Five days after birth, Sabrina was discharged from the hospital and sent home with a hospice program. We had never imagined in our wildest dreams that we would have the chance to bring her home with us! Wow! We felt extremely grateful to a merciful God who had blessed us with far more than we had hoped. To our happy surprise, Sabrina did well at home and began to grow and thrive. She gained weight steadily, about 1˝ lbs. per month in the first year.
The doctors had told us that her heart would only last for 1 week, so we took her to a cardiologist at 3 weeks of age. The cardiologist said that the holes in Sabrina’s heart had healed and that she would have no further trouble with her heart. This has proven to be true. What a miracle!
At age one month, she began to smile responsively and roll from side to side. Unfortunately, a stroke at age 2 or 3 months impaired her development and these milestones were lost for a while. However, she continued to be a very happy, responsive, and aware infant. She loved to be held and snuggled.
At almost 4 months of age, Sabrina had her first and only operation, a surgery to place a g-tube in her stomach. Although Sabrina could suck and drink from a bottle, she was still primarily fed with tube feedings and still is. (Sure is convenient.) Her rapid respiratory rate made it dangerous and difficult for her to suck and swallow sufficiently. Although the surgery itself went well, Sabrina later stopped breathing and almost died from a reaction to too much Morphine. We felt like she could decide at that point whether to live or return to heaven and we are grateful that she decided to stay. A few days later, she was home with us and doing fine.
Doctors had always told us that Sabrina could never recover from pneumonia. Well, at age 5 months, Sabrina caught pneumonia and she slowly recovered from it. She’s a fighter! She required oxygen after the pneumonia but was mostly weaned from it by her first birthday.
The remainder of her first year, Sabrina continued to grow bigger and stronger. About age 10 months, she began smiling again! She rolled around again, learned to bring her hands together at midline, and had a favorite (and very particular) way to suck on her fingers. It had been a wonderful and emotional first year.
[+] Second Year (13-24 months):
Soon after her birthday, Sabrina moved with us from San Bernardino to Arizona. Among other reasons, this was a way for her to have cleaner air to breathe.
Sabrina had done very well on breast milk feedings during her first year. During her second year, we transitioned to feeding her a natural pediatric formula. After this transition, Sabrina had several seizures which we believe were diet related. She was put on a seizure med which soon eliminated the seizure activity. Sabrina’s digestive system has always done very well. Throughout her second year of life, her reflux continued to improve and she completed stopped spitting up by her second birthday.
Although Sabrina is generally healthy, she often has some minor medical issue to contend with. At this time of her life, it was sties. After being outside one evening in a dusty wind, Sabrina woke up with swollen, red, sty-filled eyelids! Although they looked pretty nasty for several months, they eventually cleared up.
We were beginning to wonder if Sabrina would ever have any teeth! At age 17 months, however, she got her first white pearly. Then, they all begin to grow in and she had all 20 baby teeth within a year.
During this year, Sabrina grew stronger and sturdier and continued to enjoy life. She liked going to church and listening to the organ music and the singing. She also has always enjoying listening to Daddy play the guitar for her. At Christmastime, she took a trip to California to visit her grandparents and family there. She especially enjoyed looking at the Christmas lights on the tree. Also in her second year, she enjoyed walks and rollerblading outings with her parents. She also went swimming often, listened to numberless stories, and tasted lots of different foods.
Sabrina has always done well emotionally and as she grew closer to her second birthday, she began to have more opinions. She developed several favorites, such as her favorite song, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” and her favorite food at the time, baby food pears.
[+] Third Year (25-36 months):
Like most 2 year-olds, Sabrina began to grow taller and thinner. She weighed about 33 lbs. for most of this year. Our beautiful baby began to turn into a beautiful little girl. One thing Mom loves to do with Sabrina is get her all ready - fix up her hair, paint her toenails, cute dresses, smell good stuff, etc. Unlike other 2 year-olds, she will not get up and run away when it is time for a hairdo!
Unfortunately, Sabrina caught pneumonia again at 25 months of age. The antibiotic helped her and she recovered quickly. Times like this (one to three times per year), she is in the hospital, but always for less than a week. We feel very blessed that she is almost always home with us and not hooked up to monitors.
Sabrina dressed up as Raggedy Ann for Halloween this year and she was the cutest thing we’d ever seen! We had a lot of fun. We’ll have to add a photo to this website someday.
During Sabrina’s third year, she battled seizures for almost nine months. They began mildly, but soon became more severe and frequent, occurring many times a day and with clusters lasting up to 10 minutes. During severe seizures, she would sometimes stop breathing. During this time, we learned understanding and empathy for anyone who has a child with seizures – it is very difficult to feel so helpless. Her neurologist tried several seizure meds that didn’t seem to help and made her dopey and less responsive. Although he stated that Sabrina’s seizures would inevitable continue and grow worse, we weren’t so convinced.
Once again, we pleaded with God to help us. We continued to pray as we tried different things - changes to diet, schedule, sleeping habits, etc. When Sabrina was 30 months old, God again answered our prayers and we had the solution. We decided to eliminate soybean oil from her diet and replace it with coconut oil and animal fat (in goat’s milk). We changed Sabrina’s diet and her seizures completely disappeared within a week! We were truly amazed and grateful for yet another miracle.
Another thing that helped Sabrina during this year is that she began visiting a doctor who specializes in osteopathic manipulation. He was able to correct Sabrina’s rapid breathing rate and within a few months, she was able to get off oxygen completely. She had required oxygen at night since her first bout with pneumonia.
After her seizures were gone, Sabrina came alive again. She had not smiled for many long months and now she began to smile and laugh and wiggle with more energy than before. She had always been wonderful, and now suddenly she was tons of fun too! She began to smile at every little noise and seemed to like everything around her. It was amazing to see her developing again and enjoying life so much.
[+] Today:
At this writing, Sabrina is 34 months old. We can’t believe that our miracle baby will soon be three years old! Sabrina is extremely peaceful, happy, grateful, and loving. She is a social bug and she likes people, parties, and entertainment. She has a good memory and usually enjoys new experiences.
She is very patient and gentle. When she is hungry, she will wait until she has our attention and then open her mouth and stick out her tongue like a baby bird asking for food. Lately, she likes riding in the car with the windows down and will start smiling as soon as she is in the car seat. If we roll her window up, she will fuss until it is back down again.
Sabrina is our sunshine and we can’t really describe how much we love and adore her. We try to enjoy every single day with her because we know that life is precious. Through our experiences with Sabrina, we are constantly reminded that God lives and that he loves us. He has been so generous and kind to us and our family.
