My Anibella's Healthy Heart!

Eight months ago, at my sweet Anibella's routine, 9-month well-baby check-up, we were shocked to find out that her Pediatrician was very concerned about the way her heart sounded. All of Anibella's check-up's before then had been completely normal & we thought she was perfectly healthy. We have since changed Pediatrician's for many reasons, including how she handled this appointment.  After she listened to Anibella's chest, she drew back, made a face & abruptly said, "This doesn't sound right. Has she ever had a problem with her heart before? I don't like what I'm hearing. I'll be sending you to get an Echocardiogram asap!".  I was terrified & I felt like I was going to pass out!  I scooped my sweet baby girl up off of the exam table, checked out & needless to say, I left the office in tears! The Pediatrician gave us no other information & told us that her Echocardiogram was scheduled for a couple of days away. I so desperately wanted to go searching for answers but, I listened to my wise Hubby who encouraged me NOT to Google "heart conditions in baby's"! I'm so grateful for my wise & loving Hubby because I was already struggling enough without reading about all of the "what if's"! I just cried out to God for my sweet baby, pleaded with Him to heal her & asked for His grace for my anxious heart!  The next few days of waiting for her Echo were so hard!  I love my precious little Anibella Hope so so so much!  Every time I looked at her, a flood of emotions would fill my heart!  I was terribly scared for my sweet baby, grateful to God for my precious little treasure, doubting, fearing & desperately trying to trust God with it all!  I spent a lot of time cuddling her, praying for God to heal her & to give peace to my anxious Mommy-heart!  My 4  big girls were so sweet & helpful & we prayed together a lot for their baby sissy!  Anibella did amazing during her Echocardiogram! She was only 9 months old & she had to say completely still & quiet while a total stranger was rubbing the ultrasound wand all over her chest, tummy & neck for 20 minutes. If she had been too squirmy or fussy, we would have had to reschedule because, of course, an ultrasound is sensitive to sound & motion. I am so grateful that my Anibella was still nursing a lot because she just nursed the whole time, held onto Mommy with one hand & Daddy with the other hand & kept a watchful eye on the technician doing the Echo. The next day, I had to call to get the results, even though I fully expected them to realize that I was eagerly waiting to hear the results. I forget that they do this everyday so it's not as urgent to them. The Ped (the one we no longer see) said, "Is this Anibella's Mommy? Yes, the Echo showed that Anibella has ASD." I said, "What is ASD?" & she answered, "Oh, Anibella has a hole in heart. It may or may not close on it's own. We'll follow up with you in a few months. Have a nice day." I was fighting my fearful, anxious heart & trying desperately to talk to myself instead of listening to all of my fearful "what if's"! Before I even called my Hubby, I made the mistake of Googling "ASD" which stands for "Atrial Septal Defect" & was definitely scared by what I read. I waited until my Hubby got home from work to tell him because he manages a large group of people & he needs to be at the top of his game all day. So, I spent the rest of the day cuddling with my baby girl & praying for God to heal her. When I told him, he hugged me, cuddled Anibella & just started praying for God to heal her. He did what he always does, points me back to God & encourages me to trust Him. He reminded me that God loves our precious baby girl even more than we ever could & we love her SO much! My Hubby has a very tender place in his heart for our girlies so he was sad but I could tell that he was trusting God (way more than I was!) & that he really believed that God would protect Anibella! He is also a problem solver & has an innate desire to "fix" things & make them better for all of his girls. So, we both wanted & needed to know more. We ended up changing Pediatrician's & we found one that we really really love! (You know you have a good Ped when your 3 year-old gets a little "owie" & says, "Oh Mommy, do we get to go see Dr. Jain?" Haha!) : ) So, Dr. Jain read Anibella's Echo report & he explained in more detail about her ASD. He said that she most definitely had a "hole in her heart" but that he wanted us to start over from the beginning by seeing an actual Pediatric Cardiologist who specializes in the teeny tiny hearts of baby's! Our first Ped had just sent us to the hospital for Anibella's Echo, sent the report to a general Cardiologist to be read & then back to them to tell us the news. We waited for a while to be referred to our Pediatric Cardiologist but Dr. Jain followed us closely during the months in between to be sure her heart was sounding the same or better & not worse.  