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Chaeli

Chaeli Elora Faith was born on April 12th, 2005, weighing in at 7lbs 9oz and was 19.5 inches long. Her arrival has been one of the most faith building experiences in my life, I hope you'll find her story a blessing to you!

Miss Chaeli in the sweet dress she wore for her dedication on May 29th

This is from a post of my thoughts this 2006 Easter Sunday (Chaeli has just turned one year old.)  
Easter was the 16th of April this year.

Easter this year has a special meaning for me.

Today, April 16th, is the one year date from the day that we almost lost Chaeli. She died... or was dying, right in front of us. I have never been so scared in all my life, seeing one of my children slipping away from me before my very eyes. The image of her tiny face, slowly turning grey/blue and not responding to anything I was trying to do to reach her... and then later, minutes only, but felt like hours, crying out to God - loud, I might add - begging Him not to take her from me, and yelling at Him (really, shamed to admit) that He couldn't have another one of my children, He has Thomas, that should be enough... and when she came back to us, turning that beautiful pink, looking at us with big three day old eyes... it was so much a relief I cannot express.

It drew me closer to God today, thinking of how He loves each of us even more purely than I love this baby girl of mine... and how He was willing to sacrifice Himself on a cross so that not one of us should have to die. To give everything to keep us with Him forever... just as I would have given my life that morning, one year ago today, just to give her one more breath...

Our Heavenly Father loves us so much more than we can possibly imagine, even more purely and absolutely than we love our children (and I know how much we all love our kids...). What peace we can hold in that precious knowledge!!! THANK YOU LORD for first loving me!!!

Next year April 16th will not fall on Easter... which makes me wonder even more at the meaning of it all this year, it's as if the Lord planned it all to be so significant to me today, to reach me, and to bless me with this profound understanding of His love for me. I'm so blessed.

Chaeli's Story (taken from Email Updates)

April 16th - I am writing to inform everyone who is not already aware, that Chaeli had an ALTE (Apparent Live Threatening Event) as termed by the doctor in emergency.  Early Saturday morning we woke Chaeli up to feed (it had been 5 hours, which can be sometimes unusual at that age).  Shannon nursed her and changed her diaper when for no apparent reason Chaeli turned blue and Shannon realized she had stopped breathing.

 9-1-1 emergency was called and an ambulance was sent.  The event lasted from our best calculations 60-90 seconds before she began breathing again.  During this time Shannon was on the phone with the operator while I listened to her heart beating and tried to coax her to breath.  She finally began breathing again before the ambulance arrived, but it was decided that the bext thing would be to take her to the Children’s Hospital, where she has been ever since.

 We spent Saturday morning in Emergency having different tests done and she was hooked up to different monitors, IV and had numerous tests done including a spinal tap to rule out meningitis.  We then speny Saturday afternoon and evening up in a ward room where she had another ALTI event where she stopped breathing.  This event lasted from what I was told by a doctor, 2 minutes.

 Later that night she was moved to the NIC (Neonatal Intensive Care) unit for closer monitoring and as a precaution.  Shannon and I spent all of Saturday night with her. 

 After the event of Saturday night, Chaeli has been perfectly fine.  She has had no other signs of another incident about to happen.  However, she is being kept in for monitoring and further tests.

The doctors seem to have ruled out a lot of possibilities and it is being narrowed down to an immature system that is causing reflux (liquid going up into the trachea where the muscle contracts and cuts off oxygen.  Most babies produce this as spit up.  She is yet to spit up once.  We now are feeding her in smaller doses and are keeping her head slightly higher than her body to prevent this type of event.

April 18th - I spent the better part of the day at the hospital with Chaeli and Shannon.  I was told when I got there that the tests that were to be done have been changed to a different test.  These tests are scheduled for Thursday and Friday morning, and Chaeli will be there until at least these tests are completed.  The doctors are going to do everything possible to move the tests up if they can but as of right now there schedule is full.   I do not know the exact tests they are doing, but they are related to tests on her abdomen to see if there are any defects and to trace the flow of the fluid with a barium type swallow and another test called a milk scan which involves radioactive dye that will be traced as it goes through her digestive system..

 Chaeli did fine today.  She had one little blip where she set off an alarm.  She seemed to stop breathing again for a little longer than the machine liked, but she returned to normal quickly.

