Update! :)

Hello.
I have new pictures! She is really putting on weight! Next Monday we have her first physical therapy evaluation and she will start therapy after that. We also go back to the Opthamologist and we go to court on the 8th. Please pray for that day, for peace and for composure. Things said by the other side could be very harsh and accusatory and I know that we will need all of your prayers to make it through that day.
Two days ago Phoenix followed my phone with her eyes in the light! She has been following bright lights in the dark, but this was the first thing she has followed in day light. Super awesome!

Here are the new pictures!

Supper fat!

Daddy loves me!!

I love sleeping! Woohoo!!

Bring it!! AAA!!

I bite my hand because I want TEETH!!

I guess I have a new friend...

We love you all and thank you for your continuing prayers and support!

Love

 Shell, Allen and Phoenix

update march 22

Hello everyone. I am updating this from my phone so it is a little tricky...

We went to the opthemologist today. He started out very helpful until he found out she had a stroke & then just pretty much said "This is SBS, can't help you." and that was that.
Very frustrating. He did say the blood is directly blocking her vision which is why she is not focusing or tracking anything except bright lights. It may go away with time.

We find out what kind of therapy she will need tomorrow. Pray that we can find a child therapist because at this point all therapy centers for children here are not accepting patients & have a long wait list.

Just keep praying for all three of us & Sonja.
We love you
-Shell Allen & Phoenix

March 16th (Six month birthday!!)

Hey everyone

Phoenix is doing well : ) She started to lift up her head off the floor yesterday during her very limited tummy time! She is starting to try to grasp things with her right hand, but her left hand is still very confused. She has a fair amount of movement in her left side but nothing that seems to be intentional. She seemed to realize yesterday that there are things she used to be able to do that she can't do now and it was upsetting her. She does not support herself on her legs AT ALL, which is hard for us to see because she has been putting weight on her legs and holding her head up since she was born. She is gaining weight and that is a blessing - that child has weighed the same since December and had not gained an ounce while on tegretol.
Continue to pray for Sonja, she has no idea about babies and this is still a crazy experience.
Pray for peace and patience for us. Mostly peace. It is very hard to not go Mother Bear on the entire world. Who knew that something that tiny that you have only known for 6 months could envoke the kind of passion and emotion that we have felt these past few weeks?
Your prayers and support thus far have been amazing and I cannot thank you enough. Phoenix is improving every day and I have no doubt in my mind that it is due to the constant blanket of prayer surrounding her.

Love
Shell Allen and Phoenix

thursday morning

pray for phoenix continually, and pray for sonja, her possible foster mother for the time being. we would love phoenix to go to sonja & are earnestly pleading with the lord about this.
also, phoenix's website is up.
www.thephoenixnicoleproject.org
love you all
shell allen & phoenix

Tuesday Evening

Today went about the same as Saturday. Same decisions and the Arraignment date is set for April 8th. This is very frustrating so prayer for patience and peace and wisdom for our lawyers.
Phoenix is starting to eat on her own today and has been doing fantastic! Your prayers are seriously working!! The doctors have been amazed at her progress - they said it should have taken her an hour to eat 3/4 an ounce and it took 5 minutes. Amazing :)
Love you
Shell Allen and Phoenix

Tuesday Morning

Phoenix is no longer in ICU. She is off all medications except one seizure medications twice per day and sometimes some digestive "assistants"". She is doing really well. She still has a long ways to go though. Her left side does not seem to move. Some times if you tickle her right hand her left hand twiches and tries to get away, which is funny but not a good thing. Her head is very very tender and her neck is as well. A lot of thing still hurt her a lot due to the swelling of the brain. Her eyes do not track and sometimes they just get stuck looking in one direction.
But your prayers are working!! She is at a point that the doctors thought would take a month to get to and its only been a week.
Thank you thank you thank you!
Please continue to pray about the other issues we are dealing with. That stress has been very hard.
Love
Shell Allen and Phoenix

p.s. Last night we were not able to stay with her in her room due to the other complications we are dealing with and the nurses said everytime she spit out her bink she would kick her leg really hard and set off the oxygen alarm around her foot. They would come in and put the binky back in and she would stop kicking. They said this happened all night long so it seems she recognizes action and consiquence :)

March 6, morning

Note: I skip spell check these days to save on time.
Hello.
Phoenix began experiencing seizure activity again last night. It did not show up in vitals signs much only in her movement and face. This is very scary because it was only caught because we recognised it while we were allowed in the room. The doctor called the neurologist to obtain permission to do a 24 hr EEG.
The neuro declined doing a 24 hours EEG and just advised giving her Adivant.
I thought this was a passive approach and not in our baby's best interest, but I'm not a doctor and all I can do is tell them I want the test done, it is (right now) up to the nuerologist to do it or not.

Please continue praying. Please. It has been overwhelming to know how many people are praying and researching and supporting us. I told my boss yesterday that I honestly never knew so many people really and truly cared about Allen and I - people have come out of the woodworks that I haven't heard from in years to support us. It is one of the most amazing things I have seen in my entire life. I didn't even realize we knew so many people...
Love
Shell Allen and Phoenix

Pray harder

The state has decided to take our baby into custody. There will be a court hearing tomorrow morning at 7:00 am

Love
Shell Allen Phoenix

Friday

Today they hope to take out the breathing tubes and let her breath on her own. They have no idea how this will go. Pray it goes well. Pray that they find the answers. Continue to pray for wisdom for the doctors and Allen and I. Stress is hard. I hope you will understand that these post are short and to the immidate point covering her health issues only. We love you all and cannot express how much your constant prayers mean to us.
Love
Shell Allen and Phoenix

MARCH 4TH EVENING

Alright.
This morning Phoenix experienced two more seizures and recieved a blood transfusion. Her medications have been upped and she has been completely out of it all day.
The case worker began investigating with us today. She came to inspect the house and wanted to interview. We are beyond exhausted since we had been called into the hospital in the middle of the night. We asked her to please give us a nights sleep and let us get food and hydration since this has been a horrible day.
She agreed to postpone until tomorrow morning.
Pray for a spirit of decernment in the case worker and for the doctors to continue looking at the other possibilities.
We are going back in there right now and the doctors have said Phoenix seems to be doing well this afternoon.
Thank you so much for your prayers thus far. CONTINUE THEM.

