Gorash Family

It has been a week since Jane had her hip surgery. The day of the surgery, things didn't start out like we planned. As we sat in the pre op room, we met with the doctor and anesthesia team to go over the plan one last time. Jane was supposed to get an epidural in her spine for the surgery. Due to the tumor removal surgery that Jane had when she was a baby, caused complications to the plan. Jane was now possibly; in a high risk of having spinal nerve damage. But they weren't exactly sure. Her tumor surgery was in her lower spine so technically, she should have been fine for the epidural. However she already has some nerve damage to her legs and we just don't know the extend of the damage in those nerves. So we didn't want to take that risk. But we also didn't want Jane to wake up and be in extreme pain. The surgeon really wanted to do the epidural because he was worried how Jane would handle the pain when she'd wake up from the surgery. He has never done this kin...

 This past summer, Jane went in to see her clubfoot doctor just for a follow up. It has been about a year since she last saw them. Since then Jane stopped wearing AFO's (her shoes with braces) She's been walking well on her own and jumping. So we had no concerns. Her doctor said her feet looked great. Then he looked at her hips. He didn't like what he saw. We got back in touch with our Hip doctor; did x-ray and MRI and both confirmed that Jane has double Hip Dysplasia. Her hip is in the socket, but the top bone of the socket isn't growing and curving down like they hoped. We've known she's had this, but we've  praying and hoping the curve would improve over the years, but it hasn't.  We've been praying that no matter what the results would be; that God would help us accept it. To accept the news as from God Himself. I've learned over these years that God is working on my behalf when life feels unpredictable. He's building a relationship of tr...

Its been a while since I've updated on Janes health. Honestly, things have been going pretty well. I felt like we finally "got a break" from all the doctors and tests. Of course we still had our followups every few months, but for the most part things slowed down and we got to feel "normal" We were enjoying having Jane home with us and doing things with her.  One of the new specialist we started seeing was a urologist.  When I was still pregnant with Jane and I met up with the team of surgeons. They told me of a possible complication; that when Jane gets older, she'd have a hard time controlling her bladder. So of course we knew their was a  possibility, but I never expected it to be like this.  We met up with the best urologist in Tacoma, Washington. He recommended we ran some test to check how her bladder was working. The first test was the Urodynamic Test. It was one of my worst experiences ever. I won't go into all the details but Jane was so tra...

Jane is now a Big Sister.  It has been interesting seeing Jane grow up. She can't depend on me as much anymore. Im recovering and can't attend to her as often.  She's kindof been forced to kind grow up. But she adjusted so well. Jane gets herself fully dressed. She can now walk to the car and get in the carseat herself. She can get herself a snack in the fridge. Jane is such a sweet big sister. She loves Gracie so much. She loves to give her kisses and wants to hold her. Janes Favorite Shirt. She loves showing it to everyone My pregnancy with Gracie was tough. I was nausea all the time. Car rides were the worst for me. I survived on mineral water and crackers the first trimester. My 3rd trimester I suffered with sciatica pain. It was my hardest pregnancy physically. All my other pregnancies, I hardly ever got nausea or any symptoms but tiredness. I know; its a blessing. My pregnancy with Gracie was normal. Gracie was healthy and growing well. No complications with ...

Have you ever heard the song, "We all bleed the same" by Mandisa? The lyrics go like this, "we all bleed the same, we're more beautiful when we come together, we all bleed the same, so tell me why, tell me why, we're divided." The song goes about how we need to come together. We may look different on the outside, but we all bleed the same on the inside. We need to love and support each other more. Jesus loved people. He loved thieves, tax collectors, diseased people, poor people, children and His followers. He loved people who were devoted to Him and those who were different from Him. His love is the same today. Because we are loved by Him, we are called to love like Him. We need to stop criticizing and judging each other. We should be compassionate and supportive towards one another. God commanded that his people encourage one another because he knows we need it. In John 16:33, Jesus warned that "in this world you will have trouble," Which he then...

When I found out about Janes condition, I didn't know how to process all the feelings. All I could do was cry. My kids stood there watching me, not understanding what was going on. I sat there in the ultrasound room and started to pray. I knew only God could truly understand what I was feeling and he'd be able to comfort me. I started going to a prayer group in my church once I was pregnant with Jane. God put me in that group at the perfect timing. I was able to build that friendship and trust with the girls. Then when I found out Jane had the tumor, I was able to confide in them and they became my support group. It's been a blessing in my life; being able to share and bear one another's burdens. If you don't have a prayer group. I'd strongly recommend it. The prayer group wasn't the only ones praying for Jane. We had people pray from all over the world, praying for Jane and I. Some of them I knew, others I didn't. People would write, call or tell me i...

