Something to make you smile :-)

Life is crazy busy around here and I don't have much time for blogging...heck I can hardly keep up with the three kiddos...and the laundry...and dishes...and...everything else. I will try to post a new update sometime soon to let you know how things are going, but for now I only have a minute to post a few pictures :-) Enjoy!

~Sweet little Izzy at 1 week old~

~Jaxon is so proud of his little brother~

~Israel LOVES his swing!~

~Big sissy getting to feed Israel a bottle...she loved this!~

We're home and in love!

Awe...home sweet home...with our Israel sweet Israel. Israel passed all of his tests Friday with flying colors...just as we expected he would, Thank You Jesus!!! Everyone was so impressed with him and just continued to tell us how well he was doing and how strong he was. It's so wonderful to watch as doctors stand amazed at what can only be explained as the miracle of God.

We got home in the early evening on Friday and got our things settled and put away and enjoyed a wonderful night at home...in the peace, quiet and comfort of our own bed! Israel had an amazing night! He loves to sleep. We had to set our alarm to wake up every three hours to feed him. My milk is being slow to come in so I am nursing, pumping, then supplement feeding him...just until I have enough milk of my own to satisfy him. He enjoys eating quite a bit! :-) I am sure it won't be long before he plumps up just as my other babies did. He is so perfect and amazing and we are SO in love with this precious little one God gave us!

Our other two children come home tonight...so crazy town will be back up and running then! Lol! I am trying to enjoy these last new hours of quiet and silence before they return. Don't get my wrong, I love them dearly and of course are very excited for them to be home...I just know my life is about to get crazy! But hey...I do crazy pretty well!

Here are a few more pictures for you to "ohh and awe" over :-)
He loves the binkie!


First bottle...Daddy is such a pro!


All ready to go home!


Lovie time with Daddy.

Movin on up...

Moving on up...the the next floor that is. Here is the latest update as of Friday morning.

Thursday was a great day. Israel is such a content and happy baby. He sleeps a ton. We have to wake him up every three hours to eat, otherwise he would be fine to just sleep the day away :-) He is doing a really great job with nursing too. Last night we met with the pediatrician and he wanted to have a different neonatologist check out Israel's airway for any complications with sleep positions, carseats and such (Since he does have a small jaw and this can cause problems with breathing in different positions etc.). After a very detailed exam from the neo-doc she decided Israel looked great, but did want to error on the side of caution and have him monitored for 12 hours laying in different positions just to be sure there wasn't anything "unexpected" that could come up once we leave. With this being said, it meant that Israel had to change locations to a place where he could be hooked up to monitors and watched carefully. They moved him to the pediatric unit on the fourth floor...while I have to stay in the Post Partum unit on the third floor. Jon went with Israel and is staying in his room with him while I stay in my room by myself, coming up to feed Israel every three hours. I hate being away from him, but hopefully we will get to go home later on today or tomorrow at the latest. All while knowing he is healthy and fine with nothing to worry about. Israel is such an amazing little baby and has been handling te change great. Him and Daddy are both very good sleepers and have literally just been sleeping the entire time :-)

The plan for me is to be discharged sometime this morning so I can go and stay with my baby in his room, and since there is really no reason to keep my any longer. Please pray that Israel will pass these tests with flying colors and will also be able to be discharged today! Please also pray for strength for Jon and myself as we are going on two nights of very little to no sleep and we are getting quite tired.

Also Thank You to all of you who have posted comments, sent e-mails, text messages, calls, visits etc. We feel so loved and blessed to have people like you in our lives. We will keep you all up to date as much as we can in the next few days.

More pictures of our precious Israel

Israel David Turkington

I am sitting here, at 4am writing this blog as my precious little Israel lays by my side :-) I could very well be sleeping...but no...lol, I am blogging! My sister so graciously loaned us her laptop so I could send you all an update and some pictures. Here is the lowdown on our precious little one and and how we both are doing.
I went in for my normal weekly doctors appointment and ultrasound Wednesday morning. Upon doing the ultrasound they found out my fluid level was too low and they needed to induce me. They stripped my membranes around 10:30 and told me to go to the hospital by 2:00 to be induced. I went home, got Jon and the kids, and all our stuff, ate a good lunch and off we went. They started me on pitocin around 3:30 and contractions started right away. They were very manageable for quite while. Around 8:00 I was dilated to a 7 and they broke my water. Things picked up right away after that. After about 30 minutes of strong contractions (and absolutly no drugs the entire time!)and two pushes (About 6 total hours of labor), little Israel David was born. He was born at 9:29pm, weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 19 3/4 inches long. I got to pull him out and put him directly on my chest. There was a whole crew of people on standby incase he was having difficulty breathing. But by the grace of God they were all there for nothing less then to witness the miracle God did in Israel. He came out crying and screaming breathing with absolutly no problems what so ever. THANK YOU JESUS!!! The neonatologist asked if he could borrow him for just a short bit to ensure everything was fine. About a minute later he handed him right back to me and said he is great, no problems what so ever. It was humerous as we watched the NICU staff take all the TONS of unlessisary medical equipment that they so carefully brought in earlier, back out of the room, all unused! That's the awesome power of our God! As for his arms and legs, they all remain the same as they had on the ultrasounds. We will continue to pray and believe God for Israel's complete healing. We don't believe God is done yet!
He has been nursing wonderfully (which is another praise!)and sleeping great! We are so delighted and overjoyed to finally have our miracle here with us! A huge thank you to all of you who have been along this journey with us praying and believing God for the miracle of Israel. You mean more to us then you will ever know!Here are just a few picures to share with you for now. Enjoy!
(I will try to post more blogs in the upcoming days with how we are doing and of course more pictures...but no promises as to exactly when)

ISRAEL IS ON HIS WAY!

