December | 2014 | godloveseliana

Hello, all, 🙂
So much time has passed and so much has happened! I almost feel compelled to change the blog name to “God loves the KO family” or “God loves Alex Ko” since the KOs have gone through a CRAZY episode of another hospital stay for Alex but I guess for now, godloveseliana will suffice. Because God does love eliana, our sweet little girl. And there will be another time to share about Alex…

Alex and I now look back and think of the uncertain days we had in terms of Ana’s development and we thank God so much for enabling her to surpass so many of our expectations in unimaginable ways. We weren’t sure if she would be able to walk or run– and now she does! She is so busy chasing after Nathaniel around the house! We weren’t sure if she would be able to talk– and now she does. She talks up a storm actually. Because of the cleft lip and palate it is VERY difficult to understand her, but Alex and I understand what she is saying. It’s kind of like our little secret language that no one else understands except our family. It’s so neat that Nathaniel actually can understand Ana’s mumbo jumbo most of the time! And I giggle to myself thinking how in the world he learned to figure her language out. I guess when you are together so many hours together, you learn to understand what each other is saying– even if it is a different language. We weren’t sure if she would be able to understand, comprehend, and learn things–and she can! The regional teacher that comes out to teach her once a week says Ana is not behind cognitively. God is so gracious. I realize that He has been answering the desires I had for Ana that I did not even put into prayers. I feel so ashamed to admit that I have not been praying for Nathaniel, Ana, and now for Joey as nearly as much I should have. Yet God has been so faithfully developing and growing Ana even when I had not been faithful as Ana’s mom to pray for all these things. This morning I realized that God has so purposefully placed Ana in my life to remind me to pray. She is my call to prayer. In hindsight, what a blessing it is to have Ana the way she is in my life. Without her, I would be further away from God and less dependent on Him, my true source of strength. And now Alex, is my call to prayer too. 🙂 I have so much to be thankful for. I’m thankful that I can think much more clearly after the storm passes by. In the midst of the trial I get into a survival mode and I don’t remember much from it other than pleading God to just survive another day. But after all is somewhat over, I can look back and say that what I thought were curses and disasters are the exact things that I can’t live without– like our sweet little girl Ana. 🙂

Summary of updates:
– Ana may not need another heart surgery! Her PA band was ballooned up and hopefully will not need another catherization to open it up! Her VSDs have closed up and her coarctation of the Aorta seems to grow on its own too! 🙂
– Ana pretty much does everything a healthy two year old would do except eating by mouth. Praise the Lord for allowing her to come thus far!

Now moving onto our prayer requests.. Please pray for:
– Ana’s eating!! She is still solely fed through the G-tube. She does eat some food by mouth which is a HUGE praise!! But she just eats one tiny little bite and she’s done. It also takes about 30 minutes to 1 hour to have her swallow the little bite she has in her mouth. It gets pretty frustrating… Please pray that I would be patient with her and wait for God’s perfect timing to have her eat by mouth. No matter how much I try, I realize that God is the One who will change things in His perfect timing. 🙂

Thank you so much for partnering with us to pray for Ana! Words cannot express the gratitude I have for you!

love,
Maria