UPDATE

Dear family

We ask for prayer. We come humbly begging you to storm the gates of heaven. The devil is at work and I have never in my life felt so attacked as I have this evening. It is a heaviness that is psychical - neither of us can hardly walk upright, hearts feel heavy in our chest and heads are pounding. So much has been thrown at us these couple of days and this evening was yet another crushing blow but from a direction we would never have in our wildest dreams expected.
(sorry for the abnormal writing, but composition calms my mind)
There was a retinal test done on her eyes and we were present for the testing. The eye doctor left and would not tell us what he found. We waited hours for the ICU doctor on staff to inform us and when he arrived his tone was much different than earlier that day.
There is hemorrhaging behind the eyes which they believe to be caused by an injury. They claim that the only time they ever see that kind of damage is from a car accident, a falling accident from more than 5 feet, or abuse.
They have picked number three.
They claim this brings all the dots together - the bleeding on the brain, the strokes, the seizures, the hemorrhaging.
And the CPS was immediately called.
I know I have not seen some of you in years but, you know my parents. You know how I was raised. My husband was raised in a nearly identical environment (minus a few kids) with the same beliefs, down to homeschooling and church a million times a week.
This is not something that could ever, would ever or will ever happen in our home.

Think of your first child. Think of how you felt watching it sleep in your arms, watching that first smile, when they learned to sit on their own, when you realized they smiled because they saw YOU. We are no different. This child is our life.

To be accused of hurting our child intentionally (and trying to hide it) is the most sickening thing we have ever heard.

They are insistent that this is the cause of everything. Since its the only thing that "connects the dots" (because apparently these different symptoms MUST be related) it is what they have decided. Allen's grandparents attempted to reason with the physician and he was insistent that they must not know their grandchildren like they thought they did.

We called people immediately and friends and family have been hard at work all evening trying to find different reasons for hemorrhaging behind the eyes (which they insist is connected) and they have come up with multiple reasons ranging from simply having an intensive vaginal birth to an allergic reaction to one of the medications they have been giving her. There have been at least 10 different explanations given to us in the past few hours obtained by simple research but they will hear none of it.

I ask for four things;
1. Prayer for the doctors to continue looking as to why her health is so deteriorated and FIX IT.
2. Prayer for Phoenix to heal quickly. Miraculously. In such a manner that has never been seen at Sacred Heart Pensacola before.
3. Prayer for wisdom. We are 21 years old. We have nothing but our God. He is all-powerful but we are not always all-listening.
4. Prayer for peace. The overwhelming wave of accusation has been the most humiliating and offending thing I have ever experienced in my entire life.

Again, I beg you to beseach our father in heaven. Ask everyone you know to call on Gods wisdom, healing and mercy. He controls everything in this world, but the devil fights Him every step of the way.

We love you and we hope to send you good news soon.

-Shell, Allen, & Baby Phoenix

phoenixnicole.blogspot.com

11:00 AM MARCH 2 UPDATE

My mom suggested I update the blog throughout the day to cut down on calls and texts and to help our sanity as far as explaining things over and over.


I will update you with latest first and move backward so you can get the latest first and don't have to skim through if you already know the rest of it.

8:15 AM MARCH 3
She was taken to a STAT CT scan to check if the swelling of the brain had increased. Her movement and response had significantly decreased over the morning.
A central line will be placed in the main blood vessel in her leg and she will possibly need a blood transfusion because her red blood cells are slowing reproduction. This could be from the medications, the multiple blood draws, lack of food until yesterday evening, exhaustion or from a blood disorder which they will begin looking into today.
They will be looking at her heart today and have taken a full body x-ray.
They have run out of normal problems that occur and are beginning to look into rare diseases or disorders.

9:15 PM MARCH 2
A new feeding tube was put in place and they began to give one teaspoon of food per hour. Her system has accepted it so far.
She is begin given Phenobarbital and Cerebyx periodically, and she is on a continuous drip of Versed and Fentanyl. Each medication serves for either seizures, sedation or pain control. She was also given Lasic (sp?) to help with digestion.

7:00 PM March 2
The chief neurosurgeon called us and asked for immediate authorization to go into her brain through the soft spot and try to get some of the blood off the brain to test it for infection. It was tricky and they were not able to obtain much. The neurosurgeon has an extremely impressive resume (thanks Jenny) and even though she was a little quirky (like talking to the elevator...) her track record is excellent.

I do not remember all the times of everything else so here's the story;

March 1st Phoenix had a seizure and was taken to the hospital where we were discharged with no instruction and no test done, just a horrible experience attempting to get an IV and service from a very rude nurse who would not give a new nurse when requested.

A few hours later she had another seizure and stopped breathing so Allen gave her CPR for 15 minutes until the ambulance arrived. We were admitted, they began an EEG and she began to seize uncontrollably while the EGG was going on. She was then heavily sedated and put on a ventilator which she has been on ever since.

They scheduled an MRI for the next morning, which showed them stroke activity and blood on the brain.
I don't really remember what else I'm sure I'll think of some more things but not right now.
Just keep her in prayer. I was just in to see her and she was yawning and opening her eyes a little bit. I was there for the heart ultrasound and she was upset that the gel was cold so it was good to see a response.

Love
Shell