Hello to all of you! We are writing this blog with great joy and excitement! ISRAEL IS ON HIS WAY! YEAH! We are so excited and can not wait until we get to hold our little miracle in our arms. Please continue to pray for Israel as well as Becca as we go through the next hours of labor and then delivery. We know that just as real as our God was yesterday He is the same today. We continue to trust in Him with little Israel’s life and healing. We look forward to seeing all God has in store for this little blessing. We will update everyone as soon as we can after he is born.

Please check our “Twitter” (On the right side of this blog) for the latest updates. From our phones we are able to send updates to this part of our blog, so be sure and check it out throughout the day. We don’t have a laptop so I am not sure how quickly we will be able to write an actual blog. But this twitter thing is a handy way to stay up to date.

For anyone who is interested in visiting us, here is where we will be for the next couple of days.
Providence St. Vincent’s Medical Center
9205 SW Barnes Road
Portland, Oregon 97225
503-216-1234
Directions from Salem
Go North on I5
Take Exit 292-A for State Hwy 217 toward Tigard/Beaverton (0.9 miles)
Merge onto OR 217 N (6.7 miles)
Exit onto SW Barnes Rd (0.7 miles)
Follow the Hospital signs from here and you can’t miss it!
(Enter at the WEST PAVILION ENTRANCE, take the PURPLE ELEVATORS TO THE 3RD FLOOR – If you don’t do this part, you won’t actually make it to where we are)

With love,
The Turkington family of 5!

Yes...I am still pregnant!

For all of you who are wondering if I just forgot to inform you that I had a baby...the answer is no, I didn't forget...I am still pregnant. And yes, I am shocked too! I have never been this pregnant before and it's kind of crazy. I have a whole new respect for those women who go a week or two over their due date...ugh, what would be horrible! I am trying to remember that there is a reason that God designed pregnancy to last 40 weeks and not to rush what God designed. However, I can't help but continue to have a little bit of hope that it might be any day now.

We had another appointment on Tuesday and all is well, everything is still the same. Israel is still head down, praise God! I was fearing he might be a stinker and flip around again, but no. God heard our prayers about it and I am so thankful for that! I met with a different midwife this time and loved her so much! I am hoping and praying she is the one on call when Israel is born...I absolutely love her!

We are all ready for the big day and the countdown with the kids is on. Rachel knows exactly how many days until my due date. The bags are packed (except for Jon's...which is no surprise...lol!) and I feel quite ready. I have been trying to keep my house kept up and am attempting to stay on top of things like laundry and vacuuming...I hate coming home to a messy house. I have been a baking fool these days and just today the kids and I made spring time sugar cookies :-)

That's about all the news I have for now. I'll be sure and update my twitter (which you can view on my blog home page) as soon as anything happens since we won't have a laptop to post updates on. I turn 39 weeks on Saturday, so I don't imagine I will be pregnant much longer...but who knows what's going to happen! We appreciate your continued prayers for Israel's complete healing as we near the end of this "in-womb" journey and look forward with joy to the new one that will surely start soon. All our love and blessings!

God cares about the little things too!

We had yet another ultrasound and doctors appointment today. We are at the point where we will be going in weekly for these now. The ultrasound was not the normal one though, they simply checked his heartbeat and the amniotic fluid and I think that is about all. They didn't do the full anatomy screening like before. His heart and the fluid both look great. They didn't check anything else so I don't know if there have been any changes or improvements to his limbs and such. They were done with everything in a matter of minutes, so the tech said lets play for a while :-) She got out the other "camera" and did the 3D/4D ultrasound of his precious little face. He was moving a lot (Like usual) and had either his arm or his knee in front of his face pretty much the whole time! Silly boy! He likes being all tucked in close...I'm pretty convinced he is going to like being swaddled...just like Rachel and Jaxon did. But here is the cool part...and the fact for which I gave the title to the blog...ISRAEL FLIPPED!!! HOORAY!!! PRAISE GOD!!! I am so excited! He is head down...finally, and I couldn't be happier! :-) You know...God cares about the big stuff in life, but he also cares about the little things too...like turning Israel head down :-) I thank Him for this as it takes a lot of the stress I was feeling off. I feel so much more ready now, for when I go into labor. Additionally, I am going to be having a midwife deliver Israel! This is something that I really desired. In fact, I was seeing a midwife up until the 20 week mark when we learned about the "stuff" that was going on with Israel. When I had to switch and see a specialist I was quite nervous about that. Having a doctor deliver my baby was not something I was wanting. I had a midwife with both of my other deliveries and much prefer midwifery practice over doctors practice (Just my personal opinion). So at my appointment last week I asked our very sweet doctor if there was any way we could have a midwife preform the delivery...and the long and short of the story is, he said yes! YEAH! I saw one of the midwives who might deliver me today and she was great!
Anyway...so a few praises in one!
Israel is still growing well and healthy!
He finally flipped!
I get to have a midwife deliver my baby!

We are still contending for Israel's COMPLETE healing and we won't give up until we see it happen! We serve such an awesome and mighty God who is in the midst of an amazing miracle inside my womb as we speak!

Sweet Israel at 37 1/2 weeks
Check out those adorable chubby cheeks!!!
(Don't mind the placenta shoved up against his mouth...lol!)