Our miracle

Our miracle

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

God answers prayers!

I got a call from my Dr. earlier this evening to let me know the blood test for toxemia came back negative, Praise God for answering our prayers once again!

Memorial Fund

For those of you that want to help us but don't know what to do to help we opened up a Memorial Fund for Paige at our bank to help with medical bills and funeral costs so in lieu of flowers you can donate to any US Bank to "The Paige Miracle Mapas Donation Acct."

Thanks!

I just want to thank everyone that has been praying for us this whole pregnancy and since we found out about Paiges diagnosis. We appreciate your prayers and support and everything you have done for us already, to every person that has asked us what they could help us with or offered to watch Leilani for us we appreciate your kindness so much. I don't know what you can do for us but continue to pray for a short and easy labor and delivery, for a live birth, to get some quality time with Paige and our family at the hospital and to always help us to never forget her!

March 29th!

Today was my second to last Dr. Appt and I got some good news and bad news. The bad news was that my blood pressure was higher than normal so they did a blood test to check for Toxemia and are going to let me know what the resluts are as soon as they get them back so please keep me in your prayers once again, if I have it I would have to deliver earlier to prevent having issues with my liver, as far as symptoms go besides the high blood pressure I haven't had any so I'm sure God will work it all out. Just last week I found out my Strep B test came back positive so they are going to have to give me antibiotics when I'm in labor to keep Paige from getting an infection so also keep me in your prayers for that situation because if she gets an infection she wouldn't be healthy enough for organ donation. We are also asking for prayers for a live birth because she needs to be alive even if its for 1 minute to donate her heart valves and liver to save a total of 4 babies lives and we would love to hold her and meet her alive knowing she was alive for the last 9 months and she was able to make it through the birth canal alive. If she gets distressed during labor my dr has agreed to let us have a c-section to give her a greater chance for a live birth. The good news we got yesterday was that when the dr checked me Paige was down really low in position and I was 1 cm dialated which I was told would most likely not happen on its own so thank God for answering our prayers once again and starting labor for us to make the inducing earlier.

March 28th!

Today my best friend treated me to lunch ( guess where we went) Paiges favorite place Red Robin hehe! It was so nice to sit down with her and just be able to talk without any interruptions and catch up. It had been way to long since we had hung out. I went back to her house for about an hour and she was able to help me with a few questions I had about Paige's Memorial Service we are going to have! Thanks to my sister who watched Leilani for me!

March 24th!

We had our second 3d/4d ultrasound today in Aurora with Joyce! My mom was able to go with us which was wonderful for her to experience the memory of Paige with us. We totally got to see Paiges personality today during the ultrasound. She was moving her mouth like crazy like she was trying to have a conversation with us and then all of a sudden she would turn her head like to look at us, it was so precious. Joyce is going to send us a dvd of it which will be so wonderful to have to always remember her personality. I'm sure she was going to be a comedian like her Dad and Big Sister! We love her so much already and our love will continue to grow more and more everyday. I'm so glad I have had 9 full months to enjoy her every kick and flip they have been so memorable memories. Leilani never really moved around to much so it has been extra special with Paige. I still remember when Leilani first saw and feel her move she laughed and then cried it was so touching to see her reaction to her baby sister!

March 17th!

A friend I haven't seen in probably 5 or 6 years came and picked me up today to take me to lunch so we could catch up. We used to work together at Sears, she was always so sweet to me and we would always talk when I came into the office where she was working. She had me pick where to go for lunch so I picked Red Robin because Paige loves french fries hehe! We had a wonderful visit and I got to meet her beautiful 4 month old daughter too! She treated me to lunch which was a wonderful blessing and such a sweet thing to do and she brought us a gift that I'm sure she put alot of effort and time into finding for us. One of them was a little statue of a teddy bear and this particular bears name was Paige ( how perfect is that) and the other thing was a guy and a girl holding a baby and it said Bless this Miracle, Bless this Circle of Love which she bought because our babys name is Paige Miracle because she is truly a miracle from God to us! So thankful for wonderful friends that I can be an inspiration to during this trial!

March 8th!

Today we had professional maternity pictures taken through a group called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep that we were referred to through String of Pearls. The photographer took like 74 pics of us and spent about an hour with us making lots of memories for us to remember Paige in years to come. She will also be coming to the hospital to take pics of Paige and us when she is born. This is a totally free service to us and is so much appreciated. I will post the pics soon to let everyone see how well they turned out!

February 15th!