April 23rd - (written by Shannon) What Tony mentioned in a past email about the reflux, is in fact the cause of her ALTE incident.  She wasn’t released till this morning, well, actually afternoon by the time the paperwork was done… and we had a somewhat stressful and anxious drive home.   She’s on two medications, one for the acidity in her stomach so that the reflux doesn’t burn her oesophagus and another to improve the outflow to her intestines (which also was slower than it should be).  The hard part is that she has to take one of these meds 30 minutes before eating, which means she wakes up, we give her medication, and then have to convince her that she WANTS to wait half an hour before eating.  She’s not impressed.   The good news is that she’s probably going to outgrow this within a year… maybe even within 6 months.  I can’t wait! 

In the meantime, she’s beautiful… and sweet, and a great sleeper, and just my precious baby. 

April 30th - Just wanted to give you all an update on Miss Chaeli. 

Chaeli had an uneventful week, for which we are incredibly thankful!  She saw her new paediatrician (the other kids go to our family doctor, but we felt it would be best for her to have a “child specialist” all things considered) on Friday.  She’s past her birth weight and now weighs in at a nice chubby 8 lbs 1 oz!!  I’m so pleased as she really was having a hard time gaining while she was in the hospital.  The doctor says neurologically she seems perfect, good responses to all stimuli and has good muscle tone (still need to work on her neck stretching though).  Her meds were adjusted, one to a lower dose and one to a higher dose.  One of her meds is still being monitored as she seems quite sensitive to it.  Her resp monitor has yet to ring for a true apnea or heart rate issue… ringing only once this week because Mommy took her belt off without turning the machine off first… DOH!  Ah well, it was early and I’m sleep deprived *grin*.

The blessing of Chaeli is this… whenever I would feel inclined to complain about anything, I just hear in my head, “she’s alive” and that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?  Laundry, dishes, sleep even, all come a pale second in importance when considering the possibility that she might not have lived to see this messy house (big grin, we’re actually keeping pretty good semblance of order, for the circumstances!). 

June 6th - I just wanted to let everyone know how wonderfully Chaeli is doing.  The worst, I believe, is long past… Chaeli is becoming a “normal” baby.  She still has “rules” we need to follow (like the propping her up and feeding in smaller amounts and stuff) but she has been off her medication for 5 days now, with no ill effects, in fact we thing she’s doing BETTER without the meds than she was on them.  She’s weighing in at a whopping 10lbs6oz this morning!!  I don’t know how long she is, but she certainly is growing fast (she oughta, she’s nursing like crazy almost all day long! LOL!).  She’ll be 8 weeks tomorrow (Tuesday) and every day with her is a joy.  She has started to smile at people, and what a gorgeous smile she has, it lights up her whole face even to her little twinkly eyes!

June 16th - Well, 2 months has literally FLOWN by.  I can’t believe my baby girl can be this old already!  Where does the time go???

 Here she is, showin’ off her big gummy grins – she’s doing that a lot more lately, but it is hard to capture them with a camera because they are fleeting, but they are definitely genuine (not to mention gorgeous!).  She weighs 10lbs12.5oz and is now 22 and a quarter inches long!!!  Her eyes are still blue, we’re kinda hopin’ they’ll stay that way (but we’re not holding our breath on it, LOL!).  Everett, McKenzie and Greyson love her to bits and actually sometimes FIGHT over who gets to hold her!!!  Wow, to attract that much love, eh?

She’s been off her meds almost 2 weeks, with no ill effects that we can see.  She’s a great sleeper at night, often going about 6 hours straight (in mommy’s arms, elevated of course), which is so nice.  What would be nicer is if it weren’t so humid and we didn’t stick together by morning!  *grin*

 God is good.  We’re really experiencing her as a normal baby now, being exactly like any other baby (with only the exception of the elevating to sleep and after eating), she has her fussy moments, and her really happy ones (like in the picture)… but most of the time she’s just trying to get control of her hands (to suck them!!) and is busy examining everyone’s face (hope we meet with her approval!  *grin*)

July 7th - Hi Everyone!  I have a special PRAISE update about Chaeli!!!  I have to tell it the “long way” because otherwise it will not properly reflect the incredible attention our Lord pays to details, even the littlest ones!