I still remember the day I was in the doctors office for a follow up appointment with Jane. Jane was 5 months at that time. I was trying to decide which path to take towards correcting her clubfeet.  At this point, I've tired all other options, and nothing was helping her feet stay straight. So I came to her clubfoot doctor to discuss the clubfoot process. As we were discussing Janes feet, the doctor told me "She will never walk"  but we should still go through the process so "her feet would be straight and look pleasing to the eye." His words exactly. It's was so tough to hear. Jane had a few different doctors examine her feet. She had a nerve conduction test performed on her legs. We've seen different massage therapist, chiropractors, did laser therapy, seen a neurologist. We've tired everything we could think of. The nerve conduction test results showed that Jane had nerve damage in both her legs. There was also muscle imbalance on both of her leg...

We found out Jane had hip dysplasia when she was about 3-4 months. We had suspicion earlier on because her right foot would always be up next to her right ear. If she wasn't swaddled, thats where her foot automatically would go. So she had an x ray done around 3-4 months and the doctors confirmed she had hip dysplasia but in her LEFT foot, her right foot was totally fine just flexible. Hip Dysplasia means, the foot isn't in the hip socket. It doesn't cause pain in children but it can cause a lot of pain later on in life if not fixed. We decided we wanted it fixed. Jane was still not walking at this point and because her leg wasn't in the socket, it caused a leg length difference. We knew that if we wanted her to walk, this was something we needed to do. It took us 3 months to see the hip specialist and talk about the procedure. By that time, Jane just got done with her clubfoot surgery, so the doctor wanted to put this surgery off until Jane was wearing the shoes and ba...

I'm a planner. I like knowing things ahead of time and I like to be prepared for everything. So when the doctors told me Jane had clubfeet, I was in a little denial.  I thought, maybe her muscles are just tight after surgery. Usually clubfeet is diagnosed during pregnancy via ultrasound. I've had many ultrasounds with Jane; no one ever mentioned the possibility. I've never even heard that clubfeet is a thing. When I found out Jane had clubfeet, I didn't know much about it. My doctor told me she'd need casting for about 4 weeks, but didn't explain the full process. I didn't know she'd need surgery afterwards. So we did 4 weeks of casting. Thinking after those 4 weeks, her feet would be corrected and we'd be done with clubfeet. After the 4 weeks, they wanted to schedule surgery (cut the achilles tendon.)  It wasn't a complicated surgery, but it was still surgery and I couldn't just agree with it  right away. Remember I'm a planner, I need t...

Jane spent the next few days laying on her stomach as her incisions were healing. She had a lot of swelling from the surgery. I had to wait 6 days to hold her. Even then it was with a pillow in between us. She was in so much pain, I had to be careful not to move her too much. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay with Jane the whole time. I couldn't sleep in the NICU, but they allowed me to visit as often as I wanted. Every morning the doctors had a meeting and talked about Jane case. How she was doing, if there was any changes needed to be made to her pain medication, nutrition, etc. Originally the doctors told me that 6 days after surgery she'd be able to come home. However that was not the case. We spent two weeks in the NICU. Jane was in respiratory failure and was on a ventilator.  Her heart had a few holes. She had hypoglycemia, hydronephrosis, leukopenia, hypernatremia. Jane was getting my milk through a feeding tube. She wasn't able to nurse. She then got jaundi...

I spent two weeks on bed rest at UW Medical center. Let me tell you, it was hard. The first two days were kind of nice to relax and not have to worry about cooking, cleaning, etc. I had room service, I was able to catch up on some reading and journaling. However after those two days, I COULDN'T wait to get out. I missed my family, I missed going to church. I missed one of my best friends baby shower, one that I was excited to attend to. I even missed cleaning. I had friends and family visit me. They brought me food, books, drawing pads, flowers, etc.  It did help at times, but I was still torn. I missed my kids at home; my husband. I knew that for my Babys health, I had to stay in bed, but I felt so bad for not being there for my other kids. My husband was at work all day, so the kids were staying with grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It was hard on them. It happened so sudden. I wasn't able to prepare them for it. I never leave my kids anywhere for more then one night. I knew...

In order for me to paint a clear picture of the goodness that God is doing in my life, Im going to try to be as open and honest, as I can be. I found out I was pregnant on October 15, 2014. Both my husband and I were ecstatic. We've been planning and praying to expand our family. We already had 3 children (two girls and one boy) but we knew we wanted more kids. We've been praying for over a year to have another baby. So of course, once we got pregnant we were trilled. We waited a while before telling our family and friends. With our previous pregnancies we told people almost right away. But since I had a miss carriage that summer, I wanted to wait until I was further into my pregnancy. In February 2015, I went in for my ultrasound to find out the gender of our baby. I was so excited to find out who we were expecting. We planned to have a gender reveal party that evening with our close friends. I took all my 3 kids with me to the appointment, while my husband had to work. The ...