It Takes a Village.

The say it takes a village...

Well, the village is making themselves known. A mixture of fundraiser ideas as well as checks directly to us have left us speechless. To articulate the amount of thanks we have for our friends and family would be impossible. This is the hardest thing we have ever been through, but the support from everyone is making being optimistic easier and easier with each day. The good news we've received from doctors has us in a very good place right now. Rhett is already loved by so many. So again and a million times over. Thank you.

Rhett is moving all over the place in momma's belly! Every movement shows how strong he already is and I think he's ready for all of the hugs and kisses that are inevitably coming. Amanda is doing great and mostly only cries happy tears lately. We are so looking forward to the visit to the cardiologist June 2nd! Please keep Rhett in your prayers that by a miracle we will get there and they'll say nothing is wrong, but if a secondary prayer request that in the event something is wrong that only heart surgery will be necessary and then Rhett can live a completely normal life.

Talon is so ready for Rhett to come out and play. He said he's gonna scare him outta there!

I think Talon scared him...

 Before bed one night we asked him if he was excited and he said he was going to teach him to do flips. We asked what else he was going to teach him and he walked around the room looking at all of his toys. He grabbed his toy gun and pointed at the deer and said "shoot deer", then he pointed to his tennis ball and said "play catch", he said a few other things and it was one of the most precious moments and a memory I'll never forget. He is so excited and seems to totally understand what is going on (minus the medical stuff). He knows his name and he knows he's having a baby brother. The other night after we tucked him in he called Amanda back over, lifted her shirt and gave her belly a hug and a kiss and said "Goodnight Rhett". Memory I'll never forget number 2. I can't wait to watch them grow up together. I mean...look at this guy, he's ready!

We talked to insurance yesterday and things are looking up on that front too. What we originally were told was a $1200 bill for the cardiologist visit has turned into about $300 based on the different things hitting the insurance plan and Amanda hitting her deductible. (Thank God). My plan starts over July 1st, so we'll have to start the deductible and max out of pocket cycle over again.

I was reading some message boards of people who's infants have had open heart surgery a few days after being born and followed by about a 2-3 week stay in the hospital and without insurance it would be in the $150k - $250k range. Thank God for insurance plans our maximum out of pocket is $10k at most from July thru June of 2016. So hopefully if worst case scenario happens and Rhett needs surgery that the first one will be enough to set him up for life and will limit future years to check ups and general little boy bumps and bruises!

So now the real task begins.... picking out bedding and getting his room ready for when we bring him home. Not to mention registering for baby showers, and making sure Amanda has khaki maternity pants.. khaki.

Spirits are high in the Spangler house and so much of it is because of all of you reading along. Writing this blog has been a great emotional tool for me and thank you all so much for the love you've shown my baby boy and someday when he's older and I can show him all of these posts I know his heart will be full, even if it isn't right now.

Again and again and again from the bottom of Amanda's and my heart.

Thank you.

#dadsimple

Finally Some Good News!!

Amanda and I have been trying to stay as positive as possible. Thank you again to everyone who has offered kind words and prayers. So far it looks like it's working!

Today we finally received some good news for Rhett! Amanda received a phone call today with the results of the MaterniT21 test.

"The MaterniT21 PLUS test is a noninvasive prenatal test that detects fetal chromosomal abnormalities; from common (trisomies 21, 18 and 13) to the more rare (fetal sex aneuploidies, trisomies 16 and 22, and select microdeletions"

The results came back 99% negative! This, along with the Dr's seeing totally normal growth except the heart has us hoping that ALL we are dealing with is a heart defect (super weird to say...all). Amanda and I are so relieved.

I'll have Rhett charming the ladies in no time!

We are looking forward to our visit with the Cardiologist June 2nd, but we were notified today of the $1200 price tag that we will have to pay before the appointment. I have insurance, but with all of these tests and visits we ran through the $1500 my company gives for our HRA account, which means we now have to spend another $1500 before we can hit our deductible and insurance starts paying 80% to our 20% until we reach the out of pocket minimum of $10,000 dollars. So all of that is super exciting...