So, finally, on Monday, February 21st, we drove over to Orlando to go to Anibella's new Pediatric Cardiologist. We were so grateful to finally be going to get some answers after 8 long months of wondering, praying & asking God to heal our sweet baby! Anibella had an EKG, another Echocardiogram & a very thorough exam. My sweet baby did not like those super sticky tabs they had to put all over her chest for the EKG, I think there were about 10 of them. Our nurse was such a sweetie & she was so compassionate when she had to pull those sticky tabs off of our baby's soft skin! I could tell it hurt because Anibella has a very high pain tolerance & she was crying so sadly when she pulled them off. : (  Randal was so sweet to Anibella & wanting so much to comfort her!  When she was scared by the EKG sticky tabs, I was cuddling & comforting her & he was holding her hand & whispering into her ear! It was so adorable & made me love my man all the more! : ) Our Bellie Bug is such a sweet, affectionate, cuddly little girl & she absolutely adores her Daddy!  Our nurse even commented on how sweet Anibella is & how cute it is to see her big, strong Daddy being so sweet to his little girl!  : )  We were so happy to hear that, right away, they could tell that Anibella's EKG was totally normal! Yay! Then they did another Echo. As I said before, Anibella had to be completely still & quiet. I was worried because my sweetie isn't nursing anymore & now she is a very busy & curious 15 month-old! Our wonderful Cardiologist, Dr. Sattar, reminded us that if Anibella couldn't be still & quiet, that we could come back in 6 months to a year to try again. She said that because of how healthy Anibella looks & "seems" & because of her great EKG, she wasn't as worried as she would have been had Anibella had some of the classic "heart patient" symptoms & if her EKG hadn't been so great. It was such a relief just to hear that but I was hoping & praying that Anibella could do well through the entire 20 minute Echo so that we could just know & not wonder again for the next 6 months or a year! Well, the Echo room was quiet & dark & they had an Elmo DVD playing. The ultrasound tech encouraged me to give Anibella a snack & a drink or whatever would keep her calm & happy. I gave her Cheerios to nibble on & apple juice to drink. My girlies are usually just water & milk drinkers but I brought her a little cup of apple juice because I knew she would need to be still & completely interested in something that would distract her from the Echo. It was really cute when she tasted her apple juice! She looked at me like, "what is this yummy stuff?!" & just sipped it happily! : ) She sat on my lap, completely still & quiet the entire time, mesmerized by Elmo & that yummy apple juice! : ) I am SO incredibly happy & grateful that she did so well! The ultrasound tech was amazed at how well she did too! : ) My sweet Hubby is such a tender & attentive Daddy! (Although my Hubby has always been so wonderful with our girlies & it should never surprise me, he really still amazes me at how well he does with our girls & how much they adore him!)  He was fully engaged & so tender to Anibella!  During her Echo, he was so sweet & wanting to comfort & take care of Anibella, like he did when she had her EKG.   He was talking to her & encouraging her! It was so sweet! He was saying, "Oh, is Elmo playing with Snuffalupagus?" & "Aw, look, Elmo & Snuffy are having lunch together!" Haha! SO so precious!  : )  I'm so grateful that God has given me such a wonderful Hubby who is such an amazing Daddy to our girlies AND that our 5 girlies love him so much!  As soon as we got back in our room, Dr. Sattar came back in & said that she was thrilled with how Anibella's heart looks! She said that she has a "perfectly healthy heart" & that her "ASD" or the hole in her heart is TOTALLY & COMPLETELY HEALED! YAY! Praise God! We are absolutely overwhelmed by God's kindness & so so so grateful for His amazing grace & mercy! We are so grateful that, sometime in the last 8 months, God healed our precious baby girls' little heart! We both kissed & hugged each other & our baby girl & I was so happy that I started crying when the doctor left the room! We both immediately prayed & thanked God for healing our sweet Anibella! YaaaaaaaY! We are so incredibly grateful to God!

