Yesterday was Father’s Day and it was an especially hard day for my son, Josh. The passing of Faith Hope still fresh in everyones mind, Josh was unable to share his first Father’s Day with his little girl. Like the rest of us, he’s had his good days and his bad days. But, hopefully, each day gets a bit easier. Not by much, but little by little.

Faith Hope’s website is coming along well. The photo gallery is up and running, with just a few more pages left to work on. Finding time between sleep and work has been difficult over the last couple of weeks, but I’m determined to get the site finished soon. Please be sure to visit the site and let us know what you think. A contact page is one of the final priorities and with luck, will be up by the end of the week.

Image from Flickr

God looked around His garden
     And He found an empty place.
He then looked down upon this earth
     And saw your tired face.
He put His arms around you
     And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful;
     He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering.
     He knew you were in pain.
He knew that you would never
     Get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rought,
     And the hills were hard to climb.
So He closed your weary eyelids,
     And whispered “Peace be thine”.
It broke our heard to lose you,
     But you did not go alone.
For part of us went with you
     The day God called you home.

I wanted to share with you this beautiful and fitting poem which was placed on the back of the memorial cards at the funeral services for Faith Hope. I would love to give credit to the author, but sadly, as I search the Web, the author is unknown.

If you are the author, or know who is, please let me know.

I just want to thank all that may have run across my blog over the last couple of months for all of their thoughts and prayers.

Maybe I’ll think of more to write about Faith, sometime after the tears have dried up …

• She has gained roughly 6 ounces since birth and is now an even 5lbs.
• She has gained a few inches in length and is now 19 inches long.
• She will be exactly 6 weeks old on Wednesday (41 days older than the doctors ever gave her a chance of being)

Now, the bad news:

The doctors tune has changed from visit to visit, but it seems its all just different notes of the same horrible song.

When the plates in little Faiths skull fuse, they say it will put pressure on the excess fluid in her brain that pressure will in turn push down on the brain stem to the point that it basically becomes dislodged and at that point, little Faith will then have taken her last, little breath.

Besides the fact that I think all doctors are a bunch of quacks, I just want to get the same exact story, more than once. It seems every visit, the doctors change things just enough for us to think they are even crazier than we already did. So please keep praying for Faith. More information here, as it becomes available.

A nurse has stopped by pretty much every day since she got home. On Saturday, they weighed her and she is down to 4lbs, 8oz. They say its normal during the first month for babies to lose a little weight. Faith is opening her eyes a bit more often and she enjoys when Grammy plays with her. She’s a beautiful little girl and every precious day that passes further proves the doctors wrong. Faith definitely has her mom and dads stubborn streak and I think thats going a long way towards beating the prognosis handed to us.

I’d also like to ask for your prayers, because if we are to believe the doctors, little Faith Hope won’t be with us for much longer. I’m far from being a doctor and will probably butcher the following information but the basics are … following tests yesterday afternoon and evening it was determined that Faith has nothing but a brain stem, and fluid where her brain should be. The doctors have given her little more than a day before the brain stem shifts or recedes, (something to that effect) and Faith Hope will no longer have the capabilities to keep her little heart beating, or to breathe.

The doctors have been wrong once already, trying to brace us with news that little Faith wouldn’t survive her first breathe and she beat those odds with flying colors, having a nice strong heartbeat right after she was born. We can’t help but feel like she can beat these seemingly unbeatable odds, as well. I just ask that you keep Faith in your prayers, helping us in asking God to bless this little miracle with more of a life than the doctors are predicting she will have.

The hospital determined that Faith could come home and today Mom and baby were discharged. The only explanation I was able to deduce was that in their minds, we can do just as much for her at home as they could do for her there, something they termed in the hospital as “Comfort Care”. To be honest, I feel like we do her a whole lot more good at home, surrounded by all the love a family could possibly give. Faith is already blessed with a large immediate family, as its my step-son who is Faiths father, she effectively has 3 grandfathers, and 3 grandmothers, 3 great grandfathers and 2 great grandmothers and 2 great-great grandmothers. Not to mention, a number of uncles, an aunt and more cousins than I could possibly count on both hands and feet, the majority of which have all paid at least one visit to see the little bundle of joy.

I will keep this post and possibly others, updated with news as it becomes available.

Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for your prayers.

Be sure to check out:

• An Update on Faith (March 31st, 2008)