TRACKING!!!!!!

What a blessing I just have to share it with everyone!!!! Dillon was tracking today! The vi son therapist was sure that he was tracking a picture of a black and white dog today. This is the first time that we have been sure he was tracking anything let alone something that wasn't a light. As you can imagine - I am floating way up above cloud nine right now! I have been seeing Dillon try to lift his head when I am carrying him more this last week and wasn't sure if he could be seeing more or not. I have also seen more times where he was actually very alert and then sleeping - like a normal baby - whereas before he was normally just in this "in between" state where I couldn't always tell if he was awake or asleep. We don't know what all this could mean as far as how much useful vi son Dillon will have - but it is a HUGE improvement!!! We think we have seen little tracks before with a light but he wouldn't ever do it more than once for us to be sure, but this time Dillon was tracking for most of the hour session!

I tried to get two pictures of Dillon but my camera card isn't working so I have to wait for my IT husby to come home and help me get them on.

A good message

I wanted to write this on Sunday - but forgot. The message was wonderful Still, however I wanted to share it with you. In service Pastor talked about the prayer of Christ right before He went to the cross. Now remember, Christ was PERFECT He never sinned, not once! Yet right before He was about to go to the cross to die for you and I He said (Matt 26: 39), "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:" This touched my heart so much. You see - it isn't sin for me to be asking God to take away this situation (Dillon's problems) from me. It isn't wrong to go to God and say "Lord I don't want to do this, please take it away." I have started to feel guilty about asking God to take it away, but even Christ asked for His sufferings to be taken away. However - and this is the important part - the verse doesn't end with that. The rest of the verse says, "nevertheless not as I will, but as thour wilt." It is not sin for me to ask God to just take this all away, that I would wake up one morning and Dillon would be healed. There is sin, though, if the rest of my prayer isn't, "but Lord if that isn't Your will I accept whatever Your will is." How encouraging this was to me!

A good message

I wanted to write this on Sunday - but forgot. The message was wonderful Still, however I wanted to share it with you. In service Pastor talked about the prayer of Christ right before He went to the cross. Now remember, Christ was PERFECT He never sinned, not once! Yet right before He was about to go to the cross to die for you and I He said (Matt 26: 39), "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:" This touched my heart so much. You see - it isn't sin for me to be asking God to take away this situation (Dillon's problems) from me. It isn't wrong to go to God and say "Lord I don't want to do this, please take it away." I have started to feel guilty about asking God to take it away, but even Christ asked for His sufferings to be taken away. However - and this is the important part - the verse doesn't end with that. The rest of the verse says, "nevertheless not as I will, but as thour wilt." It is not sin for me to ask God to just take this all away, that I would wake up one morning and Dillon would be healed. There is sin, though, if the rest of my prayer isn't, "but Lord if that isn't Your will I accept whatever Your will is." How encouraging this was to me!

Why "Jaydonn"?

I didn't explain yet why we are going with the name Jaydonn. It came from the name Jaydon which if spelled Jayden could be a girl's name (both of those spellings could be said the same way). We didn't want people to hear the name and not know if he is male or female so Josiah thought to add the "n" at the end so that it would be pronounced as I was saying it - Jay-donn. We picked it becuase it means Jehovah has heard. Not only is this evident everyday in our life thru Dillon's life, but has already been evident in the life of this young little man. We love our precious little Dillon Boy with our whole hearts and now we love our tiny surprise gift from God, Jaydonn!

New Baby and New Pics

I forgot to tell ya'll. Last Monday when I bought Josiah a coffee I bought a small one for myself as well. After drinking that and then laying down resting - while waiting for Josiah to find where I was - I felt little Jaydonn moving for the first real time. I think I had felt him before but he wouldn't keep doing it for me to be sure. This time I felt him moving for a good 5 minutes - it must have been the caffinee! :-)

New pictures of Dillon have been added to our website www.josiahntiffany.com under our family link then just click on the picture to see the new ones. The first ones are of DIllon in clothes that used to be Josiah's and the last five are him in outfits that my Grandmother and Great Aunt made for him when he was born.