Thank you, our wonderful friends & family, for all of the times you have loved us, sought God on behalf of our sweet baby girl & carried us in your hearts! Our amazing God has heard your (& our!) prayers! He has had mercy on us & healed our precious little Anibella! We are so grateful & we love you all!

I had to share some pictures I took of my Anibella today!  This sweet baby has some PER...SON...AL...I...TYYYYYYY!  : )

 One of Anibella's big sissies was "getting her"!  She LOVES when her sissies play with her!  She giggles so hard!  I LOVE it! 

 This one of her adorable profile totally cracks me up!  That's my Bellie Boo, cute, happy & funny all the time!

 This is how my little sweetie prefers to sit in her Bumbo!

Oh, how my sweet Anibella (& ALL of my precious girlies!) absolutely MELT me!  I am so grateful to God for protecting & healing our sweet baby girl!  

My Bath Baby!

I love my sweet little yummy-smelling, bath baby girl & her precious little wet eyelashes! Oh, how she melts my heart!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Palmer Family!

 

We hope & pray that you have had a wonderful Christmas & that your New Year will be full of love, hope, joy, laughter & God's amazing grace!

We love you our family & friends!

Love, 

Randal & Erin

Amy (11), Ashley (8), Abby (6), Ava (3) & Anibella (1)

Family Christmas Photos & Shutterfly!

It's no secret that I love photography and that my absolute favorite subjects to photograph are my Husband and our 5 little girls!  Even just a quick glance at my blog will show that one of the most important things to me is documenting our family and the adventures we share together through pictures!  Every year, one of my biggest priorities and something I really enjoy doing is our yearly family Christmas picture.  I start thinking about it months in advance and I get really excited when it's finally time to take our picture, get our cards made and send them all out!  In years past, I have always had our pictures printed out and then sent them along with our letter but this year I'm going to be doing picture cards through Shutterfly!  I used Shutterfly for my sweet littlest baby's birth announcements and I absolutely loved them so I'm super excited to see how our Christmas pictures turn out too!  As a busy wife & mommy to five precious little girls and one on the way, I love Shutterfly because of the many ways they meet my needs!  They are extremely easy to use, very reasonably priced and the quality is amazing too!  My favorite product this year and the one I have chosen to use is these beautiful folded greeting cards.  I love this idea because there is plenty of space for photos inside and out with room for a Christmas letter too!  How great is that!?  I also really appreciate the quality of the product because each card is printed on premium card stock which means that they'll look great and be sturdy enough to protect my photos!  I have to confess (as if you already didn't know!), I'm a little preoccupied with color schemes and coordinating!  I was SO excited when I saw the many many colors, patterns and styles I had to choose from!  My three favorites are.......one, two and three, which go so perfectly with our monochromatic color scheme this year! (which my adorable little 8 year old keeps confusing with "melodramatic" & she totally cracks me up every time!  "Mommy, can I wear my melodramatic outfit today?"!  Ha ha!)  I can hardly wait to share our Shutterfly family Christmas picture cards with all of you, our family and friends!

My Baby Girl is ONE!!!!!!!

My sweet little baby girl is ONE today!  