Today after our Dr.Appt. we met Rose (a neonatal nurse we met from String of Pearls) at the hospital and she gave us a private tour of labor and delivery so we wouldnt have to take the tour with all the other mom's that were going to be asking me lots of questions. So thankful we were able to take a tour since we delivered Leilani at a different hospital. After we had the tour Rose asked us if we wanted to hear what she had found out about organ donation and we said sure so we sat down and she had some wonderful news for us. Originally when we met with her and Laura we asked about organ donation and told them we were interested in Paige helping save other babies lives, and they told us that they would most likely have to keep Paige alive with life support for her to be able to donate so I was kind of turned against it because I wanted her to be able to pass when she was ready naturally and not have to worry about deciding when to pull the plug because I think that would be really hard. So Rose told us she had talked with Donor Aliance and found out that just recently ( so recent it gave her goosebumps for us) they are just now allowing Anencephaly babies to donate their heart valves and liver and they would help 2 babies each and we wouldn't have to have her put on life support and keep her alive. She also told us that as long as she was born alive they would be able to do the donation if everything was still healthy but they wouldn't take her for the operation till after 3 hours of her passing away. So we were so excited because we wanted all the time with her while she was alive. I couldn't stop smiling after we left the hospital because once again I felt like God was working so many miracles again!

February 12th!

Today was the day we would be going to check into our options at Mt.Olivet funeral home. Courtney a friend of ours from church offered to watch Leilani for us today so we could take my mom with us. We showed up and walked in and were treated very rudely and asked what we were here for and who was it for, so we sat down and waited for someone to come and talk to us and just had this horrible feeling it was going to be a bad experience. The funeral director came to us and we explained to her that Laura from String of Pearls had called them and was told we wouldn't need to make an appt to come in to talk about details and could just come in on Saturday between a certain time, the lady was like yeah you should have an appt and was all rude and said I can talk with you but have an appt in 45 mins. She then began to ask rude questions and say who is this for so I then pointed to my belly and said our baby Paige. She then felt pretty bad about everything she had said and took us into one of the offices to talk with us about our situation and started to explain that it would be totally free to us to have her buried. When we asked to see pics of the caskets she said she didn't have pictures right now and she was the only one there so she couldn't show us anything either. She also said we wouldn't be able to pick the casket till after she was born because it depended on her size. How silly is that remark, are babies really that much different in size, not really. We told her we would call her and let her know what we had decided and we walked out the door and all of us said No Way we don't care if it's free Paige deserves better than this. So we had made up our mind to go with Olinger and Laura let them know for us!

February 5th!

Today was definately not as easy day. We met Laura from String of Pearls at Olinger Funeral Home to check out where Paige could be buried and talk about funeral arrangements and costs, lots of tears were shed but the people there were so wonderful and nice to us. It started to snow when we got there so by the time we were ready to go check out Baby Land the snow was covering the ground pretty thick and the flakes of snow were huge, very beautiful but so cold. We were very impressed with where the babyland was located and how it was set up it was such a peaceful feeling. Laura showed us where he baby Pearl was buried so it was nice to know that Paige would be close to her another baby that had gone on to Heaven. We didn't make a decision today because we had 1 other funeral home to check out the next weekend.

January 27th!

Today we went for our first free ultrasound given to us by String of Pearls. Joyce the nurse who was doing our ultrasound was Filipino and really sweet, she took several different pictures of Paige for us and spend an hour with us even though it was after hours. Such a blessing to us to be able to see our baby girl moving around!

December 24th!

We spent the day with my family for Christmas Eve and had lots of yummy food and sweets. Opened presents and just relaxed and let the kids play the rest of the evening. It was a wonderful day to just be able to sit and relax and enjoy family time!

December 7th!

Today was the day we left Florida to come back home, we had such a wonderful time visiting with family and friends and were totally spoiled while we were there as always. We went to several theme parks during the 2 weeks we were there and were so happy for some of the family to be able to get off work and come with us a few of the times. Paige got to ride some rides with her sister and saw many many shows! Definately a wonderful memory to have with her. I was always exhausted and slept so well every night after walking around and enjoying the fresh but cold air. I didn't relaize Florida got as cold as it got. We took many pictures so we can remember the places Paige got to go while I was carrying her in the womb. So thankful to my wonderful in-laws for paying for Leilani's plane ticket and getting us a hotel room so we could be comfortable the whole 2 weeks we were there!

November 28th!

