In my last update, I said that I was moving all future updates to this platform. If you're reading this, well done. You found me. 

Also, thanks for your patience. I said that I would aim to write one update for Ruth each week, but so far I’m quite off target. 

It’s not that I don’t want to write. Really, one of my main desires each day is for a pocket (or two) of time for writing. It’s a calling I feel nearly every day and not being able to act on it has been an exercise in surrender.

It’s been humbling to learn in all of this that my time is not my own as I care for my girls. My selfishness rages against this, but my Heavenly Father is a kind teacher. He’s set my priorities before me. Will I be faithful? After all, faithfulness is the best definition of success.

When pockets of time are available again for writing, and I’ve learned not to take them for granted, I expect I will be much more faithful with them. God willing, my writing habit will be the best it’s ever been, and that will make my writing the most it’s ever been. This is good. I have much to write about.

One of those writings is a book documenting all that we’ve gone through with Ruth Truth. In it, I will collect all of the updates I’ve already written and expound on the many lessons God’s taught us. Writing this would be good for my soul. My goal at the moment is to have this done by the time Ruth turns two years old. But that’s a serious guesstimate. Whenever it’s ready, I have the tools to publish it online thanks to Writebook.

There's fun reasoning behind calling these updates “Roo’s News”. I’ve always liked the idea of calling Ruth “Roo” for short and “Miss Roo” for long. This works nicely because for a while now we’ve nicknamed Martha “Miss Moo.” She likes this nickname so much that if you ask her what she prefers to be called, this is what she’ll tell you. It’s only fitting then that these two go together. If God ever gives a boy, we can keep the pattern going by sticking him with Mister Goo.

Since my last update, our dear friends Mark & Annie Scaffidi came all the way from Wichita, Kansas to help us. Aside from stocking us up on meals, doing some cleaning, and completing miscellaneous house projects, they were a great morale boost. They loved us well. We love them!

(I just can’t help but mention that you can find Mark’s new blog here: https://world.hey.com/mscaffidi. I'm sure he's blushing as he reads this.)

We also had a child dedication and parent commissioning at Cedar Heights Baptist Church for Ruth Truth. It was a special and emotional time for us and our church family.

Lastly, we've had three appointments for Ruth: a nephrology appointment for her blood pressure, a pediatric surgery consult for her G-tube, and an early developmental intervention appointment to check her progress.

The nephrology appointment and the pediatric surgery consult were on a Monday and Tuesday in Iowa City. Aside from the inconvenience of having to travel down and back twice in a row, we didn't think much of it. That is, until Ruth decided that she did not want to ride in the car. Both ways on both days, she made her displeasure known by crying for the entire drive. I was sure all my hairs would be grey by the end of it. Thankfully, we were able to comfort Ruth by simply getting out of the car. Unfortunately, that comfort method didn't get us any closer to our destination.

As you might expect, we were late to our nephrology appointment, and if she hadn't been through enough, Ruth needed to have her blood drawn for labs. After this, she had her vitals checked as we met with a nurse practitioner. The girl had been through a lot, and as we tried to get her blood pressure, the nurse practitioner hummed, "Jesus Loves Me" to comfort her. I appreciated the song choice and told the nurse as much.

Ruth's blood pressure was ridiculously high. A big reason for this was likely because of all  she had just been through, but another reason was that we never administered her blood pressure medicine that day. This was intentional. A few days before, when our home nurse checked it, Ruth's blood pressure was ridiculously low. So, as a sort of experiment, we decided we would skip giving her the medicine to see how she handled it. Our hope was that we would be able to get her off of it. Turns out that wasn't recommended because it didn’t provide our team with an accurate picture.

This caused Lauren some serious mom guilt as she blamed herself for Ruth's high blood pressure. If we had given Ruth her medicine and her blood pressure was lower, we might have been able to decrease her dosage. In this, Lauren recognized she had taken it into her own hands instead of trusting the Lord. Thankfully, in the middle of her downward spiral, the nurse practitioner stopped Lauren, told her she wasn’t dwelling on the truth, and said, "I think we're talking on a Jesus level. I'm going to pray over you." It was a powerful moment, and the Lord accomplished a good work in Lauren’s heart in answer to that prayer. 

Later, Lauren joked that since Ruth was prayed over by our ENT doctor and she was just prayed over by our nephrology nurse practitioner, I would be prayed over at our next appointment. Seriously, we’re continually astounded and ever so thankful for all of the strong and faithful Christians that God has ordained to care for Ruth physically and for us spiritually. What a blessing.

The day after we met with nephrology, we were back to meet with pediatric surgery to talk about a G-tube. It was a good consult, though intimidating because they shared the details of the procedure, which included a warnings of what could go wrong. Overall, it’s a simple surgery, and they’ve done a lot of them.

Normally they don't prefer to do G-tube surgeries on infants (unless absolutely necessary), but the surgeon said that he thought Ruth was a good candidate for it. We have no predictions for how long Ruth will have her G-tube. She'll likely have it until she's at least a year old and has her soft palate cleft surgically repaired, but it could be even a couple more years beyond that. We just don't know. 

We initially scheduled Ruth's surgery for November 14th, but after talking with each other, our home nurse, our physical therapist, and praying to make sure we weren't taking it into our own hands, we decided to move Ruth's surgery up to the other available date, October 31st. Ruth is the healthiest she's ever been, so why wait and risk sickness (which would postpone the surgery) in the coming weeks? Now, surgery is only days away! We'll go in on Thursday morning at 6:00 AM. Youngest first!

With that change, we've had even less time to prepare our hearts, and I'll admit that the idea of my baby daughter having surgery to put a hole in her stomach has discouraged me. I was feeling quite low on Monday, but when I came home from work I found my girls baking and having fun in the kitchen. That scene of joy and normalcy was a gift from God, and it lifted my spirits immediately. It gave me hope for the days to come, and I'll carry that memory with me for a long time.

We continue to learn to trust the Lord with all of this. I know that in the long term this is the best path forward for Ruth. Especially after hearing so many positive stories from families with children who have G-tubes. And I know that Ruth is definitely a much happier baby without the NG tube taped to her face and running down her nose.

Thanks for reading and thanks for praying! God’s hands are greater than our hands. To God be the glory!

Enjoy this picture of Ruth in disguise—complete with a mustache and glasses! She won't have it for much longer!