At this time one year ago today I was cuddling my precious little newborn baby girl who was just a few hours old.  Our 5th baby girl, our Anibella Hope, came into our lives & completely captivated our hearts at 11:19 am on October 28th, 2009!  She was a sweet, tiny little peanut weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces & measuring 19 1/4 inches long!  Anibella had beautiful deep blue eyes, soft, light brown, CURLY hair (all of our other girlies had completely straight hair so her hair was such a fun surprise!), the adorable signature Palmer button nose, a dimple on each of her kissable little cheeks & a content, sweet & happy disposition from the very beginning!  We were also surprised at how tiny she was because she was born at 39 weeks & 6 days, only ONE day early!  All of our other girls have been a week or even two weeks early & were all between 6 pounds & 7 1/2 pounds.  We thought for sure she would be our biggest because she stayed inside of Mommy for so long!  Well, God knew that our little sweetie girl needed to bake a little longer since she was such a tiny little baby!  When she was born, the nurse exclaimed, "she's such a tiny little peanut!" & I was like, "WHAT?!  How much does she weigh!?"  : )  Another fun & sweet surprise!  She was just PERFECT & we were in LOVE!  : )  I'm so grateful & I love that I got to experience a natural labor & delivery for Anibella's birth!  Her birth was such a wonderful experience that I wish I had done it naturally with my other 4 baby girls too!  Lest you get the wrong impression of me, I do not like pain.  I didn't want to go natural to prove that I could & I definitely don't enjoy pain.  I wanted to do it because I hoped that I would feel better more quickly after & because with all of my other girls I was about 7 cm or so before I even needed to start breathing through my contractions.  With all of our other girls & especially our last two, I delivered veryvery quickly.  My sweet Hubby told our nurse, several times, that they should be ready because when it's time for me to push, our babies come very fast!  She seemed to understand & kinda giggled about it.  Well, because Anibella is our fifth-born & because I had no medication to be able to stop my body from the natural pushing out process, she was actually BORN ON the "practice push"!  My nurse just wanted to see if I was ready & yep, I was!  I gave her one good "practice push" & Anibella was born so quickly that the only nurse in the room delivered her right on the bed with no sterile pad, no stirrups & only one glove while I was laying completely FLAT (including my legs!)!  (all you Mommy's will know how amazing THAT is!)  Anibella surprised her Daddy & especially our poor nurse!  Our amazingly wonderful & very competent nurse managed to lunge across me to push the call button with one hand while cradling our sweet newborn in her other hand (the gloved hand, thank goodness!) & just moments after Anibella was born, the doctor, 2 residents & 2 nurses all came running into our room!  They were shocked, to say the least, that Anibella was born so quickly & without any of the typical "okay-now-we're-gonna-push" stage!  They put my sweet baby girl right on my chest & I cried as I looked at her precious little face!  I was completely undone with emotion & love for her!  I was just amazed!  I was so grateful to God that He had given us our precious little Anibella, that she was born healthy & that she was in my arms!  Since I didn't have any medication, I was able to get up right away & walk around & I felt wonderful!  I was so grateful since with all of my other sweet girlies, I had noodle-legs for the first 4-6 hours after they were born!  Every time a nurse came into my room, they were all fascinated & they wanted to hear Anibella's birth "story" & they wanted to know how & why she was born without a doctor in the room!  So, evidently the hospital doesn't like that kind of thing (for valid liability issues, I'm sure) because the head nurse asked me several times why Anibella was born without a doctor, if I was actually told to stop pushing or keep pushing & what happened.  When I told them that I had a completely natural delivery & that she was born ON the PRACTICE push (which, of course, I couldn't help!), they all did the "Oh, I see!"  It was kinda funny!  : )  So, our sweet baby girl has a great birth story!  Anibella has been such a sweet & precious joy to our family!  She just has such a content, happy & sweet personality!  We love her so very much!  Anibella started walking at nine months old & she is doing amazing!  She walked everywhere now & she just learned how to stand up in middle of a room without holding on to anything!  She is an adventurous little baby!  She loves to climb!  She has learned how to climb up on the couch, our bed & pretty much anything!  She is saying, Mama, Dada, uh oh, all done, night night, sis sis & she just started saying I love you the day before her birthday!  : )  She plays patty cake (the "rolling" part is her favorite!), peekaboo, she blows kisses, waves with one or both hands & she absolutely LOVES to dance to ANY music!  It is SO stinkin cute!  Anytime she hears music or if we start singing, she will move her little shoulders, twist her little body from her waist, move her legs, waggle her little arms, move her head & bounce up & down!  I mean, she really boogies & it's adorable!  : )  She also just started doing something that we absolutely love & it totally cracks us up because it is so incredibly cute!  When we say "smile", she will shrug her little shoulders, tilt her little head sideways onto her shoulder & smile really big! (as if she's posing for a picture!)  Gah, she's SOOOOOOO precious!  : )  One of my very favorite things is to see the sweet relationship that Anibella has with her Daddy!  She loves to melt into him & cuddle on his chest!  Let me tell you, Anibella's Daddy ADORES her!  I love to see them cuddling, playing patty cake or my Hubby laughing at something cute that his littlest baby girl is doing!  It is so precious!  Another of my very favorite things is seeing how much Anibella's 4 big sissies love her!  They all truly love to be with her & play with her!  She is a very patient & enduring baby too!  She lets her sisters "mommy" her & love on her all the time AND she seems to love it too!  She is just genuinely a lovable, sweet, happy & content baby & she is just so much fun to be with!  I will say, a few times we have seen a little of the sinful nature that we know is inherent in all of us!  If she has something that she really wants, like Mommy's cell phone : ), & someone takes it away (since, of course, it's not safe to let her play with Mommy's cell phone!), she does a little angry squeal & scrunches her cute little nose all up!  We are working on that (of course!) & sin is not cute but she certainly is, which makes us have to use lots of self-control to not giggle & to deal with her little attitude properly!  : )  We look forward to seeing all that God has in store for our sweet little Bellie bugs!  HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY our precious Anibella Hope!  We LOVE you baby girl!  : )