Today was the day for Naomi to be dedicated at church! They had waited to get it done so the whole family could be there which was really nice. I thought I would be fine but boy was I wrong. The family was asked to come up to the front of the church so we all did and when we came back to our seats they started singing a song (can't remember the name of it right now) but I lost it and just broke down crying right there realizing we wouldn't be able to take our baby girl to our church to have her dedicated. I was so glad we were sitting very close to the front of the church so not many people saw me break down crying. I felt like I was ruining the whole dedication, but couldn't help it. Jonathan was right there next to me and comforted me and I'm sure he was then crying to. I'm so glad we were able to be apart of Naomi's dedication but it was so much harder than I thought it would be.

November 25th!

Thanksgiving Day! Paige got to eat her first Filipino feast made by her Papa! There was tons of yummy food and we had a wonderful time hanging with the family and then we went back to the hotel to take a much needed nap before we started to shop all the Black Friday specials. We left the hotel to meet the rest of the family at about 9pm to make it to Toys'R'Us by 10pm. We lucked out and found a parking spot for both the vehicles because someone was leaving because they didn't want to wait in the super long line to get into the store. One nice thing about Black Friday shopping in Florida is at least when you are waiting to get into the store it's not cold outside. We ended up going to several stores through the night and into the next morning and then came back to the house to drop off a load and the guys and us girls went back out for more shopping on the morning of Black Friday. I remember by about 1pm that next day I was starting to drag and was surprised I had lasted as long as I did. So after lunch with the whole family that afternoon I went back to the hotel and took a much needed nap. Paige was probably wondering why I was walking around all over the place in the middle of the night! It was a fun experience for all of us!

November 22nd!

Today we left for our Florida vacation that we had already planned before we knew about what was going on with Paige. We couldn't have planned a better time to go see Jonathan's family and be able to relax for 2 weeks, God must have known we would need this vacation. It's so awesome how he works everything out so perfectly!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

November 18th!

Today we were scheduled to meet with a specialist to find out if the diagnosis we were given about our baby girl was really true. Several people were praying for us all over the place and it meant so much to us to see so many posts and prayers going up all over facebook for us and our baby. Jonathan and I had sat with my mom the night before writing out a list of questions we had to ask the specialist about my health and different things we wanted to know about Anencephaly babies. We had done alot of research in the last couple of days about it but still needed some questions to be answered. The specialist did the ultrasound and did verify that what our dr. had seen was definately true. She was very sweet and went over several areas on the ultrasound for us showing us a healthy heart and tons of different things and let us ask questions while she was doing the scan. She then turned off the screen and we began to ask her a whole list of questions which she answered everyone of them just like we had hoped. She told us it wasn't dangerous for me to carry a baby with anencephaly if that's what we had decided which I told her that would be our only option we would never ever terminate. Our baby girl was alive and we would carry her the whole nine months and enjoy every minute we had with her when she was born. So we left the specialist office feeling so much peace about the whole situation and we then felt God was already giving us some amazing strength and helping us to understand that he has a purpose and plan for everything we go through in life. We don't always understand why we have been chosen but we trust God with everything. We know God can work miracles and could heal our baby girl but we know that it might not be his will and he might need her in Heaven and want to work miracles through her instead.

November 16th!

