The Beginning

This is the first e-mail I sent to our great group of prayer warriors upon Elizabeth's arrival. 

4/14/2010

All:

I thought I would send a quick note to everyone (at least "quick" for me!) about Elizabeth Leigh Rowan.  As many of you now know, Elizabeth arrived yesterday at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon after a long day of labor. She weighed 6 pounds 1 1/2 oz. and, in the humble opinion of this proud daddy, is pretty near perfect!  We had a veritable army of doctors, nurses, NICU nurses, neonatalogists, geneticists, pediatric neurologists, bakers and candlestick makers present for her birth in light of her unique set of pre-natal issues.  I will tell each of you that I took a huge amount of pleasure in seeing God's glorious face being shown in full to these wonderful medical professionals when Elizabeth arrived and was breathing like a champ without any assistance, expressing her understandable displeasure at being poked and prodded, and unabashedly wanting that bottle!  Looking back on it a bit, I just smile with the thought that many people in that room were there to try to see if they could help with an uncertain situation, and were ready to step in--but, instead were able to watch a miracle that had been prayed for by each of you all.  Pretty cool.

Elizabeth has been feeding regularly and doing all things that are associated with that.  She is presently in the NICU here for observation and is hitting all of her marks.  Kathryn and I have been able to feed her and be with her and admire God's creation.  We will continue to be here as our doctors and nurses continue to observe Elizabeth and give us an idea of the present state of this miracle.  Kathryn, unsurprisingly, did absolutely perfect, was up and around within hours of delivery, and is an all-around champ.  She was a rock yesterday and even got an opportunity to make fast friends with the nurses and staff during our long day.    We are in awe of God's faithfulness and are thrilled beyond words to have good results for the initial concerns we had about breathing and feeding.  We continue to monitor all aspects of this little girl and look forward to informing everyone of all progress made.  All in all, yesterday went about as well as we could have hoped and we stand ready to see what today will bring. 

There are myriad stories of joy and encouragement that have come out of this arrival.  No doubt many of you will hear many more, but I did want to share one.  Our doctors, Erin Koster and Terri Major-Kincade, have been nothing short of divinely planted with us and we are so proud to have them on our team.  God has had His hand in all of this from the beginning, and in confirmation of this, our neonatalogist, Dr. Major-Kincade, only had one day this month where she was going to be at Presby-Plano and that was yesterday.  She had made that arrangement over a month ago by trading with three other neonatalogists in a schedule shuffle that makes the new Health Care Bill look like a simple, streamlined  process.  This was well before we even knew we were going to induce yesterday.  As Elizabeth's arrival came a little faster than the thought, she was called out of a bible study yesterday afternoon to be there and was whisked into the room to take care of Elizabeth straight off the elevator.  And, as she said last night to us, "I was supposed to be there--not to treat our expected problems with Elizabeth--but to witness the miracle we had all been praying for!"  Now, don't get me wrong, Dr. M-K has been working hard on Elizabeth and has been a huge source of help in finding out what needs to be done based upon her tests.  She is beyond wonderful and a friend we are blessed to now know.  If you want to see even more why this lady is amazing and another example of God's hand in this, I would suggest you go visit her website www.drterrimajorkincade.com and see her philosophy.  What an amazing thing.  Trust me, this cynical guy is moved by her.  (Plus, she is nothing short of hilarious!  Kathryn and her were having an awesome and hilarious conversation last night at 11:30 about reality shows, spit up, and Louisiana!)  (Sorry for the aside, but I promise it is well worth it.  A shining example of how blessed this process has been!)

Please know that each of you have been such an integral part of this journey for us, and we are relying upon each of you to assist us as we move forward.  We remain vigilant in watching Elizabeth and trying to see what exactly this wonderful new little life will present to us.  We are praising God for his wonderful miracle and also cautiously watching to see what comes next.  Thank you for your prayers, support, encouragement, friendship and constant kindness.  It is so deeply appreciated that we are not able to express it.  

I will continue to update everyone as needed.  (And, I promise, that it will not be the short novel this one is!)  

Matt