Abby Grace

Our Abby Grace was born on August 21, 2007 in Grand Forks, ND. When she was just 11 days old our family moved to so daddy could attend Seminary. The Lord has provided us with friends, prayers, baby-sitters and an occasional baked good by our door. We are SO excited to be here and to see what God has in store for us!!

In mid-October mom and Abby headed back to Grand Forks for some medical testing. I needed to follow up with my OB from an issue during delivery and Abby was scheduled to have a head CT based on what Brent and I were observing with her head shape. We were pretty (totally really) sure that Abby had a form of craniosynostosis. After having a head CT, On October 15th, Abby Grace was diagnosed with having Sagittal Synostosis. This is a cranio disorder that is caused by early fusing of the plates in the skull. Because her sagittal suture is fused, Abby's head is only able to grow long or laterally. The only way to correct this is for her to have surgery to reshape/reconstruct the skull.

After receiving a referral, Brent and I met with Dr. Jeffrey Fearon, here in Dallas, on October 30th. He is a cranio-facial specialist and he will be doing Abby's surgery. He was such a nice man and we had all of our questions answered. He will be doing the surgery with a pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Succo. They scheduled her surgery for December 11, 2007. Abby will not quite be 4 months old.

I learned at the appointment that Dr. Fearon does not shave the baby's heads. Instead, he has their hair put in tiny pony tails. He too does a zig zag incision across the top of the head, so that the scar does not show in the hairline. His average baby stays in the hospital just over 2 days, which is great!! And only 18% of his babies need to have blood transfusions.

We have some special prayer requests if you think to pray for our sweet girl

- Abby will be receiving Procrit shots starting the week of November 18th. This drug will help to build up her blood volume, to help minimize blood loss and minimize the chance of needing blood transfusions. Dr. Fearon only has to transfuse about 18% of his patients. We would like Abby to not need any sort of transfusion. Please pray that there are no complications from the injections and that she will not require a transfusion of any sort.

- That she would stay healthy for the surgery. I guess that means asking that our family would stay healthy...with 3 older siblings everything is passed around our home.

- That everything would be okay. That she would pull through surgery okay, recover without complications and have no lasting effects of having gone through this.

- For our surgeons, that God would give them wisdom and the skill to take care of our sweet girl.

- That our hope and confidence would remain in the Lord. Pray that our eyes would stay fixed on Him and not our circumstance. It is so heart breaking for me to hand my baby over to have this done.

For those of you who do not know our family's story, Abby Grace will be our 3rd pediatric neurosurgery. Drew, our oldest boy who is now 6, had brain surgery when he was 19 months old. Sam, our 2nd oldest child, had the same condition Abby has, and he had surgery when he was 4 1/2 months old. Lizzy, our other little girl who is almost 2, has never had neurosurgery, BUT I had my appendix out when I was newly pregnant with her. We are so thankful for each and everyone one of our children, they are such gifts to us!! Though the road of motherhood is definitely not without pain, it is a wonderful gift and I would not trade any of it. I am not sure what the Lord's purpose is in all of these surgeries, but I am confident that He will be our strength and our ever present help as we "walk by faith and not by sight".

Thank you for any prayers. We love all our Abby Grace so very much. We are blessed to have such wonderful people of God in our lives to ask for prayer! Thanks be to God!!

Jaci for the Jackson family