 A couple of weeks ago I had to go to the mall to pick up my glasses… anyone who has every had a toddler knows that that the mall is the LAST place you want to go… but go I had to. So, since misery loves company, I decided to bring a transportationally-challenged friend of mine along with HER toddler.  She said she would love to, but that in the afternoon she wanted to go to a breastfeeding group at the local community center.  I don’t normally go to things like that but since she was willing to share my pain in the mall, I’d bear through a breastfeeding meeting for her sake. 

 Well, that meeting changed my life!!!  At the meeting there was an osteopath giving a little presentation about what her profession can do to help babies and why it would be beneficial for them to be assessed.  I was almost in tears, something inside me told me STRONGLY that THIS was for Chaeli!  So, I came home and told Tony that I wanted to take Chaeli to an osteopath.  He was surprised, “that’s the second time in two days I’ve heard that word!”  Apparently on Father’s day (he tried to cut his finger off to get out of BBQing supper on Father’s Day *wink* and we had to take him to emerg to get stitches – don’t worry, he’s fine now), there was another lady there with a cut hand, and the person who brought her in was a osteopath, and they were talking about it and he was listening in (how rude! LOL!).  So… I decided to ask for a third opinion and went online to a message board for parents with children with Chaeli’s condition (GERD & DGE) and ask if anyone there had ever been to one (I usually ask there since they are so much more experienced than I am on pretty much everything about her condition – what a strong bunch of women they are!!), anyhow, the THIRD thread down had the subject line “osteopath?” and the thead was all about how it had helped a few babies there … that was a clear sign to me that this was the path we were to take with Chaeli.  Three times in three days, and I’d never even heard of that type of practitioner before in my life!  Thank you Lord!  The next day I called to make an appointment.  So, a week and half later (on the Wednesday) Chaeli had an appointment with her occupational therapist (she ALSO had low muscle tone in her neck/back/hips for unknown reasons – according to the doctors) and when I shared that she was going to be going to an osteopath, the therapist didn’t put my weight into the treatments they could offer us.  I was a little discouraged, but still felt that the Lord wanted us to take her anyhow… so off we went. 

 On Canada Day (which will forever be a significant day in Chaeli’s life) we walked into the office of the osteopath.  One hour later, after the gentlest treatment imaginable, Chaeli came out a different baby!  Right from the moment she was finished her treatment my little girl was “fluid”… I can’t describe it any other way.  Only someone who had held her and tried to cuddle her would be able to tell the difference, it was remarkable.  She wasn’t able to hold her head up properly, all of a sudden she could.  She had a lump in her back, which we just thought was “how she was made” and now it’s gone, her back can stretch and move in every direction, with no crying from her.  She didn’t kick her feet very hard as her hips were weak, all fo a sudden she’s rocking her chair on her own with her powerful kicks.  She rarely smiled (would you if you were in constant pain?) and now she never stops!  Her bowels were giving her trouble and she would only fill her diaper but once every two days, and with a great deal of discomfort, and now she goes several times a day with no discomfort at all that is apparent!  I believe that the Delayed Gastric Emptying (DGE) has been significantly reduced if not cured!!! This  is so important for her, as the longer stuff stays in her tummy, the more she suffers from the reflux.  Thank you God!

 My baby is now a new child… where they said there was weakness, it is GONE.  Completely.  FINISHED!  Praise You Heavenly Father!!!!  Please, rejoice with us with laughter, tears, dancing and praises as we celebrate a new era in Chaeli’s life.  I wish each of you could hold her and revel in her newfound strength and happiness.  She is SO giggly, even chuckling now, which she never did before!!!

The Miracle of Chaeli

Hi there Baby Ratcliffe ~ 13 weeks on Oct 26!

   Chaeli is the result of a miracle healing by God.  After years of fertility treatments with some successful blessings (my wonderful children!), Tony and I had come to the realisation that we could no longer pursue these treatments, that they were too invasive on my body.  I felt honoured that the Lord chose to bless me with the three beautiful, healthy children that He has, and was content to have a family of five.  But He had other plans!

   At a healing service in June 2004, the Lord sent word that He was healing someone's ovaries.  My friend wondered if He could have meant me, but I dismissed it, I felt that surely someone more deserving would be the object of this healing... perhaps someone suffering from cancer or a similarly terrible disease, but not me!  After all, I've been so abundantly blessed already!

   About a month later (counting back, now that I know my due date from the ultrasound done in October) I conceived my fifth child!!!

To God be the Glory!!

To find out the latest news on Chaeli and the rest of our wonderful gang... check out our blog at ratcliffeblessings.blogspot.com!