Here comes baby Cale!!!

We went in for our appointment today, and the doctor thought he was head down, but we had an ultrasound to make sure, and sure enough, he was still breech! SO, we are going to go in on Tuesday the 14th and see if they can turn him around, (or maybe he will already be head down?) and then they will get me started with pitossin and break my water. If he stays breech however, they will just do a c-section while we are there. So, all things said, we should be having our baby on Tuesday! Yea!!! I have a lot of mixed emotions about it, but right now, I'm pretty excited to be able to meet him and hold him in my arms! Thanks for all of your prayers and support, we will need them especially soon, so keep it up! Love to everyone!

Difficult Post

I don't even know where to begin this post. I have been thinking that I need to, but I am struggling hard to find the right words. About a week ago, Carl and I started feeling separately that we were no longer sure if we wanted to do the surgeries for baby Cale. We were both feeling so discouraged, and had thoughts and feelings that we didn't think he was going to make it - even if we did the surgeries. Then last Sunday, we were able to discuss our thoughts and feelings with each other, and were surprised to know that we were both feeling the same way. I have been in contact with other families and moms that have children with HLHS, and I have looked at a ton of different blogs, so I feel like I kind of have a sense of different experiences we would have if we chose to do the surgeries. So, I decided to research our other option, and see what it was like for others who did not choose surgery. I still felt like I wasn't sure what we should do for Cale. We also knew that we were going to Primary's later that week, and we wanted to talk to the people there about our options as far as what would happen if we didn't choose surgery.


Needless to say, this week has been a heart-wrenching, faith-building week for me. I have been torn to pieces, I have felt so much love and sadness for my baby, but I have also felt peace and comfort in knowing what we should do, and what will be the best thing for our family.


At Primary's they told us everything looks about the same with Cale - so really nothing new to report there. We asked them, out of all the heart defects there are, where does HLHS rank in severity? They told us that it is about at the top - it's one of the worst ones, which is what we already kind of knew.


We asked them about our options, and what we would do if we chose not to do the surgeries, and they gave us a lot of information about that. They are so amazing there, so supportive of our decisions, and our feelings and thoughts, I really appreciate the people that we have met and been able to talk to there. As we learned about the option to do what they call "comfort care" to let the baby be born in Logan, possibly come home with us, and have him with us until he passes away, we both continued to feel good about not doing the surgeries. We feel like Cale only needs to come to this earth to get his body, and then he can go back home to watch over our family, and continue the work that Heavenly Father has for him.

Please continue to pray for our family, it has helped so much, and we have felt your love and support through this very hard time in our lives.

latest ultrasound pic

I haven't updated many pictures lately, since we still don't really have a camera, I haven't been taking any. So, here are the most recent pictures of the kids - they were taken at the family snowmobile trip in February. Thanks Micki for always taking a ton of pictures of my kids, and p.s. you could take a few less of me :) Here is a cute ultrasound picture - I can't believe that one exists! Baby Cale at 29 weeks. He already looks like a Mackley!

Second visit to Primary's

We had our second appointment at Primary's yesterday. It went well. There wasn't really any significantly new news about the baby and his condition, but we were able to ask all of our questions, and get some answers, and then go on a tour of the hospital, and see where we will be staying with our baby. There was even a little boy that we saw that had HLHS, he had been out of surgery for about a day, so he was hooked up to a lot of stuff. It was a little bit hard to see, but it actually helped a lot to see that there were other babies there, with other families that were going through the same thing. After we left, I turned to Carl, and said, "I think maybe I can do this." I think one of the hardest things, but also the most helpful, is having time to process everything, and prepare for whatever will come our way. It is hard to worry and wonder about every little thing, and possibility and outcome that may or may not happen. I am grateful though to know before hand, so that we can be a little bit more prepared for our special little Cale. It feels like at every appointment we have there, we're becoming a little bit more prepared, and we know that we'll just have to take it as it comes, and deal with the issues as they happen. It was so nice to have general conference last week, it felt like so many of the talks were meant for me and our situation. I feel a profound gratitude for temples, and for my temple marriage that seals my family together for eternity! This is such a HUGE blessing for our family especially right now, we know that whatever happens, we can have our baby forever! I also have been so grateful for the priesthood, and for the power that comes through priesthood blessings. Thank you for your continued prayers and thoughts on behalf of our family, we have felt such love and comfort, and we appreciate it SO much! We will go back to Primary's one more time the beginning of May, and then I will deliver the baby at the U of U around 38 weeks. I will keep everyone posted about any updates as they come.

