Abigail Jane....

I have been procrastinating on blogging about this b/c I wanted to wait till there was a diagnosis and factual information to share. That time is now here.

My dear friend Angie (who kept my sanity on most of my days when I lived in SC) became an aunt on May 28th, 2008. The proud parents Lauren (Angie's sister) and her hubby Jay are super fun folks with huge hearts that I was blessed to get to know and spend time with on several occasions when I was in SC. When Lauren became pregnant, Jay had just deployed to Iraq. As if that wasn't a hard enough challenge for these two wonderful people, they are now facing what no deserving parent(s) should ever have to go through. However, everyday they wake up, take on the challenge and with the most positive attitude i've ever witnessed.....

Here's the story........Abigail Jane ("AJ") was born absolutely beautiful yet premature with multiple abnormalities including the following: her brain did not develop properly, she has a small hole in her heart, she's got some kidney problems, cataracts, low muscle tone and hearing loss. She has spent her life in the NICU thus far with Lauren and Jay right there by her side.
(For those wondering, NO Lauren did not deliver all alone, her family was there with her and the Red Cross with assistance from our United States Military was able to locate Jay in Iraq and get him home ASAP!!)

For AJ to be discharged from the NICU she will have to show the abilities to maintain her own body temperature, regulate her respiratory rate and to feed. She still has not shown the natural instinct to feed herself and will most likely require a direct feeding tube into her stomach before she comes home. AJ has also had some trouble breathing recently. She has been on a ventilator for the past few days and she will likely have trouble breathing for the rest of her life.

In addition, the results from the tests that were ran on AJ finally came back this week and it's been determined that AJ has Zellwegers Syndrome. Here's the link to a website that explains it more in detail: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/zellweger/zellweger.htm

In an email from Lauren today she stated the following:
"As you all will probably soon read the prognosis for Zellwegers is poor. We want each of you to know how excited we are to be parents. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to be able to hold our baby and to tell her we love her. Many parents never make it this far and never get to experience the awesome feelings that we now cherish. Our future appears to hold many tough moments and some pretty daunting challenges, but we are excited to get out there and live life to the very fullest with our beautiful baby girl. One of our great teachers told us that, "Everyone comes into our lives for a reason". They teach us something about life and ourselves".

Please keep AJ, Lauren and Jay in your thoughts and prayers, as well as their entire family.
Here's a few pictures of sweet lil' AJ: