Pictures link

Please notice the new link on the right to all the baby pictures you fanatical people can handle! Love you...mean it!

More pictures of Jenna....

for our demanding audience



Jody and Jenna with our friends Amy and Rosie.


The car seat ride home.


It's a rhetorical question on her shirt

interesting

I just got a Christmas present delivered from our friends Sam and Sara and then opened up espn.com (which I do often) and low and behold there is an article on the front page about Sam, who lost his leg in an avalanche 2 years ago. Check it out. All the guys involved are friends of mine and Blake the one who died became a believer because of his involvement in Campus Crusade at MSU while he was a student.

Sam is a stud

Yep we made it home

After enduring a miserable "rooming in" at the hospital last wednesday night they let us take Jenna on thursday. We stayed in Prineville for a couple of days getting to know our little child and then on Sunday we started out on the journey home. Amazingly Jenna did perfect. She slept the entire time the car was started. We did stop to feed her, but the trip went fairly quickly. We've even become fairly adept at changing her diaper in the car.

We came home to a new apartment where someone had snuck in to set up our bed, our bathroom and kitchen. We're still not sure who it was but I'll find out.

We are soooooooooo thankful to be home. Our soul's are filled with peace. Even though everything is not put away or organized yet, it brings smiles to our face to be home. The last month really has been the craziest of our lives (and we've had some crazy ones). We're not sure why things worked out like they did...we may never know why, but we do know that the Lord has blessed us with a beautiful (and healthy) little girl and our hearts rejoice and give thanks to the Lord daily! Thank you all for your prayers, cards, emails, and baby gifts. We couldn't have endured this last month without all of our friends and family.

...now for a some sleep.

Finally....

WE'RE HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

more details coming soon.

Doing well....

but Jenna's still in the hospital.




Please pray for her. She's turned the corner on eating. She's eating every meal now.

Tonight she gets a car seat study...meaning they put her in her car seat for about 3-4 hours and monitor her heart, breathing, etc. Pray that she passes with flying colors. If that goes well we get to move back into the hospital tomorrow night and if all goes well that night with us taking care of her then we get discharged! We are dieing to get home!

We got to give Jenna her first bath the other night.

Update

Hi everyone, sorry it's been a while since I've updated this...like a whole 2 days! Please notice all the pictures below for our demanding viewers!

Jenna is doing well. The only thing holding her back from being let go from the hospital is her eating. She holds everything down great but she won't nurse quite strong enough or consistent enough for the doctors to let her go. After losing about a pound she's starting to put weight back on. She's a great baby and we can't wait for you all to meet her. After we get out of the hospital we'll probably stay a day or two in Prineville to catch our breath before making the trip home. So as long as you're not sick give us a call when we get there and you can stop by if you'd like. We love you all.

Pictures

More pictures

She's got her eye on you

The new Mom speaks....

It's so fun to be a mom and so painful that we have to go visit our sweet girl instead of have her at home already. Tonight was so fun with Jenna. She was the most awake that she has been since she was born and stayed awake to eat. That was a major accomplishment as she likes to sleep like her dad and can sleep through anything. She may be fiesty, or spicy, as Matt called me, like myself but she sleeps like a champ like her dad. I love reading your comments and feel so covered by your prayers. I can't wait for her to meet all you incredible friends and family so she knows how loved she is. I'm going to print off a lot of the comments and put them in her baby book. I want her to look back and see God's hand and love in her life from the very begining. So thanks for being a part of our journey. We love you all. Time to go to the 9 pm feeding. Until next time....

Sweet little Jenna

Hi Everyone, thanks so much for all your notes of encouragement since Jenna was born. Our family and friends are amazing!

Jenna is still in the NICU learning how to nurse and just a little bit jaundiced. She's doing great though and we've fallen madly in love with her. We got to give her a little sponge bath last night (we forgot the camara...dang it) and I got to change a poopy diaper today. She's still pretty sleepy most of the time, but every now and then we get a glimpse of the McComas eating ability and the 'spicy' side that I'm sure she got from her Mother. Hopefully in the next day or two she'll start nursing more consistently.

Jody and I are doing well. We're still at the Ronald McDonald house and make the trip across the parking lot to go see Jenna every 3 hours. We can't wait till we get our girl without any gadgets attached to her and we're itching to get home to Bozeman.