We had a simple little family party here at home with just the seven of us & it was very sweet & special!  Anibella's Poppy & Gram were supposed to be here to celebrate her 1st Birthday with us but they had to reschedule their trip at the last minute.  We were sad that they couldn't come & we really missed having them here so I took lots of pictures of all of the sweet little moments so that they could feel like they were here with us!

There are a LOT of pictures in this slide show & I don't expect you to look through them all but I wanted to share all of the special moments of our sweet baby's first birthday with our family & friends who are like family too!

I couldn't find a 1st Birthday theme that I liked or that "went" with all of the pink, orange & white decorations that we already had so I made my own!  We called it "buttons & bows" & my sweet big helper girls did a lot to help me!  : )  The "A-N-I-B-E-L-L-A" letters that are hanging over her highchair are the letters I painted & decorated to hang on the wall in Anibella's nursery before she was born!  I love that we got to use them for her 1st Birthday party, that was really special to me!  : )  I made Anibella's smash cake & her cupcakes too.  This was the first time I had ever used fondant.  My friend encouraged me to make my own marshmallow fondant instead of buying it.  I'm so glad that I did because it tasted much better than regular fondant & it was so much cheaper!  The entire cake-making process took a while but it was so worth it to see my sweet little baby girl squishing it between her cute little baby fingers & the crumbs all over her little mouth!  : )  I made & colored the marshmallow fondant a day ahead so it could rest one day.  The next day I made her white cake from scratch.  It didn't taste as good as I hoped & it was dense, more like a pound cake & I was hoping it would be light & fluffy!  I'm going to keep looking for a good, homemade white cake recipe!  I also made my own buttercream frosting to use as a crumb coating under the fondant.  It tasted delicious but was not as thick as I thought it should be.  I'm moderately happy with how my cake turned out & I don't want to be discontent or ungrateful but you can definitely tell it was my first time!   I had to improvise a lot because I don't have most of the fondant tools that you need to do it on a regular basis.  I learned a lot, used muscles in my arms, shoulders & back that I forgot I had  : \  rolling out the fondant & had so much fun making my Anibella's cake!  My older girls were cute they kept encouraging me how great it looked & they said, "Oh Mommy, ANY Mommy would be SO HAPPY to have this cake for their baby's 1st birthday!  It's beautiful Mommy!"  : ) (I was actually really convicted when they were being so sweet & encouraging me because I realized that meant that they were picking up on the fact that I wasn't absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!  (even though I was trying to not show it)  I guess for how long it took & how much work it was I hoped it would look better & be less "bumpy" in places!  : )  I had to do a little heart searching on why I wanted, needed, CRAVED, it to be perfect!  YIKES!  Yep, needless to say, I had a long conversation with my kind God about that one!)  They were so sweet!  They follow their sweet & always encouraging Daddy's good example!  He was encouraging me that it looked amazing!  The most important thing is that my sweet birthday girl & my very kind & gracious family all LOVED it!  : ) 