3 things....

1. I thought the math on having a baby was supposed to be as simple as 1 + 1 = 3

2. Kids are expensive pets.

3. So worth it.


#dadsimple

The Calm After the Storm and THE NAME!

It's been a couple of days since we found out the news and I wanted to post again to make sure everyone reading along knows that we're okay. We are optimistic for now and that's all we can really be until we start to get into some of these test results and specialist visits.

It feels like it's been a week since Friday and we can't express enough how grateful we are for all of the comments, messages, texts, hugs, and phone calls that we have received of people offering advice and encouragement. It's been overwhelming in the best way possible. It was comforting to hear about people who have worked with the doctors we will be visiting with and who have had experiences with Cooks whether through someone they know or themselves directly.

Amanda felt him move last night on the outside! It was very exciting and it felt like it was his first act of bravery and telling us that "hey, I ain't going anywhere!" We are so excited to get to share this experience together and I know God wouldn't put this in front of us if he didn't know we could handle it. It's going to be hard, but I've got the best partner I could ask for beside me for this whole deal. She's strong when I can't be and I'm her rock when she can't find solid ground. She is my perfect match and I love her more every day.

The reveal was so fun! We laid in bed that night and it didn't feel like we could get close enough. I think we fell asleep in about 30 seconds.

Saturday we went to Joey and Lisa Calhoun's wedding with Amanda's parents and it was exactly what we needed to kind of take our minds off of things. We had a great time and the wedding and venue were so awesome. Congratulations to the happy couple! Oh and take a look at this hottie!

Sunday was mother's day so we went to Midlothian to spend time with my family at Ellis County BBQ and then back to mom's house for some hangin' out. Then we made the drive back to Azle to spend time with Amanda's family. It was great to get to see everyone again after that crazy Friday we had.

We sat at mom's house thinking of a name and we finally decided on one. See my family has a tradition where the boys get two middle names which makes the name picking process even more difficult to find a mixture of syllables and letters that flow and work together. We have decided on...

Rhett Parker Wyatt Spangler!

We wanted to give him a strong name just in case he ends up needing it. We are still hopeful that by some miracle this will somehow turn into the most boring pregnancy ever with Rhett being born to little fanfare and we can sit in our hospital room with a perfectly healthy baby boy.

Again, thank you all so much for the support and the prayers. Keep sending them up because we will need all the help we can get! We are unquestionably surrounded by the best family and friends anyone could ask for. For the strangers who read because of the people who shared the post, thank you as well for caring enough to read and to offer encouragement to complete strangers.

Rhett Spangler... we are in love already. #dadsimple

The Worst Best Day Ever.

So, yesterday was the Anomaly scan which for most people (us included) the gender reveal at the doctor. We were so excited to find out if we were having a boy or a girl!

The stay started out normal,we woke up and got ready, dropped Talon off with Cody, got breakfast and we were on a way into the hospital to do the ultrasound. It was about 40 minutes past our appointment time of 10:00AM before they called us back. Amanda sat in the chair and they rubbed that junk on her belly and pow, our baby was on the screen. Unlike last time, this really looked like a baby, perfect profile of the head and just perfect. Amanda and I were both hoping for a girl because she and I both had two nephews and we wanted a girl to add to the mix with Talon. As the technician was going around the screen I thought I saw that it was a boy, but Amanda didn't see it. The tech asked if we wanted to know what the baby was and she told us it was a boy. I was a little disappointed at first, but oh well. I was going to be a daddy and I was going to have a son! Walking out of the room, I thought everything was normal... Amanda didn't.

She had been through one of these scans before and felt like they were focusing too much on looking at the blood movement out of the heart. She began to worry and by the time we got called back into the office to meet with the doctor she was really really worrying. One of the nurses came in and asked Amanda her name again, which made Amanda worry even more.

The doctor came in and I asked him to give it straight to us, is there a problem? Without hesitation he responded, "The Heart".

