Big Brother Davis...

It has been a while since I posted new pictures of Davis so here are a few...

Davis LOVES to wear his Sheriff Woody cowboy hat!...even just to watch cartoons :)

We were trying to put together his new police car but Davis wouldn't get out!

After his bath he really wanted to put on his new boots :)

He thought he was pretty funny every time he popped out of the tunnel!

Riding in his Lego wagon.

I told him to smile and this was the face he made!

Out feeding the ducks...he quacked for the rest of the day!

He thinks this is his Buzz Lightyear helmet :)

Out helping dad :)

Sibling photos

Davis' ultrasound at 13 weeks...

Baby's ultrasound at 13 weeks...

I was actually the one who first noticed the defect just seconds into starting the new baby's ultrasound (even before the ultrasound technician saw it) and now you can see why! Davis' photo and the new baby's photo are almost identical! I've only seen ultrasounds of babies with this defect and as it turned out the technician had never seen this type of defect before that day!

2011 March of Dimes Ambassadors

I just wanted to say thank you for all the support that has been pouring in over the last few days, it really means a lot to all of us.

I also wanted to share with everyone that Davis (and Brian and I) have been selected to be the 2011 Oregon March of Dimes Ambassadors. You can follow our events with the March of Dimes blog: http://oregonmod.com/2011/02/04/introducing-our-2011-chapter-ambassadors/.

My first duty as ambassador was giving my testimony at the state capitol for a hearing on birth defects: http://oregonmod.com/2011/02/14/our-day-at-the-oregon-state-capital/. I had to give my testimony the day after I found out about our new baby also having gastroschisis, so needless to say it was an emotional hearing but even more worth fighting for!

Also if you would like to get involved in one of our events you can get information at: http://www.marchofdimes.com/oregon/.

Thanks again for all the support!

Good News & Bad News

Hi everyone,
I know it has been a while since I have posted any new information but we have big news to share and a good reason to start using our blog more often....

The great news is that Davis is going to be a big brother! The bad news is we found out on Thursday that the baby has the exact same defect as Davis.

The doctors are completely shocked and have no idea why this happened. Originally they told us the it could not happen again after Davis. Research on this issue states,

"To our knowledge there are seven published reports of familial occurrence^8,13-18. In these families recurrences occurred in sibs, half sibs, first cousins, second cousins once removed, and great uncle and nephew."

So I guess now there will be eight families to ever be documented!

Anyways I wanted to share this information with everyone so we can start praying for this little baby! We need a lot of prayer! The concern is keeping the baby alive until delivery at 36 weeks (or less). The risk of stillbirth with gastroschisis babies is about 14%. We also need to pray that the intestines will remain undamaged--up to 40% of these little guys have gastrointestinal disruptions.

The new due date is July 19th or earlier. I go back to the hospital for more testing in 2 weeks and hopefully we will find out if we are having a little boy or girl on that day. As soon as we know I will post it on the blog with his or her name so we can pray for him/her by name.

Thank you all for your prayers! I will try to post after each appointment (which should be pretty frequently).

I guess Brian and I were just meant to have children with funny bellybuttons!!!


(You can see in the picture that there is a "cloud" on the belly area (off to the left side). The cloud is the intestines outside of the body.)