Oh what a glorious day. Levi is one year old today. I'm full of so many emotions. I am so grateful that God chose me to be Levi's mom. We've been on quite the journey together this past year and I'm grateful for every single day. Even the bad ones. The bad days are when I learned to trust God the most. I learned I'm stronger than I ever thought I could or wanted to be. I also learned that I'm no different than any other mother. If you were faced with my situation, you would be strong too. You would be strong because that's what mom's do for their kids.
I will never forget May 6, 2014. I was having a light hearted conversation in Levi's hospital room at Cook Children's with my dad, and Levi's god parents. We were interrupted by the neurologist who had the results of Levi's MRI. He took my dad and I to a computer where we could view and discuss the results. I couldn't breathe. Even though I didn't know the results yet, I couldn't breathe. I was already shaking and shivering. This is what we were sent to Texas for, answers. I can't tell you what the neurologist said. It's a blur. All I remember is asking if Levi was going to die. That's all that mattered to me, I could deal with anything else. She said "yes, he will die." I will never forget the look on my dad's face that day. The look of complete helplessness and sadness that his daughter would bury another baby. During those nine days in Texas, I made a decision that I would trust God. I knew we would be ok. No matter what happened, we would be ok. We'd buried Liam, and survived. We would survive again. Nick, Isaac, and I would be ok. We were surrounded by an UNBELIEVABLE amount of love and support from our family, friends, and church. Father Shelby drove all the way to Texas the day after "the news" to be with us and comfort us. I will never be able to explain to him how much that meant to us. He was the face of our church and I felt all of their love and support the day he was there. I was so thankful to have a church family. We were in Texas for nine days. They told us Levi was losing neuro-funtion so we asked to be sent home so he could die at home, were our support was. I remember the day before we left, reading a Facebook post from one of Nick's friends. His friend wrote that her daughter asked to pray for baby Levi. Her prayer was for the doctor's to be wrong about Levi's diagnosis. The very next day we were given the glorious news that in fact the doctor was wrong. Praise God. The doctor was wrong. My baby would live. He would have a first birthday. He would make it to today.
It's been a long road and it's not over. Levi has a lot of rehab left to do, but with all the intervention we are doing, I am confident that I will read this exact blog in a few years and be amazed at how far we came. Levi will have quite a testimony when he's older. I'm still amazed at all the people who love him, pray for him, and have donated money to his care. I will never be able to thank everyone enough for all the love we have been shown this past year. We're just a normal family that had a bad thing happen to them and we got through it with the love and support from each of you. You are all Team Zumwalt!!!
