Blogs I Love

Here is another blog I love to read. The blog is called "My Expected End". Marie is a teacher who has lost two babies due to Incompetent Cervix. She is trying to get the abdominal cerclage which should help her to carry closer to term. Not all doctors are willing to do this and she is facing difficulty. She tells her journey through infertility, grief, hope, and tears in a poignant way that hits very close to home for me. She through it all retains her faith and you can literally seem to feel her need for Jesus through her struggles. I hope you will all find it as dear as I do. I highly recommend it for those of you with IC. Here is the link.

http://myexpectedend.blogspot.com/

God's Blessings

Wow, there are a lot of potentially great things headed our way. First of all, I have a second interview with a local company on Wednesday. Several people have called the people interviewing me and put in a good word so I am praying it goes well. If it does it means more money than I made at my previous job, better benefits, and Jake could go back to school. He is wanting to pursue his nursing.

The other really exciting news is that it looks like we are moving. We have not signed the contract yet, but it looks like it will happen. It is a gorgeous house owned by a family friend that I have known and loved for years. It is a two-story, gray brick house with double entry doors. It has 4 giant bedrooms, three bathrooms, a 2.5 car garage, a living room, a family room, a dining room, a patio, an enormous backyard with privacy fence and pine trees lining the fence, a nice basement with a carpeted office and carpeted family/playroom downstairs, plenty of storage in the basement, a kitchen with a breakfast bar and two seperate ovens, beautiful shelf window sills in the bedrooms and one hallway, a gray brick fireplace, main level laundy cove, lots of storage closets, and lastly, a chandelier. It is a large, lovely home that if we get we will probably never move again. It is truly a home you dream about, but never imagine you will get to live in. God's hand is really in this as because it is a family friend, it will be affordable for us as she is willing to work with us. The house is sentimental to her and she is willing to help us get it so that she won't have strangers in it. She wants is to have a family in it again. She is truly a lovely person, with a lovely family. I swear she is Heaven sent. We are most excited about having a garage that we won't have to scrape windows, more than one bathroom, and having some room. We are so grateful for the opportunity and will take really good care of it.

Before we move in, it is being remodeled with new paint, new carpet, new cabinet fronts, and general renovation. It will be like having a brand new house. We are so excited we keep pinching ourselves to make sure we are not dreaming. I will keep you posted on the progress. It is not set in stone yet because we have not signed the contract, but this is a great family and we are just waiting on remodeling and appraisal to be done.

In other news, I only have two more weeks and then I will have my Master's degree in hand. It will be so nice to finally be done and feel accomplished. It will also be nce to not have homework looming over my head every weekend.

That means our house will be going up for sale. We look to make 20-30 thousand on the sale of ours which will go for a down-payment on the new house. Our current house is getting a new roof and gutters next week and we are not foreseeing any problems selling it. Homes in our neighborhood have been typically selling in under a week because they fit well into the first time home buyers market. Plus ours has been remodeled to have a fourth bedroom which is rare in this neighborhood.

Whew, I read all of this back and I am so humbled by the blessings we are recieving. It is so rare to find a family so loving that they are willing to reach out to others like they are reaching out to us. Several people have personally called the people I am interviewing with to put in a good word, and so many have helped out during my recovery. Our God truly is an awesome God through any situation is life. We have seen this through Mason and through now. Praise God!

Hyster-Sisters

I had my hysterectomy on Wednesday. The surgery went well, but I have had some major complications with my blood pressure afterwards. After my surgery, my blood pressure kept plummeting. At it's lowest it was 52/32 which is dangerously low. It still has not gotten completely up to normal, but it is doing better. I was slipping in and out of consciousness during the drops so it made for an interesting time. I am home now and being well taken care of.

I am going to answer a few questions that I hear a lot. Yes, they left my ovaries. Due to my clotting disorder, I cannot take estrogen so they had to leave them in. So far I am fine on help as Jake's cousins have been taking really good care of me and my family. Yes, it hurts. Not so much the incisions, but the inside of me aches. Yes, the made 5 one-inch incisions and then a big vaginal one to pull it out from which is closed with 9 stitches. Yes, they took my cervix as well. No, I am not having very much bleeding at all. No, St. Joe's did a lousy job and I would not recommend it to anyone. No, I am fine on meals, our wonderful church family is providing meals for awhile.

