Dear Family and Friends:

Sorry that it has been so long since the last update.  End of summer/beginning of school is our excuse…..  The Marys are doing great!  Still eating through the G-tube, but gaining weight and developing at a good rate so we are happy with their progress.  So are the Doctors .  Baby Ryan is doing really well.  He eats like a normal Govea and we expect him to catch Elizabeth by Christmas.  Right now Ellen is 19.10, Elizabeth is 17.9 and Ryan is 13.10.

Megan, Michael and Nicholas are the best big brothers and sister in the world!  They are changing diapers, dressing babies, calming sad babies, hooking up the feeding bags, cleaning up puke,  loving and hugging.  We are so proud of how responsible they all have been.  With very little complaining.  

As you can imagine, we are busier than ever.  Chaos is the norm and we are learning to enjoy it.    

Oh yeah, Ellen started walking last week!  

Peace, Love and Blessings to all of you!!  Bo, Stacy, Megan, Michael, Nicky, Ellen, Elizabeth and Ryan

 

Ryan smiling at Ellen

The Marys and Luke Curran

The Marys crawling up the stairs

Ellen bathing in the kitchen sink

Ryan, Ellen and Elizabeth= G2

Elizabeth

Big brothers taking G2 to their first (Christian) Rock Concert -”Rock the Light”

Chaos=trying to get G2 to sit for a picture

Ellen feeding

Great Grandma moves to town!!! Stacy’s Grandma Edie moved from CO

Trying to get the girls to eat…..with their mouths!

Ellen showing Elizabeth how to use an I-pod :)

The Marys at the “food clinic” at Children’s Mercy

Ellen with her feeding in a back-pack. Stacy rigged the feeding pump in a Dora back-pack

With the neighbor kids

feeding tubes :)

Megan

 

Hope you are enjoying your summer.  We are very busy with all of the babies (G2) as you can imagine, but it is so much fun watching them grow.  The big kids (G1) have been so helpful.  Each big kid has a baby buddy that they are responsible.  It is very helpful when we are in a hurry.  ”Grab your buddy and make sure he/she is strapped in their seat with shoes on”.   

The new baby has been nicknamed “Cryin Ryan” and hasn’t yet realized that he is #6 and not #1  We are all learning to block out the noise.  He is such a sweetie most of the time, but I am sure there are moments when Michael wishes he had a different buddy…

We are all learning and growing so much through this.  The big kids are learning responsibility and caring for others.  Afterall, it can’t be about you in a house full of 8.  

God Bless!

Feeding Time

The big brothers with the Marys

Elizabeth and Ellen

Ellen pushing Elizabeth

Ellen bugging Elizabeth

Ellen and Elizabeth

 

 

All 6

Ryan with Ken doll

Ryan

Big brother Michael

The Marys visit mom

Elizabeth and Ellen

 

 

 

 

Believe it or not, The Marys are  Big sisters!!!  Matthew Ryan Govea (we will call him Ryan) was born on May 27th.  He came a little early at 36 weeks but still managed to be 7lb 8oz and 18 inches.  He was born one year, one month and one day after his sisters.  What a difference a year, a month and a day makes…..

Now that The Marys are a year old, we have decided to change the title of this blog slightly to “A Family’s victory over twin to twin transfusion syndrome”.

God bless all of you!

Happy Birthday Mary Ellen and Mary Elizabeth!!!

Praise God for all that we witnessed this year.  And thank you all for allowing us to share.  Today we celebrate and rejoice!!! And remember that Miracles do happen……

All of our LOVE,    

Bo, Stacy, Megan, Michael, Nicholas, Ellen and Elizabeth                                                                                                                                                                                                             

For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope. Jeremiah 29:11

First Birthday

Ellen and Elizabeth are done with surgery and  they have their mic-key gastrostomy tubes in!  We are pleased that surgery went well and at the same time our hearts ache for their pain and discomfort.  But as the saying goes “no pain, no gain”.  So now we look forward to the gain!

The girls will be watched at the hospital to make sure the feedings go as planned and that there is no infection.  We are expecting to go home tomorrow.