Today was supposed to be the most exciting day of our whole pregnancy, it was finally time to find out what we were having and we were so excited, we set our ultrasound appt. up for the first time available which was 10:00 am so we wouldn't have to be wondering and waiting all day long to find out. My mom came and picked me and Leilani up for the appt. so we could be there by 9:45 to check-in and Jonathan left work to come meet us there. According to the appt. card they had given me it sounded like my dr. would be the one doing the ultrasound but when they called us back I started to walk to the room where they always get my weight and blood pressure usually and the lady was like nope we are in this room right here and took us into an ultrasound room right away, seemed kind of strange but I figured ok guess they will be doing all that stuff after we find out what we are having. I laid down on the table and they started to look at the baby and we were all watching the screen closely to see what we saw, and my mom had her camera out to videotape when they would tell us if it was a boy or girl because thats how we wanted to tell everyone on facebook, but the ultrasound tech freaked out and was like no you can't tape or take pictures so she ended up putting the camera away. We didn't think to much about it but then she kept looking at different things about the baby and it seemed to be taking alot longer to find out what we were having unlike when we found out with Leilani. She had me go empty my bladder which seemed strange and she left the room to and then we both came back in and then she told us we were having a Girl which I actually handled really well even though I wanted a boy so bad, but I just started thinking about my healthy baby girl and all the cute dresses she would get to wear that were Leilani's. Everytime we asked her questions about getting a picture of her whole body or asked any questions she would just ignore us but I just got the impression she was a rude person. They turned off the screen and asked us to go into the room across the hall to wait for the dr to see us which I thought was normal because we were supposed to see her that day anyways, so my mom took Leilani out in the waiting room to play because it had been a long appt. already and we didn't know how long the dr. would take to come see us. The nurse came in a couple times and said she will be in soon, she got held up it might be about 15 or 20 mins. so we waited and at that point started texting everyone in our phones to tell them we were having another girl. After over 30 mins. the dr finally came in and she said I have some bad news about the ultrasound and our hearts about dropped to the floor and we got scared wondering what in the world could be wrong with our baby girl. She said your baby has Anencephaly which is a birth defect that is incompatible with life and she will not survive. We immediately started crying histerically as the dr. kept explaining things to us and telling us our options were to terminate the pregnancy or carry full term and she would either be stillborn when she was born or die minutes to days after. I then told her to go get my mom I needed her to tell her what was going on because I was to upset and emotional to remember anything I had just been told. My mom came in and saw me and Jonathan crying and asked what was wrong and hugged me and the Dr. then went on to explain what was going on and what would happen to our baby, she was then crying also we didn't know how we would handle a situation like this and as we cried we asked more and more questions which alot of them the dr didn't know how to answer right away so she left the room to give us a few mins. and came back and had some of the answers to our questions like she had went and researched what we had asked her. She told us we could see a specialist in the next couple of days to get a second opinion but was pretty sure from what she had seen it was definately Anencephaly. We were already thinking that we would just tell Leilani that her baby sister is sick but because my dr's office wasn't very smart and didnt have a nurse watch her she was in the room when the dr told us our baby would die, so our very smart almost 5 year old told someone in the next day or so that her baby sister was going to die I was so upset that they didn't handle the situation better than they did. We left the dr's office in tears and I called my best friend right away and asked if we could come over there for a few mins. which she was perfectly fine with and she heard me crying and started to get worried for us. We went over there and told her what was going on and I just cried in her arms she was wonderful and assured me that God would take care of everything and she was praying for me. We had several errands to run that day to get ready for our Florida vacation with Jonathan's family the next week but had to cancel some of it as we were not ready to face people yet. My mom took Leilani and watched her for us for a couple hours so we could rest and just have some time to be alone without her worrying to much about all the crying that was going on. I ended up crying myself to sleep on this night and my head hurt so bad from all the stress I felt!

August 30th!


Today was our first Dr. Appt and we were so excited to hear that little heartbeat and see that beautiful picture on the screen of our baby. We were given the due date April 7th which was very exciting because that was Jonathan's birthday, I had to tell him he couldn't make me wait if I went into labor early because he wanted her or him to be born on their actual due date, which of course if you know Jonathan at all he made jokes and said he would make the baby wait so they could share the same birthday. We got the cutest ultrasound pic, the baby looked like a teddy bear when we thought it would maybe look like a tiny spot or something at that early in the pregnancy. So we came home and were so proud to show family and friends and post it as our profile pics on facebook. From this point on I was always excited to go to the dr and hear the heartbeat every month to show me that the baby was still ok and to know what the heartrate was so I could compare it to people that had babies that had a heartrate about the same so I could try and figure out if I was having a boy or a girl. I was always googling old wives tales and taking quizzes to try and figure out what I was having, waiting 20 weeks takes forever when you are so excited to find out and start shopping for the new baby. I needed to know if we were going to get to use all of the things I saved from Leilani or if we were going to be able to buy blue this time and start all over with everything.

Monday, March 28, 2011

July 29th!


We were so excited to take a pregnancy test and it came back positive, we had waited almost 5 years and we were so ready to have another baby around again. Leilani was in Florida for a month with her Nana and Papa so we called her and the family to tell them of the wonderful news. She was so excited to be a Big Sister and when we picked her up at the airport a couple weeks later she asked where her baby brother or sister was and of course we explained that they wouldn't be here for several months and that they needed to grow nice and big before coming to see her! We decided to wait till our first Dr. Appt to tell everyone the good news which was so hard but we lasted till the weekend before our first appt. before we blabbed the good news. We were so scared of having another miscarriage so were definately happy to get to 12 weeks and be pretty safe from then on. I wanted a boy so bad this time so we could have 1 of each and be done and would pray everyday for a boy and even if it wasn't a boy for it to be healthy. We started thinking of names and wanted something different to go with Leilani which is a hawaiian name. We didn't want this baby to feel like we didn't take time on their name so we had decided if it was a boy it would be Landon Bryce and if it was a girl Paige Mackenzie. Those were the only 2 names we could both agree on and I was going to try and convince Jonathan of another Hawaiian name after we found out what we were having.