It's potty time!

I am excited to say that Jovi is pretty much potty trained! This must be a tender mercy with everything else that is going on right now. Last week, Ainsley was having potty problems, I thought it was a bladder infection, the doctor said she had a yeast infection, and some bacteria in her urine that was making it hurt when she went potty, and go more frequently - if that is even possible for that girl! Needless to say, we have spent A LOT of time in the bathroom lately!!! Jovi has also had a new obsession to be naked all day long, and she wants to fight me on everything! Welcome to the terrible two's, huh? I'm going to focus on how great it is not to have to change dirty diapers for a little bit. Also, I just wanted to express my love and gratitude to everyone who has been thinking and praying about our family! We have felt strengthened and comforted by your prayers and concern. Thank you so much!!! I've been stressed a lot about our baby's name, since we found out about his heart and everything, I've wanted to find the perfect name, something that means a lot, and nothing has really hit me. Then, the other day I was searching for names that had the word "heart" in their meaning, and I found the name Caleb - which means (depending on the website) dog, heart, or whole-hearted. It also said that dog was meaning faithful or loyal. Anyways, enough about Caleb, because that's not the name we chose, but it is a name derived from Caleb, which is Cale. When I looked up Cale it said, uncertain - which is kind of how we feel about this baby, and on another website it said slender or thin - and most babies and kids with congenital heart defects are smaller. So, with all of that explanation, we are going to name our baby Cale Dean Mackley. I have to say, after I found the name, I was very nervous to tell Carl, I thought he would hate it, but I guess it must be meant to be, cause he likes it too. We chose Dean for his middle name because my grandpa's middle name is Dean, and Carl's grandpa's first name is Dean, and they have both passed away, I call them our angel grandpas. I hope that they are with Cale now, and watching over us as we go through this trial. Sorry, mom if you hate it, I think we are sold on it, unless something else changes. It's so funny how much better I feel now that we have a name picked out - I don't know why it stresses me out so much.

Not what we expected

In February we found out that we are having another boy! We are very excited to even up our numbers. At the ultrasound they thought something might be wrong with his heart, so they scheduled us to get a fetal echocardiogram at Primary Children's hospital, we had that visit the first week in March. We found out there, that our baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, which basically means that the left side of his heart is underdeveloped, so it's kind of like he has a half of a heart. They can do a series of 3 operations to make it so the right side of the heart takes care of the left side's duties. The first operation will be 3-5 days after he is born, and the second is at 4-6 months, and the third is around 3 years old. They told us that he has a 60% chance of survival to age 5.
Obviously this news came as a bit of a shock, we are feeling overwhelmed of course, but we are hopeful for the best possible outcome. We also have felt so much love and support from our families, that we know we won't have to go through this alone, which is a huge blessing. We are just planning on taking things one day at a time, and putting our faith in God that whatever happens will be the best for our family.
If you know of anyone that has had a baby with HLHS, please let me know, I would love to talk to some other people that have gone through this.
This blog will probably turn into more of an update on the baby's status, so that I won't have to tell a million people the same thing over and over. We appreciate everyone's concern and prayers for our family, I never thought that I would have a trial like this in my life. Feel free to check back, we have another appointment the 8th of April for another fetal echocardiogram at Primary Children's.

Dance recital and other news

Fisher and Ainsley had their dance/rhythm recital the other day. They both did such a good job, it was seriously so cute to watch them up there, I wasn't sure if they would perform, but they did amazing! Thanks to Grandmas and Grandpas and the Olsens for coming - it was so fun! Here's a little clip of each of the kids. I hope you enjoy them.

Also, some other exciting news, we are expecting our 4th child on June 28. The new baby and Jovi will be almost 26 months apart, Fisher will be going to Kindergarten, and Ainsley will go to preschool. I'm not sure if that will be a good break, or just more crazy!?! Here's a pic of the ultrasound.