Update

Titus is 5 weeks old today - and he weighed 6lbs 12 oz last night! WooHoo! He appears to be clear of infections and should be ready for surgery this Friday, Dec 21. Surgery is scheduled for 9am. Here's a recent pic of our beautiful boy!

Yesterday, the audiologist did an ABR test on Titus hearing. We have noticed that Titus does not seem to respond to sound or noises in the room. The test confirmed what we suspected. Titus has signficant hearing loss in both ears. Even though we suspected this, it was still hard to hear the news confirmed. But we trust in God's plan and know there are amazing things that can be done in this area for Titus.

After the audiologist left, and Becky and I stood there holding each other, we prayed over Titus' bed that God's will be done. The verse that kept coming up in my head was Josh 24:15 "choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." As I left the hospital, I kept telling myself "I choose today. I choose today".

After 5 weeks in the NICU and knowing we still have several more weeks there before coming home, and then looking forward knowing that 2008 will contain several more surgeries/procedures followed with a lot of therapy over the next years, I have come to realize this is a lesson in perseverance. Perseverance is so much more than patience. When we adopted Tucker, we had some delays in bringing home. When we accepted his referral in September, we thought he might be home prior to Christmas, but if not, at least in January. As things unfolded, we were not able to bring him home till April. At the time, the wait was horrible and gut-wrenching. We had a child on the other side of the world that we just wanted to bring home, but had to wait until all the legalalities were taken care of.

At the time, I thought we persevered - I now realize it was more just patience. With Titus, this is perseverance. But we persevere because we know it is what God has called us to. Oswald Chambers defines perseverance as this: Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. We know and trust that God has a wonderful plan for Titus and we choose today to serve the Lord and persever and not to give into fear and doubt. Our prayer today is Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” The only way we will be able to persevere is keeping our mind steadfast and our trust in God.

This week please pray for the following:

• Titus jaw distraction surgery on Friday, Dec 21 at 9am. We are also praying for Dr. Genecov and his team who are performing the surgery.


• Titus' recovery after surgery. Dr. Genecov hopes to return him after surgery extubated from the breathing machine used during surgery and with his breathing showing signs of improvement from the initial displacement of the jaw.


• Continued improvement of health for our family. We have all been struggling with coughs/infections of some manner over the last few weeks.


• Navigation of the Supplemental Social Security and Medicaid forms and completion of insurance claims. It is hard to find the time to spend on the phone (on hold) with these agencies, but these are necessary items that need to be completed in a timely manner.

Thanks again for all the notes/emails of encouragement, for the prayers, for the food, for the people who have even been cleaning our house, for our friends who have watched over the boys. This is so humbling and we are so grateful.

And a special thanks to our parents (Nolon & Lou Daily and Jerry & Elizabeth Temples) who are always there supporting us. Many of you know our parents and know how special they are. We couldn't ask for better parents or better grandparent to Aidan, Noah, Tucker, Cade, & Titus.

BTW, Nolon & Lou celebrated their 52nd wedding anniversary this week - thanks mom and dad for persevering and setting such a fine example.