My Sweetheart!

See what my Sweetheart brought me home! His first day of work, he had to spend about 4 hours in the car becuase of weather and he still remembered to stop and get me flowers on the way. Isn't he sweet? :-)

Dillon's First Snow!

Today we have the first real snow fall in Dillon's life - so of course I had to take him out in his new sled! We only stayed out about 3 minutes, though. I don't think he liked the cold wet stuff falling on his nice warm face!

Test 2

The first one worked - I am testing something else now. DOn't mind me!

Testing

This post is testing the FeedBlitz email update I just added to my blog.

Time Away

Yesterday I planned a surprise for Josiah. It was a late-birthday and early-Valentine's Day surprise. Anne took Dillon around 3pm when Si got a call to come get something from church. There he got an envelope with a clue to send him to the cafe I used to work at. There he got a coffee I have prepaid for and another envelope to go to the place where I was the morning Dillon was born. He went to the hospital then figured out he was supposed to go to Sherwin-Williams. There he got mints and another clue that gave him an address. I was waiting for him at a hotel. We were able to go swimming in an empty very clean and clear indoor pool. Then we had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Thank you to Anne who saved us 50% of the bill with a coupon she had. We had to get up early to go look at some houses. Josiah starts a new job tomorrow in Wayne, PA which is about an hour away. Therefore, we are looking for a house in between his work and our church. We found a neighborhood that looks really nice - it is old but doesn't look too bad at all. It is the cheapest area anywhere around and it is 30 minutes to Si's work and 30 minutes to church. So we are looking in this area because we would like to move soon before I get too much further in this pregnancy. We both think it would be easier to move while I am still pregnant than to wait until after - plus it waste Si's time. Nothing is definate yet - we are just looking right now.
The time away was so nice - it was good to just laugh and be a young married couple instead of adult with responsibilities/mom/nurse/etc.

Thank you to Anne for watching Dillon over night and to N. for watching him the couple hours this morning until we got back from house looking!!

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord!! Dillon's EEG results came back today. He is not having the original type of seizure that he had in the NICU. Therefore he can stay off of the one seizure drug and is only on the new seizure medicine! This is a huge blessing!

Share some of the blessing in your life with me- I always write about what is going on in my life but feel free to add your own blessings and even prayer requests in a comment.

Have a great day!

Sermon Notes

I wasn’t able to go to Sunday School yesterday so I decided to watch a sermon from North Valley Baptist Church, where my brother-in-law attends. http://www.nvbc.org/ By clicking on services you can watch old services or even watch it live stream – but don’t forget they are in CA! I watched the sermon from 12/17/06 Sunday Morning service preached by Pastor Trieber called “Dealing with Adversity”. It was just what I needed to hear at he moment. I am going to put the notes I took in here but if you are in need of hearing the same thing (from someone who isn’t a close relative or friend as was the case with me!) I implore you to watch it. Most of what I am adding are the thoughts I had when listening the main point were the Pastor’s though. I didn’t plan for this to be long but as I type- it IS sorry. If you can’t read it all read the main points and just apply it to your life instead of reading how all it impacted me.

