Sweet November

Gabriel is five months old today!  And for his age, he has quite the schedule already!  Starting last Friday, he had his first Synagis shot. For those not familiar with this drug, it is indicated for the prevention of serious lower respiratory tract disease caused by (RSV) in pediatric patients at high risk of RSV disease.  It is administered once every 28-30 days throughout the RSV season (November-March) and is EXTREMELY expensive.  However, in high risk patients, it is more cost-effective to prevent RSV than it would be to treat it in patients that are already compromised.  Although Gabriel has already received many sticks and shots in his short life, and is usually a tough-guy when pricked, he was not a fan of this particular antibody since it was a larger volume and was an intramuscular injection.....at least now we know he has the lung capacity to SCREAM for 15 minutes without stopping!

His next appointment this weekend was with a nurse we actually met while I was on bed rest in L&D at IU North.  We had hit it off while I was there, and we later found out that she started doing a little photography on the side.  So we met Sarah at Holiday Park on Saturday (how lucky are we that it was 65 degrees on November 12th?) and although Gabriel was a bit of a grump at first  (I attribute this to the fact that he is so protected and almost never leaves the house), he came around and I think we got some really great pictures.  There was one in particular that he and Trent both had their dress shirts and ties on, and Gabriel was wearing a little page boy hatI ....needless to say, I think it will be Trent's "profile pic" for sure.  I will post the bests as soon as we have them.

The culmination of the weekend came on Sunday at church.  Since Gabriel came home, we have been attending a new start up church whose mission we really believe in and that we seemingly found only by consequence.  There was a flyer in the mail that announced this new church (Mercy Road) and on it was a picture of the young pastor and his wife. We had a lot going on at the time, but I casually mentioned it to Trent, while something about that picture was giving me deja vu....and then I realized that while Gabriel was in the NICU, one of our nurses had shared a video with me of a family that occupied our room before us who had lost their baby boy to a genetic disease called Trisomy 18, but they had chosen to carry him to term, to fight for his life, to let him be a witness for the Lord.  His parents were Lisa and Josh Hussman, and they had unknowingly inspired us at one of our darkest moments.  So we went to the church, and the first week we went they shared their story about their precious Jaxton....it was heart wrenching to see their story but humbling to see two people worship God for who He is, even in a time of great personal loss.  To make a long story shorter, we met them and had a lot of common ground.  Other friends of ours, Josh and Jami Cecil, also started attending the church....it is a growing community and we are excited to be a part of Mercy Road's mission (mercyroad.cc).

This past Sunday Josh (the pastor) spoke about worship and what it means to worship God with your life...not just on Sunday or in church, but with who you are.  It must have been very hard for him, but he also orchestrated a video about Gabriel and his life.  It was a very emotional day for us, but an AWESOME God-day.  Here is a link to the video:
http://vimeo.com/32143614

Finally, Gabriel (and Trent and I) got to have dinner with his first crush and his long standing girlfriend, Tracy (one of his night nurses in the NICU) and her sister Sarah.  It is awesome how we have made lifelong friends with some of our NICU nurses and as per usual, we had a great time.



An old pic, but he has always loved Tracy!