We can’t thank you all enough for the prayers and encouraging words!  REALLY!!! it means the world to us.

Elizabeth and Ellen prepare for surgery

Ellen all smiles before…

Elizabeth knows something is up

Ellen after surgery with her G-tube and drain

Elizabeth with her G-tube

Close up

We met with the surgeon yesterday and he recommends the Mic-key G tube for both girls.  And, he is going to get both of them in for the surgery soon.  Monday March 30th.  Yeah!!! We were very pleased with Dr. St.Peter for getting them in so quickly.  The girls will be under and will have to stay the night in the hospital for monitoring, but it sounds like the procedure is fairly simple and they will have a quick recovery.  

I have attached a picture of what the tube will look like.  The tube goes in and then they blow up the bottom of the tube so that it stays in the stomach.  Then after a few days the stomach heals around it and hopefully there are no infections.  We will hook up the feeding machine directly to the tube and voila.  The tube has a button on the top kind of like a blow up ball.  We will send pictures of the girls with their tubes next week.

We are really hopeful that this will be exactly what the girls need to gain weight.  

We appreciate your continued prayers and support!  The girls are doing great! 

Love , the Goveas

 

Mic-key Gastrostomy Tube

Tomorrow we go to meet with the surgeon.  FINALLY!  We have all of the tests (PH, gastric emptying, upper GI) and now the dr. will review and decide what needs to be done.  We will post again this week once we find out.

Thank you so much for the prayers.  We really appreciate you!

We are excited for you to see the website.  www.goveainsurance.com  Finally got it up this week.

Ellen in the the hospital for her PH test

Elizabeth not happy about the 1 hour gastric emptying test

Elizabeth laughing and Ellen sitting up

Elizabeth happy with mom

Ellen grinning and Elizabeth sleeping

We went in for the gastric bypass testing but Elizabeths feeding tube was in her intestines and they could not get the view they wanted so they moved the test back to Monday.  Ellen goes in this weekend for her PH test.  

The good news is that the girls have had their biggest weight gain week of their lives.  The NG tubes are working!  Ellen is 15lbs and Elizabeth is 13lbs.  We could not be more excited.  

We will update you next week after we get the results of the tests.

We get the final test done for Elizabeth tomorrow….the gastric emptying test.  After this test the surgeons will be able to tell us what direction we will go with Elizabeth.  

It has been almost a week that the girls have both had the NG feeding tube in.  They are pretty upset when Stacy puts them back in as you can imagine, but once they are in feeding is fairly easy.  You just hook them up and turn on the machine.  

Ellen was taking hers out a couple times a day until our neighbor (who is a nurse) told us to safety pin the end of the feeding tube to the back of her shirt so she can’t reach it.  Works good, but unfortunately there is nothing you can do if the girls throw up and the tube come out their mouth.

We will meet with the surgeon in a couple weeks and let you know what they decide to do.

Thank you for your continued support!

 

Sliding the feeding tube through her nose

Ellen

Going for a walk

Ellen

Stacy holding Elizabeth down

Sorry it has been so long since we last posted.  We keep waiting to get more news on what to do with Elizabeth.   They have run the upper GI test and it was ok, they ran the PH test and it was ok, now we are waiting for them to run the gastric emptying test on March 20th.  Finally ,the last test and then we will meet with the surgeon to decide what is the next step.  Just trying to remain patient in the meantime.  Yesterday we were at Children’s Mercy from 8:30-1:30 running additional tests on the girls.  The doctor from the special care clinic wants us to put the NG feeding tube back in Elizabeth’s nose and she is also thinking we need to do the same thing with Ellen.  Ellen did not gain weight since the last visit.  We met with the psychologist and she agreed the girls need to put on weight.  Especially Elizabeth.  She is really impressed that the girls are so happy and social.  Overall pleased with most of their development and thinks a lot of their problems are nutrition related. Ellen is much further along than Elizabeth because of her weight.  They both smile a LOT!

 

Ellen

Elizabeth

Elizabeth and Ellen