Answers to Prayers

Thank you everyone for all your prayer for my health and recovery of my leg. I'm very happy to say that as of this past weekend I am over 70% strength in my right quad, which means I can walk without a brace and hold Jonah. Also, it means I can safely drive! I will continue to go to physical therapy for two more weeks to gain more strength. At this point, I will mostly be trying to regain endurance of the muscle.

I really do appreciate all of you who have been praying for our family during this time. God has been so faithful to us to provide help from our families (especially Dan's mom Dotty this past week and a half!), and lots of help from our friends locally as well. It's not always the case that God answers our prayers the way we hope, but in this case we are so thankful to watch how he has answered our petitions and the prayers of others on our behalf. My physical therapist says that the rate at which I am healing is very good and almost as good as we could hope for.

Jonah is doing well. He regained his birth weight and is sleeping well (for a newborn) at night. We are still trying to work on breastfeeding, some days are better and other days I am on the verge of going to formula. We are still trying to make it to 6 weeks for now.

Lucy, our pug, is going to stay with my parents in Texas until Christmas to help us have one less thing to deal with for now. We will miss her, but she will hopefully get more attention and exertion staying with my parents for now.

If you somehow missed what is going on with my leg: During Jonah's birth, either because of the positioning during pushing or maybe pressure from Jonah as he came out, my right femoral nerve was compressed, stretched, or somehow shut down. I didn't feel anything at the time (it may have been masked by my epidural) but once my epidural wore off and I should have been able to walk, I would still buckle and fall. The shut down of the nerve completely shut down my right quadricep muscle and muscles atrophy very fast when they are not doing anything. The nerve should heal 100% on its own ("a matter of weeks" says the neurologist). I am going to physical therapy to build back up my atrophied muscle. The situation is actually really similar to rehab you have to go to when you have ACL surgery because they have to cut through your quad for that.