living room....no diaper!!!!!!!!!!!!

OH MY GOODNESS..........Savvy's diaper must have fallen off during our walk and WE DID NOT NOTICE!!!!!!!!!!! I do not think that is the package that our neighbors were expecting for the holiday season!

A Smile For the Holidays!

"Night, night baby"....

Robert and I heard that for what seemed to be forever yesterday.  You see we went for a walk with our little Warrior Princess and Savvy spotted a nativity scene in front of someone's house.  You know the kind...big, plastic, that lights up...When she saw it she stood in the middle of the neighbor's yard and did not move.  We explained to her that it was baby Jesus with his Mami and Papi.  We continued our walk.  A few seconds later she pulled her hands away from us and ran back to baby Jesus.

We smiled thought it was sweet and then grabbed her hand so we could continue our walk.  She sat down on the sidewalk.  No temper tantrum. No talking just staring.  She would not budge.

I picked her up and told her that baby Jesus had to go "night, night" and we had to say, "bye, bye"...(thinking it would be odd if this neighbor came home and a strange family with their toddler was sitting on the grass in front of their light up baby Jesus).  She waved and said, "bye, bye" and the whole way down the block she just kept staring at the baby Jesus and kept saying, "night, night baby".  When we turned the corner and we put her down she went to run towards baby Jesus.  We grabbed her again for we needed to go home. She became so upset with us because we left baby Jesus.

I told Savvy that we carry baby Jesus in our hearts and it was okay to go home...so "night, night baby".   I am sharing this story because this little girl makes my heart dance daily.  I wake up and never know what the day is going to bring but I am sure I will laugh and my heart will dance because of her.

I know that the baby Jesus was plastic and probably purchased at a clearance sale last year but what Savvy saw was a baby.  A baby that she loved and did not want to leave behind.  A baby like her....so when I wished her "night, night" last night I could not help but smile for I know when she closed her eyes she was dreaming of baby Jesus.

A perfect analysis of my life:

On Monday evening I was invited to dinner by one of my professors in school (not just me..our class..this is a class to prepare for writing our dissertations).  I thought this was so nice of him and a great way to end the semester.

We met at a nice restaurant in Tampa and I was so excited to have dinner out and I did not have to change anyone's diapers at the table!! Wooohooo! We order our dinner....and we all receive our plates...about a bite or two into it...the power goes out in the restaurant!  Now let me tell you...it takes a lot more then a little power outage to get graduate students to step away from a free meal!!!  So, we all start laughing and talking about how this never happens...then the restaurant starts to fill up with smoke....again...no one steps away from their dinner!  I think I noticed the same thing in everyone...a quick glance to locate the exit door and then another bite of food.

So, we sit and talk and finish our meal in a powerless restaurant filled with smoke and I had to make the comment....THIS IS MY LIFE!  It just always feels like I am writing a story...a bit unbelievable...because things like this do not happen and yet THEY DO happen!  I can not help but laugh...I thought the whole thing was hysterical!

Then last night I am looking through pictures and videos of Savvy.  Yeah I watched the "caged monkey" video with the lined up poopy on the crib rail....again...THIS IS MY LIFE!  and yet I noticed throughout the whole video we are just laughing hysterically!

Then this morning Robert was going to let me sleep in but I wake up to the dogs barking, my child screaming (she decided to put on a shirt by herself ... yeah she was already dressed...and she could not get the shirt over her head because it was buttoned....so screams of frustration proceed)...and I look at Robert and ask...is this my life?

Well, yeah THIS IS MY LIFE! and you know what I love it!  I was starting to feel a bit bummed...we are not setting up a Christmas tree since we are moving..we have boxes piled up in the living room...and I started to think about things....nothing ever turns out the way I think...so why get bummed?  My life has its ups and downs but frankly it is pretty darn great!  I have my sassy little Warrior Princess who has taken to her independence like a professional toddler.  I have an amazing husband.  I have the best of the Christmas season already.

So, I sit in smoke filled restaurants...as I clean up all sorts of poop from all sorts of places, as I hear the best of the temper tantrums...I can only think...Wow...This is my life...and I love it!

Today was vaccination day....the chicken pox vaccine...now we wait for any reaction.....

Savvy also got her flu shot.....we wait for any reaction...

Poor thing had a tough time riding home.  The safety belt on the car seat hit the exact spot where she had her vaccinations...poor thing would cry and say, "Mami" between her tears.  I felt terrible for her as I tried to get home as fast as possible.  She was exhausted and uncomfortable when we got home and fell asleep soon after the appointment.

Turns out Savvy is  getting her 2 year old molars which could explain the tugging of the ears and waking up in tears in the middle of the night like she has been doing lately.  As hard as it is to see her suffer with anything it is really nice to have "normal" developmental things be the cause for her discomfort....just wish she got a pass from anything else that is uncomfortable in life...is an organ transplant just not enough???????

I have to share the cutest story...then I am off to bed.  This is my last week of classes for this semester and I have to be up early tomorrow morning...(Oh...and no worries Sarah...I will work on a video later this week!)

So I come home from class and this evening and it is a beautiful night.  Savvy is precious ... smiling at me. Super Papi and I decide to go out for a stroll in our neighborhood so she can look at the holiday lights...our neighborhood is full of them....so pretty!

So, Savvy insists that she has to pull her new little wagon she got for her birthday around with us and she was just so precious looking at the lights...so picture this cute little girl with her pink little wagon filled with Mega Blocks pointing at the holiday displays....we have a neighbor that has a huge carousel display in their yard with reindeers being ridden by teddy bears and such...too cute...well Savvy being a HUGE fan of the carousel simply wanted to jump into the display....and then we get to this one house....I must admit that as I was walking to the house I was a bit critical...yeah....bah humbug... I made the bah humbuggish comment to Robert...I told him that the house that we were approaching was my least favorite house on the block because the lights were flashing all out of sync and Robert tells me he kinda likes it because it was different....well....the house I did not like was the one I ended up LOVING by the end of our walk....my little Warrior Princess walked up to the house and became mesmerized.  She dropped the handle of her wagon and stood in the middle of the yard and started dancing....the lights were coordinated to music and this little princesa danced and danced and when the songs ended she would clap!  We literally had to pick her up and carry her away from the house!

So our neighbors with the hodge podge lit house that flashes all out of sync...THANK YOU for taking the time to decorate your home for the enjoyment of others.  I owe you an apology for not seeing the beauty that you were sharing with us.  Thank you for sharing your holiday spirit with us!  I am lucky to have Savvy in my life to open my eyes to all of the beauty around me...she continues to teach me...