Welcome to our Journey

Hello friends and family!  Welcome to our blog, God Will Strengthen.  This title was a no brainer because Ezekiel is a miracle and we know God is with us.  Ezekiel means God strengthens.  We had this name in mind before we were even pregnant with Ezekiel.  

As of today, our sweet little miracle is 12 days old.  I (Katie) am sitting here watching him sleep so peacefully as I write to all of you, his prayer warriors.  We cannot thank you all enough for the prayers, love and support you all have shown our family.  We could not have made it this far without all of you and the faith of God.  We would like to bring you all along on this journey of Ezekiel Joseph.  Not sure how consistent we will be about writing but we will do our best.  

Before we share how our journey began we would like to update you all on how Ezekiel is doing.  Ezekiel was born on Wednesday, February 1, 2017 and then was whisked away to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  The Friday after he was born he had to undergo surgery to have bilateral ureterostomies placed, which allow him to have a place where urine would escape.  Then on Monday he had another major surgery to place his Peritoneal Dialysis catheter, a G-Tube, along with fixing his abdominal wall hernia and bilateral orchioplexy.  After that surgery the plan was to let him rest for a couple of weeks to allow everything to heal.  However, the PD catheter started to leak that night and blood got in. So the next day we had to start doing mini cycles of dialysis to flush out the blood in the catheter so it would not clot off.  If it did clot off,  he would have to get a new one.  So we have been doing mini cycles of dialysis for the next 3 days.  Ezekiel had some ups and downs but was able to come off all his oxygen completely for a few days.  

The night of 9th, we got 2 dreaded phone calls.  Its never good when they call you at night.  Ezekiel was working harder to breath and was just very irritable and not making his oxygen saturation requirements.  So they put him back on a nasal cannula.   The nurse called everyone in to look him over.  They got x-rays, drew blood cultures, labs and they sent off fluid from the PD catheter.   That morning when we arrived, they were doing an abdominal sonogram to make sure nothing was no leaking from his surgery, and placing him on a Nasal CPAP machine. He needed a little extra help breathing.  After they put him on CPAP he was a lot more relaxed and slept the rest of the morning.  David and I hung around till the afternoon and Ezekiel was feeling much better so we both got some good snuggle time in with him. 

Thanks for reading our first post.  Next we will update you on how our journey began.