5 sweet thangs

I took these pictures as we were on our way out the door to Target last week.  Even though it's a little more difficult to get group pictures, there's something sweet about seeing all of my little sissies together & watching how they interact!  I wish I would have had my video camera that day because they were being so cute & silly together!  I took the opportunity to get these pictures because they were all dressed in something other than jammies or play clothes & their hair was actually brushed!  : )  I only quickly snapped about 15 pictures but almost all of them turned out really sweet & showed their cute little personalities!  I did have to laugh at how many pictures it took to get them all looking & not being silly at the same time! 

 

 

I LOVE Anibella in her little Old Navy baby "skinny jeans" that Auntie Emily gave us!  I also LOVE the sweet look on Ava's little face in the background!

 

 I LOVE our 5 sweet girlies so much!  : ) 

Anibella "praisin' Jesus" : )

One early evening last week I went grocery shopping without my girls in preparation for Uncle Reed's surprise visit.  They are way too observant now to pull off surprises without them getting curious & figuring it out!  : )  So, I fed my girls & Hubby dinner, my Hubby did the nighttime routine & put them to bed & I fed & nursed my baby girl really well.  Then I let my amazing, big girl helper, Ashley, stay up to "watch" my little Anibella!  I have let Amy stay up to watch Anibella two other times & she LOVED their time together & she did an amazing job too!  Ashley is getting older & so we thought we'd let her try!  (Now, of course, our other sweet little helpers, Abby & Ava want to "babysit" too!  : )  They are both wonderful & really sweet with their baby sissy but not quite ready to take care of her just yet.  Abby will be ready in a few years & although Ava feels as big as her sissies sometimes   ; )  , she's only JUST 3 so it'll be a while!  Wow, I have a great "problem".......girls that are eager to help!  Well, it also might have something to do with alone baby sissy time AND getting to stay up late!  ; )  Regardless, it's wonderful!)  : )  Daddy was right in the same room but Ashley got to play with Anibella, cuddle with her, watch a "Baby Praise" DVD (an adorable & educational DVD set to worship music!) with her & take care of her while I was at the store.  Ashley has a natural gift for nurturing & she genuinely enjoys taking care of her sissies!  She walked around with Anibella, cuddled with her, rocked her, sang to her & watched the DVD together.  Anibella LOVES her little DVD & she was so excited the whole time!  She was very sleepy but she was bouncing up & down, clapping, raising her cute little hands to "praise Jesus", giggling, yawning, staring in complete awe & having so much fun!  She kept looking at Ashley so sweetly as if to tell her how much she loved her time with her big sissy!  Ashley asked Daddy if she could use my camera to get some pictures of Anibella watching her DVD.  She did an amazing job with these pictures of Anibella!  After the DVD was over, Ashley rocked Anibella to sleep!  I came home to a quiet house, a sleeping baby & 4 sleeping big girls!  My Hubby said how cute Ashley & Anibella were together & how special it was to Ashley that she got to be Mommy's big girl helper!  She also thought it was pretty amazing that she got to rock her baby sissy to sleep!  : )  My sweet Anibella is so patient & enduring!  She LOVES her big sissies & she lets them mommy her & never complains!  She is super sweet & cuddly so she just loves when they love on her!  Here are some of the sweet pictures my Ashy took of my little Anibella!