Amanda broke down crying and I was in shock. He went on to explain that he was having trouble seeing the chambers of the heart and that would need to go to the sonogram specialist upstairs immediately. I tried to calm Amanda down and we were finally able to go upstairs to meet with the Specialist Dr. Thigpen. It's kind of funny because in a time of complete fear Amanda and I were still able to find a way to laugh. She thought the doctors name was Dr. PIGpen and proceeded to walk right past his door to find the right guy. We stood outside of the office laughing until we could both calm down enough to walk in, perhaps we were trying to find someway to fight the fear of what was happening.

We made our way into the specialists office to fill out load of paperwork. Amanda had to go do another urine sample and I made the biggest mistake of the day... I googled. Horror story after horror story of babies dying and all kinds of other things. I finally began to really feel the magnitude of the situation. Amanda cam back and I had to go the restroom myself so I went outside the office door to the bathroom in the hall and as I stood there alone for the first time without having to be strong for Amanda, I nearly broke. How could this be happening? I pulled it together and went back in to the office and Amanda had been called to the back. The person at the front walked me back there and I moved my chair as close to Amanda as I could. This was the biggest moment of our lives. We had to see what the specialist had to say about the Sonogram.

Dr. Pigpen was really nice. He went over the sonogram and said that there was a heart defect and that it seemed pretty major.

***I'm going to try to get through this with as much detail as I can, but it all happened in such a flash that some details will be missing I'm sure.***

It looked like the shape of the heart as whole was fine and the heart rate was at a perfect 140bpm, but the chambers hadn't separated on either side to create and atrium and a ventricle. But even then I'm not totally sure what is going on and we are still waiting to find out more information. If what the specialist saw was correct we are at the very least likely going to have to take our boy to the NICU @ Cook's Childrens immediately after being born and a heart surgery will be scheduled as late as possible to give him time to grow. The longer they can wait the better the chances of success are for.

We've now been referred to Lisa Roten a Pediatric Cardiologist at Cook's Childrens to have her take a look. We should know when our appointment is within the next week or so.

We also took the quad screening blood test to check for Chromosomal Abnormalities and should have results for that within 7-10 days.

BRIGHT SIDE: Everything else checked out great on our baby boy. Kidney size, limb length, growing normally. Everything else is fine except for the heart. Thank God for that.

As we left the doctor in shock we finally made it to the car and as soon as we sat down, I lost it. We cried and cried and sat there not knowing what to do. We had a gender reveal planned for that evening and we weren't sure what to do.

We called Jessica first (Amanda's sister in law who was watching Talon) because Talon was having issues going poop and Amanda told her what was going on and accidentally told her the sex! Haha so far we were sucking at the keep it a secret game!

Amanda then called her mom and told her and she said she felt a lot better now that she had talked to people. I then called my mom and made it about 1 sentence in before I couldn't speak through the tears and Amanda had to talk to her. My mom had worked at Cook's and was telling us the amazing things they can do now. After I was able to gather myself again I was able to talk with mom and she made me feel a lot better. I had her tell the rest of my family, but I called my dad after that and man... Thank God for parents.

We decided the best thing was to go on with the reveal. This wasn't a death sentence, we don't know what is going to happen, but being around family and letting them see us too seemed to be the most important thing right now. We went and had lunch and made it the whole way home and started to gain a little optimism after the 4 hour nut kick we had endured at the hospital.

We had to blow up balloons and fill them with paint to attach to a fence that we'd be rednecking up and shooting with a bb gun! Yee Yee!

The first one I filled up came off the bottle and splattered ALL over me. Amanda and I laughed hysterically. I looked at her and told her that I loved that somehow on this awful day I still had a great time with her. She's the best.

I popped one balloon while hammering the nails in and it exploded on me again, but the reveal went great. My favorite part was watching the great grandparents taking aim with the Red Ryder.

It was much needed fun with just our family after what felt like the longest day ever. Congrats to Daltry for hitting the blue balloon!

We're having a baby boy! and would you look at that beautiful momma...

#dadsimple