I. Source of adversity
a. God – God allows adversity for His glory. This struck me – I know it is true but sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a better way for God to get glory. I know doesn’t make sense to you – sounds like I am a heathen – but when you are in the midst of the hardest trial of your life it is how you feel, at least I do sometimes. Then he said something about God allows it to help others because when I don’t quite it encourages others. I then saw – there is NO other way for someone else to be encouraged other than by the experience of one Christian continuing on in the midst of a trial. Specific trails are the best. Let me explain that – I know personally if someone tells me they know what I am going thru right now and then their story is “my child always got colds and caughs then they were young.” (that was an exgaeration and not with anyone in particular in mind) I am very put off. Dillon isn’t struggling with colds, this is serious, life-long, life-consuming, minute-by-minute struggle. Although I do know I am not in the worse possible situation with my child as I could be, it certainly isn’t a reoccurring cold. I know that the only people I have found true encouragement in are the ones who have gone through life-treating, long lasting, no end in sight in this world, situations with their child. God IS going to get glory though all the adversity I am facing right now if I let Him, but I also may be the only source of human encouragement to someone else when they are in a similar situation. Will I be an encouragement as an example to follow or will I be an encouragement as an example of “don’t let this turn you into her.”? I don’t remember where this was brought out in the message but it was such a blessing to me. I have been told so many times “God is in control” “God won’t give you more than you can handle”, and “all things work together for good”. I know people mean well, but when you hear it, literally, hundreds of times it loses its meaning. People say it because they don’t know what else to say. I know those things are true, but they are not a comfort – at least not to me. It sounds like an automated response from a “good Christian”. Pastor Trieber said he has a Pastor friend whose 15 year old son died in a car accident. Three years later his dad still could not see any good from the situation. I am sitting here watching my son’s life and saying to all those who casually answer me “all things work together for good…” How? Where? What good is there in my son’s health being robbed from him by a human mistake? His Pastor friend, however, said “I just can’t see any good from this, I just have to live by faith that God will keep His promise.” You all may be sitting there saying; I could have told you that. However, this goes back to my pervious point, sometimes you really need to hear the obvious answer from someone who had gone through something similar to really get it to sink in and not sound cliché. He may not see the good from his son’s death, but God did use him in my life yesterday to help me to just “live by faith that God will keep His promise to me.”
b. Devil – We all know the story of Job. He was tried above what so many of us are capable of understanding and yet it wasn’t because of sin in his life. So many people think severe adversity in a person’s life must mean that they are living in sin. So far I have only had one friend who honestly asked me if it was possible. I can honestly say, after talking with my husband, I know there are things not right in my life, things need to improve. I cannot say though, that I am willing and openly living in sin to which God would punish me through my son’s health. IF that is the case, I would think the sin would be blatant enough that I would clearly know what God was chastening me for. Therefore, it is a possibility the devil is testing me to see if I will turn against God. I can say this, I know I have failed this test so many times in the last eight months. I have turned against God, for short periods of time. I twist the situation in my head and make it sound good – really good – I have quite the imagination – as to why I can be mad at God. I know He is in control and that nothing can happen to me without His permission – therefore He is doing this to me right? He is letting me hurt, letting my heart break as I look at my son’s disabilities, He is causing me to be discouraged by putting all this on my plate at once. He is causing my son to be sick. I know more than anything in this world that God is the One and Only One who can heal my son. I am hopeless, the doctors are hopeless, I would give anything to heal him and yet I can’t. I know the God that spoke a word and the world was made, who spoke a word and the sea clamed, yet no matter how many times I cry until Him – He hasn’t spoken the word to make Dillon whole again. So God is not helping me right? (Again, if you haven’t faced something like this you may not understand how I could think these things against Almighty God- but I am human and I love my sons. These last eight months have been harder than anything I ever imagined.) I have never stay “mad at God” for long, I can’t even when I am mad I have this annoying feeling in the pit of my stomach that won’t go away saying “You know you can’t be mad at God, you know WHO God is and that is all you need to know.” That little voice only adds to my frustration as I try to be mad at God and even in my attempt know I really shouldn’t be. Maybe the devil is trying my husband and I. Josiah has truly been proven faithful through all of this. I don’t remember a single time when he ever allowed himself to blame God for any of this. I have not been so faithful. I need to remember that it could be Satan standing before God saying “See! I told you she would fail You!” What a horrible thought!!! If I can keep that in mind it will help me to not try to place the blame at God’s feet.
c. Sin – I covered this one already. Sorry I think I got ahead of myself, but I am not going to go back and try to sort it out. :-)
II. Sadness of adversity
a. Some spend their life trying to analyze the adversity in their life. Umm can I say guilty! I don’t even know how many times I have replayed the day of his birth in my mind trying to find the answer, trying – in a weird way- to find where I messed up and caused this. I have tried to figure out the how, where, when, and most importantly the why of this situation. I can’t. If I continue my life will be defined by the adversity in it rather than overcoming it.
b.Some spend their life accusing. Ummm I have to say guilty once again! I have accused God, myself, and now in light of new information the health care professionals. Pastor said some people blame God and yet don’t they realize they are breathing HIS air? Oh how true, I am alive because of Him and yet I blame Him? How foolish am I.
c.Some people spend their life in anxiety. Guilty! Notice something not so good going on in my life here? Fear and frustration are big clues to this. I have been terrified since I found out I was pregnant again. I get frustrated almost daily that Dillon isn’t “normal” and worse yet – that the doctors who are making all the money can’t give me any answers as to what to expect in Dillon’s physical/mental future. I am scared of what the future holds for me as well. Will I have to put my son in a home one day? I will spend the rest of my life till the day I die taking care of my son as though he were still an infant? It is selfish I know. I wanted children young, like my parents did, because they are still young and Lord Willing will have so many years left with their children and grandchildren. Yet my child may always be living completely in my care, never learning to smile or laugh, never learning to sit or walk, never learning to care for himself, never even learning to tell me “I love you Momma”. It is selfish, I know, but it is a great fear of mine that I think about for at least a few second almost every day.
d. Some people spend their life in anger. Normally I would say “This one isn’t me”, but this last couple of days it has been me. I have taken my fears out on my poor husband. I have been yelling at him for not comforting me when all he has been doing is telling me what I needed to hear (a lot of it was practically word for word this message!)
III. Success from adversity
a.Some people have learned to accept their adversity. Don’t view it as our enemy but as our friend. It can be the thing that can bring me closer to God.
b. Some people have learned to adapt to it. Adapt or die. That is the bottom line. I have to learn to adapt to it or I am going die and Dillon could literally die if I refuse to adapt. Not only in the literal sense but I will kill us both if all I can do is complain and look at what he can’t do instead of teaching him to be happy with the way God made him to be.
c. Some people have learned to assist others and ascend up. Paul was stoned so badly everyone thought he was dead and yet the Bible says in Acts that “he rose up” and next thing you know he is off on his way to go preach. I can learn to get up and help other because of my experiences. The old says, “If you fall get back up and keep on going.”