If you haven't hear all our friends/co-staffers/students are moving us out of our condo this weekend. I feel so helpless in the process but so incredibly thankful that we're being taking care of. We close on our condo on tuesday and are moving into an apartment till our next place is done being built sometime in April. Please pray that this process goes well and I can help coordinate as much as possible over the phone.

Doing great!

Hi everyone! Jody and Jenna are doing really good. Jenna is still in the ICU, we're just waiting to see that she'll eat well and then I think we'll get to leave the hospital. She's breathing great and started to nurse tonight. We've already entered the sleep deprivation mode...it's great. Here's a couple more pictures. We love you all, thanks so much for all the words of encouragement and prayers.

the wedge pillow

Dedicated to the Mother-in-law trying to help her daughter get comfortable after giving birth.

Mother in Law:"Do you need me to get your wedgie?"

New Mom: "Mom, I don't think a wedgie would feel to good right now."

Laughs all around the room

New Mom: "...I think you mean my wedge pillow."

We've got a live one folks!

We've got a beautiful baby girl. I think her name will be Jennalynn Grace...although there's still a chance Jomas might accidentally get put on the birth certificate. We'll probably end up calling her Jenna. Jody's water broke at 12:30am last night and she gave birth at 2:41am. It was a good thing we were so close to hospital cause it went pretty quick. Jenna weighted 6 lbs. 6 oz's! She's in the NICU right now as they're monitering her breathing, but she looks like she's doing well. Pray that her lungs would clear up a bit. She's make a litte weazing noise as she breathes.

Still no baby...

I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again....still no baby! It could be anytime however since Jody is done with her medicine.

We had great visitors today. Our friends Justin and Jessie from Missoula stopped by this afternoon. Marlene, a friend from Prineville, came by while we were out for breakfast and she cleaned our room! Mike and Julie Kelly from Bozeman, who are in town for a wedding, stopped by and had dinner with us and Jody's parents and Grandma. Last night Jessica and Laura, who are also in town for the wedding, ate dinner with us. We have amazing friends and family.

Pray that our baby would come soon so Jody and I won't go crazy. We are at 35 weeks and 3 days tomorrow, so our baby girl should be in great shape. The anticipation is killing us. Thanks for the prayers and gifts. You all are amazing.

Wreck

Please pray for 5 of our students who were in a car wreck on the way home from our winter conference in Portland. 4 of them are all right physically but I'm sure shaken up. 1 was airlifted to Seattle to have multiple surgeries...apparently his arm is messed up along with some internal bleeding. This was an incredible downer for our staff team and students after an amazing winter conference. Here's a picture of the car.

Going crazy!

No baby yet....I think Jody's going crazy.

We went to the doctor yesterday and everything was about the same as it's been. The doctor told Jody not to take the strong medicine she had been taking when she would have 6 or more contractions in an hour any more. She also said if we haven't had the baby by next week she'll take us off the other medication too. Jody celebrated by making me take her to Target to get some baby stuff! She got to ride around in an electric cart. I wish I had a picture.

Today is 35 weeks! Jody's belly has gotten a lot bigger since we've been here. Please pray for her. She's not sleeping well because of the continual contractions. She's tired. Pray that our baby would come in the Lord's perfect timing and that she wouldn't have to be in the ICU at all.

2007

Happy New Year! We’re looking forward to starting a new year, although it’s starting in a way I wouldn’t have expected. I never thought on January 1st, I’d be in the Ronald McDonald house in Bend, OR.

We had a great weekend with friends and family. They brought us tons of food, played games with us and had fun. I dominated in dominoes. Now it’s time for about 12 hours straight of college football bowl games.

Jody was so tired at breakfast this morning she almost fell asleep in her cereal…so I made her turn off her cell phone and made the front desk hold all our calls for a couple of hours. I apologize if you couldn’t get a hold, but she got a nice nap in.

We have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. We have no idea what to expect. We could be here another couple of weeks waiting for our baby to come or we could have her tomorrow. It’s all uncertain. Please pray for us and our little girl. Pray for perfect health and for Jody and the baby. Pray for patience and perseverance for us.