Lauren here. We are so sorry that we have not written for half a year! We have been very busy and things have been hectic recently. The last time we wrote was just before Ezra was born. Hey - if you haven't heard yet, Ezra Luke Yoder was born on September 24th, 2016, and he's the love of our life!! ;)
I feel like there are so many things to write about that I don't even know where to begin. It seems as though one thing comes our way, we take a deep breath and deal with it, and then another thing comes shortly after. To start somewhere, we'll begin with the birth of Ezra. I had an unexpected C-section, which made recovery for me a lot longer than we had planned. Thankfully, we had such great care and great doctors at our hospital that everything went very smoothly. Mitch was also able to take that first week off from school and spent his time with Ezra and me, which was simply incredible. All I had energy for was resting so that my body could heal, care for Ezra with the little strength I had, and care for our girls the best I could. Around November I started feeling 100% again, and we enjoyed a good month of time together once Mitch's school year finished in December.
In the middle of December we headed up to Alaska for Neil's wedding, Mitch's cousin. We got to spend Christmas with family and had a great time relaxing, eating great food, enjoying the snow, and the beautiful mountains. The only small bummer in the beginning of the week was that Ezra got a cold that made him a little more difficult than normal. Stuffed-nosed babies are no fun!! In the middle of the week on Wednesday, we had a BIG bummer. We went skiing with Mitch's family. It was a great day with one of the most incredible views I've ever seen. On the last run of the night, Mitch's ski came off, and he fell hard to the ground, breaking his collarbone. Mitch had to get surgery up in Alaska. We struggled a lot with why this had happened to us. We took 3 flights with an infant to get up to Alaska and had 3 flights back. (Thankfully, Phyllis, Mitch's mom, rearranged her flights so she could fly the first two with us to help out with Ezra. And boy, was she an amazing help.) We desperately needed this break from Nicaragua, and we were so thankful for the opportunity to be with family and to be somewhere we've always wanted to visit. With Mitch's broken collarbone, he wasn't allowed to fully hold Ezra for 6 weeks, and this added a big obstacle to our lives in Nicaragua. Ezra was 3 months old at the time and, of course, still needed lots of attention and care. Without family and friends to help out at all, the job falls completely to us 100% of the time. And now it was even more difficult with Mitch unable to help fully in the evenings after work. Anyway, we got through that difficult time and Mitch's collarbone has been healing well. At 5 weeks he actually got the go-ahead to hold Ezra on his own, and we were so thankful for that leg of the journey to be over. God is faithful and was with us all along and helped me take one day at a time.
We had a breather for a few weeks, but then at the end of January Ezra started to get a bad cold. It was fine at first, and we just watched carefully to make sure it didn't develop further. Once I heard it arrive to his lungs, we called the doctor and had an appointment that morning, Sunday Feb. 5th. Our doctor noted that Ezra seemed really exhausted and gave us medicine and had us use a defibrillator on him several times a day to help with his breathing. The following day, Monday, the 6th, we went to get my parents at the airport because they were going to visit for the week of my birthday (the 12th). The night that we got my parents, Ezra seemed short of breath and needing rest. We talked with our doctor through text message, and he urged us to go to the hospital. We didn't think much of it, as it's common to go to the hospital here in Nicaragua when you're not feeling well. It's not like in the States where you go only for a complete emergency. Anyway, we went and saw a lung specialist. and she told us that Ezra had bronchitis and to continue with the meds that our doctor had recommended, only changing one. She sent us home that evening. For that week while my parents were here, Ezra was on his medication, and he seemed so uncomfortable. The one medicine, our doctor said at another appointment on Tuesday, could make him like that. We went to an appointment, she lowered the dosage, and my parents, Ezra, and I went on our way again.