Okay, this was yet another LONG blog. There are so many areas of my life right now that I am experiencing trials in. In fact there doesn’t seem to be any area that isn’t being tried so this message was applicable in ways that most people don’t know and that I certainly didn’t get into. For the purpose of this blog I concentrated it all on Dillon and his situation, but am applying it in more ways. I hope this was a blessing to you and might help you through the hard times in your life.

A big step forward

Well I took a big step for me tonight - I called and found out how to start the process of hiring a nurse for Dillon. As many Mom can imagine this was a hard step for me. Josiah wanted me to do this for a long time but I have been and still am quite against it. I want to be the one taking care of my son, I don't like the idea of having a stranger in my house, let alone a stranger in my house caring for my son. I was given several agencies in the area - all I have to do is call some and see who I like and who would be able to staff me right away. Then I have to have my doctor write a letter of medical necessity. He will have to explain that Dillon is on a feeding pump all night and therefore requires suctioning all night long. I should be able to get a nurse for 8 hours at night so that I can sleep. I told the lady from Unison (Medical Assistance) that I am pregnant the conversation went like this:

Christy: "You're pregnant and Dillon is only going to be one in...June?"

Me: "Yes, June 16th and I am due July 14th."

Christy: "Wow! You really are going to have your hands full!"

Tomorrow I will have to start calling the different agencies as I waited until almost 5 to start these calls. Christy also told me that it might be possible to get help with Si and Dillon's part of the premium once we get insurance and also that if I am restricted because of this pregnancy - it won't be easy - but I should be able to get even more nursing help.

(By the way for all you who are saying "That's great!" that I have taken this step let me just remind you of one thing: there are still a LOT of steps that need to be taken before someone will actually be here to care for my son....heeheeehee IF you get my point! *smiling a mischievous grin!*)