If any one of you have any stories that you can share with me about Tatum or how he has touched your lives or anything that has anything to do with anything that I might not have remembered to write down or that I don't know about. Really anything. I am putting together a keepsake journal/scrapbook of him his life and how he changed others, and I really want to have many peoples points of views. I received my midwifes version of the birth story and I had totally forgotten some of the things she wrote about and it was nice to have her side of the story as well. I liked her feelings and emotions that I couldn't have ever known about had she not written them down and given them to me. I don't care if you think it's small and insignificant, it doesn't even have to be about me and Tate, maybe just something that his life inspired you to do or change. It would really mean a lot to me. Just e-mail it to me at zeffie_13@hotmail.com. Thanks!

Funeral for Tate.

Tatum has left us here on earth and we will miss him dearly. He has done so much for us in such a small amount of time. Thank you all for your love and support. I pray he has touched your lives as much as he has ours. I am glad to have been able to share him and his story through this blog. It is a great reminder for me to be able to look back at all he has gone through and how blessed we have been. The funeral for Tatum will be on Wednesday may 12th at 11 am. The viewing is from 9:30-10:30 am at Spilsbury Mortuary. Thank all of you so much for the love and prayers you've given for us. We love you all.

We are so blessed to have so many friends and family supporting us through this hard time in our lives. We have been so blessed to have such an amazing spirit sent to us and know that his place in the kingdom of heaven is secure! He is such an amazing strong spirit and we will miss him dearly! It has been nice to have today and yesterday to say goodbye to him. He is on life support until tonight and when we feel comforted in letting him return to our loving Heavenly Father we will remove the ventilator and heart medication. Thank all of you for your continuous prayers on our behalf. We are so blessed because of him and all of you! We will hold a funeral for him and keep you posted on when it will be and where. Thank you all for your love and support! We hope to keep all of these memories with our precious angel close to our heart for all time!

Goodbye Tatum

The Angel of the book of life wrote down my baby's birth, and whispered as she closed the book, "Too beautiful for earth..."

Okay so today we realized that we haven't given an official list of everything that is wrong with our precious Tatum, so here goes; he has a cleft lip and pallet, abnormal outer ears, only one kidney, absent gall bladder, spinal deformation with a possibility of scoliosis, a heart condition called an unbalanced atrioventricular septal defect with decreased function of the right ventrical, a leaky av valve and aortic coarctation and aortic atresia (his heart is really sick). He also had a tracheoesophgeal fistula (tef) that was repaired when he was 3 days old. He now has developed chylothorax. He also has developed asides in his abdomen. Having mentioned all that we would be ungrateful if we failed to mention all that is right with him. He has the most beautiful eyes that we have ever seen. They look deep blue like the sea, but the depth is more than just the color. It's a depth of emotion and feeling and passion and desire and most of all love. He has ten fingers and ten toes and two feet that would intimidate Bigfoot. His skin on a good day is pink and beautiful and rosy, and the spirit that Tatum is, in that little body, defies description. When I think of it the words that come to mind are; powerful, peaceful, strong, calm, loving, pure, and compassionate. He has consumed our thoughts and our hearts as we fall more in love with him every day and he has turned our world upside down and we feel so blessed that he chose to come to us and let us be a part of this miracle that is Tatum. Despite all his physical disadvantages, to us, he is perfect.

Today has been the craziest day since we've been here. Every 30 minutes someone new is coming to talk to me. Cardiologists have been in twice to let me know where they are at and what they are waiting for from tests and just checking on Tate, which is weird. Cardiologists are like a mythical creature rare to be seen in this hospital I swear! He has had 2 different ultrasounds. One durring a procedure to put in a chest tube and tap some fluid out of his abdomen, and the other ultrasound was to check his liver again and look for his gall bladder. He doesn't have one of those, but it's nice to know that it's not causing any problems. He got 2 chest x-ray's and has had many blood tests. They are testing the fluid from his abdomen to see if it's the same thing as what is in the chest. If it is not the same thing then they will want to do a liver biopsy to see if his liver is failing. They said his liver tissue looked good still last week. I hope it's not failing as well. Cardiology doesn't think that the heart is causing all of these problems because in the last echo they did the function of the heart was still doing well with the medication he is on. Every one else is thinking that there is no other reason for this all to be happening except for the heart. We'll see. They continue to burn out his iv's on a continuous 12-24 hour basis. He is receiving calcium and it is really hard on their veins. They won't let the nurses poke him for an iv anymore. They have to call in the iv team that has a special light to help them find good veins. They are running out and would hope that they can get a central line put in during a surgery so he doesn't have to have all of these peripheral iv's. Earlier this afternoon the cardiologists and the surgeons and the neonatologist and nurse practitioner all met together to talk about Tatum and get on the same page with things. They all finally agreed to tap his abdomen and get a small sample of the liquid to test to see what it was. His bed side has been constantly surrounded by doctors and techs and many extra nurses. He had 2 full time nurses today all to himself, which was lucky because they have been running non stop since 8:00 this morning. I am glad they are finally doing something but I hate that it's taken so long and is all of the sudden so drastic!

Cardiology came by today to tell us that Tatum is no longer a surgical candidate. He has too many problems that they can't over look. They are going to talk to all of the other cardiologists and surgical staff in their conference on Wednesday morning to see what they think the best action will be to try and get him turned around. They know we are frustrated and upset that they didn't get him into surgery before all of this chylothorax (that's the right spelling) started showing up. I feel that as cardiologists they should have known that he was a priority and should have gotten him into surgery when he had a chance. They are still trying to be optimistic by telling us that there are some other options they can try but they want to get all the information presented at their conference and many different opinions before they give us all the options. I'm hoping that we still have a chance, but the way the nurses look at me and talk to me I feel as if there is a black cloud hanging over my head. I pray with all my heart that he will get to stay with me, and I am afraid to listen to what the spirit will say in fear that I won't like what it's telling me. I just want to hold onto him any way I can. I don't want him to go. Not like this. They let me hold him today which is totally against protocol since he's got his breathing tube and arterial line in. I'm glad to hold him, but I take that as another bad sign.

They did a tap on the fluid that's in his chest cavity by his lung today. I couldn't believe how much fluid came out! There was a ton and they said that there is probably a liter in his abdomen as well. They won't tap that unless they have to. They tested the fluid that they pulled out to see what it was and where it was coming from. He has what is called kylothorax. (don't quote me on the spelling) It isn't a good thing. It's usually requires long term treatment. They don't know if he has it from having the TEF surgery or if it's from so much pressure on the abdomen and the problems with the heart. We will find out tomorrow morning (Monday) if cardiology will clear him for surgery or not. If he's not cleared then chances are that he will never get the surgery. I still want him to have the surgery because I know it's the only chance he has, but this makes it so much harder. I just want to hold him and be close to him. I love him so much and I pray that he'll be allowed to stay with us longer. Please pray for us! Thank you all for your support and love!