We had another appointment for that Thursday to check in and make sure everything was still okay. My parents, Ezra, and I were in the car on our way to get lunch and run some errands before the appointment, and that is when Ezra had his incident. While driving, my mom put Ezra to sleep in the car, but soon after we noticed him fidgeting around. His eyes were opened and looking up to the roof of the car and his arms were flailing around, but he wasn't awake. We couldn't wake him, either. It was a horribly scary sight as I was driving and looking in my rear view mirror at Ezra. We realized he was having a seizure. Thankfully we were already close to the hospital where our appointment would be that afternoon. I called the doctor on our way and told her that we were coming RIGHT NOW and that we needed to see her immediately.
Upon arriving to the hospital, my mom fainted in the back seat, then came to, from everything that was going on. I realized I was feeling like I might faint and had to sit for a minute before my dad and I rushed into the hospital with Ezra, leaving my mom to rest. At this point, Ezra had woken up and was conscious. We saw the doctor shortly after getting to the office, and we explained to her what had happened in the car and how we thought he had a seizure. She gave us the option to run some tests or admit him to the hospital and run tests. I wanted him admitted, no question. The doctor gathered papers, and I called Mitch to fill him in. He left school and rushed over as soon as he could. After doing tests on his chest, the doctors found that the lining of Ezra's heart was enlarged and filled with liquid. The lack of oxygen pumping to his brain caused the seizure. Thankfully, it was very treatable with medicine. The following morning Ezra had a CT scan on his brain to see if the seizure had caused any damage. Thank the Lord everything was, and is, fine with his brain.
In the hospital we continued treating his lungs and heart for two days. Mitch stayed during the days and brought my parents over to stay too, then took them back to our house at night and came back to the hospital to sleep. We are SO thankful to have had my parents with us during this really difficult time. On Saturday the 11th we were released in the morning upon doing another test on Ezra's heart to reveal that that liquid around his heart had shrunk considerably. However, I also got very sick from the same virus and felt very weak and tired. God placed my parents here with us during this time intentionally, and we are thankful for His faithfulness. My mom was able to stay an extra few days, and our church in Harrisonburg lined it up so that when she left, Mitch's sister Rachel came to help us. She was a great blessing to us, and especially me as I felt very weak and tired from dealing with everything and being sick with the same cold as Ezra on top of it. Having to deal with this incident after dealing with the difficulty of Mitch's collarbone just left us both feeling pretty emotionally and physically broken. We continued treatment for another week and had follow-up appointments with the pulmonologist and cardiologist and they told us that he is now healed completely, and we are thankful beyond words.Praise God, Mitch, Ezra, and I are all healthy and feel 100%!
Later one evening, while Mitch was taking my parents back to our house for the night, my dad and Mitch started putting things together as to why my mom fainted in the car, why I felt like I could have fainted, and my dad also noted that he felt weird in the head after our car ride to the hospital. They smelled and heard something, and found that the exhaust pipe on our SUV had broken where it connects to the muffler. Which mean that all the exhaust fumes were going up into the cabin of the car, inside of out the back. We believe this spurred on Ezra's seizure as he was the smallest and weakest of health. That's why my mom fainted and that's why my dad and I felt strange. Strangely, we are thankful for the car trouble, which led us to Ezra's seizure, which led us to the hospital, which helped the doctors find the fluid around his heart, which helped us get Ezra medicine and on the path to recovery. Had his seizure not happened, he wouldn't have been hospitalized, and we probably wouldn't have realized the gravity of his bronchitis and the way it was affecting his heart. The Lord is good, and we praise Him in all of this.
So there you have it. Several things have been going on that have kept us from writing on our blog. We wish we had done a better job to keep everyone updated on here as some of you really enjoy these posts and use this to follow what we do down here in Nicaragua. However, it just didn't happen. We want to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers during these past months that have been the most difficult in our time here. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to adjust to changes in our life and as we dig into this new and last year here in Nicaragua. We promise to do a better job keeping you updated in the weeks and months to come! Enjoy the pictures below of Ezra's birth, to Alaska, to the hospital the other week, and now.
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