Happy New Year friends and family!  For those of you that continue to keep The Marys and our family in your prayers, we can not thank you enough.  So many of you continue to ask how they are doing so I wanted to just give a quick update…

Mary Elizabeth is now officially off the feeding tube and has been since the end of November.  She is eating all of the normal things that you would expect from a 3 year old like pb&j, macaroni and cheese, applesauce, yogurt and chips 🙂  It is amazing how you take for granted the little things in life, like eating!  It brings us great joy to see how far both of them have come especially Elizabeth.  This is a huge milestone that we wanted to share with you.  After all, your prayers have helped see her through to this point.

Our goal in 2012 is to avoid Children’s Mercy and put the medical issues related to The Marys’ behind us.   At this point Ellen does not have any signs from TTTS.  Elizabeth has what we hope to be a mild cerebral palsy, but her mind is sharp 🙂

Peace and abundance to all of you in 2012!

love, The Govea Family

ALL children are a miracle and blessing from God!  Three years ago He sent the Marys’ to remind us in a special way that Miracles still happen.   Mary Ellen and Mary Elizabeth are 3 years old today.  Happy Birthday!!!

Mary Ellen and Mary Elizabeth are twin to twin transfusion (TTTS), Micro-Preemie, NICU, G-tube, etc survivors.  And we would like to thank all of  you for the support and love over the past few years.  We truly believe in the power of prayer ,Faith and community.

Ellen is now off of the feeding tube and has no signs of trouble from TTTS or being a micro-preemie.   Her mind and spirit are very bright!  Elizabeth has MILD cerebral palsy and is still on the feeding tube, but she is asking for food now on a regular basis and we are so hopeful that she will be off the feeding tube soon.  Her mind and spirit are bright as well.  Don’t mess with Elizabeth! 🙂

Megan, Michael and Nicky have been such an inspiration and a true testament to how resilient children can be when faced with challenges.  They are developing strong mentoring and leadership skills.  We are so proud of G1!!!

Our family is so thankful for the struggles and challenges.  They too are a gift from God.

Peace, Love and MANY blessings,

Love the Govea family

If you are interested in hearing more about the Marys progress or our family,  you can be a friend on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bo.govea

Elizabeth

Ellen

Megan and The Marys

Michael and Ellen

The Marys will start pre-school next fall

Nicky and The Marys at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade

The Marys’ are 2!  Thank you so much for you prayers and support over these last two years.  It is so overwhelming to think of all the love.  We have seen God’s presence in so many people,  but especially in YOU!

May God shine on you all and bless you abundantly!

Love,

Bo, Stacy, Megan, Michael, Nicky, Ellen, Elizabeth and Ryan

1st day

The Marys’ 1st Birthday

Elizabeth on her 2nd Birthday

Ellen on her 2nd Birthday

It has been just over a year since the girls got their Mickey G tubes in their stomach. It has been a long year with feeding tubes, but has resulted in great gains! We are excited to share the good news……..Ellen is officially off of the feeding tube and eating 100% of her meals with her MOUTH. Elizabeth is still months away, but it is so good to see the progress. Stacy’s goal was to have them off the feeding tubes by their birthday and we will take one of them being off knowing that Elizabeth will follow suit.

All of the other kids are doing great! Baby Ryan is almost 11 months and started walking at 9.5 months. So now we have Ellen and Ryan walking and Elizabeth is really close. She is motivated when she sees the other two walking. And of course, the big kids are so helpful! We really count on them.

The insurance business is going well and we are growing. We also started another venture called “10-20-30GO! Families Functioning Faithfully”. It is an accountability system that we developed. The system will be available in May. The website 102030go.com will be up May 1st. You can join our Facebook fan club at 102030go.

Thank you so much for your continued prayer support. We are so amazed when we run into people who tell us they are still praying for the girls. It means so much to us.

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