Thank you so much for all of the gifts, balloons, candy, flowers, food, e-mails, and phone calls. I really appreciate the outpouring of love and support. Jake's cousins Kimmmie and Becky have been wonderful. Kimmie stayed with the babies during my surgery, and Becky kept Jake company at the hospital during the 3 hours I was in surgery. Kimmie and Becky brought me a teddy bear and inducted me into the Hyster-Sisters club. They both have one and it is tradition. Jake was so sweet and bought them Roses as a thank you. Dianne sent me the cutest smiley face mug and flowers which just brightened my whole day. My friend Melissa sent a giant balloon that played "Don't Worry, Be Happy" every time it was bumped. Mina and Noah had a great time with it until it got into the ceiling fan and got popped. Jamie and Linda made me adorable pictures and have been so loving ever since I got home.

If you know Jake's cousins, you know they are very much involved with the tattoo world. When James and Linda were little and they would watch them, they would come home covered in tattoos. Well, they decided Noah and Mina were old enough and I now present you with Noah and Mina's first tattoo experience (Pics courtesy of Becky).

Totally Tubular!

Several months ago we were given a set of tents that connects together with tubes to crawl through. Jake decided to get it out and see if the babies would be interested in playing with it. It was a huge hit, although I think Jake had more fun than they did. It made for some really cute pictures though.

Daddy Chasing Noah




Daddy Showing Mina How to go Through





Where's Daddy?...There He Is!



Call the Plumber, Daddy is Stuck In My Tube!!




Tent City Under Construction





In and Out and In and Out and In....

Don't Send Your Kids To School Sick!

Oh, this irritates me! Parents that send their kids to school sick so that they infect other kids, who bring it home and infect their families. Come on! Four out of the six members of my family have Strep Throat now. Poor Jamie is the worst. He has barely eaten in four days and today wouldn't get out of bed until close to three. I hope he gets better soon. Jake wanted to take him to see Avatar this weekend. Jake has already seen it twice, but taking Jamie is an excuse to see it again for him. I liked the 3-D stuff, but I thought the movie was way too long. I was ready to go after like an hour and a half. But, Sci-fi is not my thing. Maybe Shrek in 3-D will be better.

Jamie missed the whole short week of school and both him and Linda missed their Valentine's Day parties on Wednesday. We had parent teacher conferences Tuesday night and Jamie's teacher said 8 kids were out with Strep. Jamie is doing very well in school. He is reading very, very well and his Math scores are good. His writing is really the only thing that needs improving, mostly because he rushes to get done and doesn't put enough detail. He is still in speech and his stutter has returned a little bit. His speech teacher said that is normal to have it come and go. It is still remarkably improved.

Linda is way behind on everything. She os about a year behind on reading level, her writing is several months behind, and most of her test scores show only a little progress. Her behaviors have improved dramatically as well as her social skills. We are going to be upping the amount of time she spends in Special Education and making a new plan for next year.

Noah weighed in at over 25 lbs. and Mina weighs 23 lbs! Noah is now heavier than his cousin Zack who is a few months older. However, Zach is taller and if you know their Daddies it makes sense. Jeremiah is taller and thinner than Jake. Jake is shorter, solid, and strong as an ox. Noah is VERY strong for his age, he is our little tank.

That's it for now, I have to go take care of sick kiddos. Wish me luck!

Stuff We Love

Products we love has been changed to stuff we love. Some of the stuff we love around here is not necessarily a product. Here Goes...


Sesame Street Pop Up Toy

Noah and Mina love this toy. I picked it up at a garage sale. It is an old toy from the 80's. It had nothing fancy, no batteries or lights or fancy sounds, but they love it. They will bring it up to us and make the noises they make when they want us to open things. I probably help them pop up the characters at least 20 times a day. They laugh as each character pops up out of the hole. They never get tired of seeing it. Not bad for a 50 cent toy.




Ipod Touch

This was Jake's Christmas present. I got a great deal on it from a friend who had upgraded to an Iphone. Jake is glued to it, sometimes it is a pain to get him off of it, but I am glad he likes it. There are so many cool apps on it. We have games, maps, calorie counters, e-mail, internet, music, movies, and more. It is his most used present ever.



Plug and Play Games

These are great for James and Linda. They are the whole system and controller all in one. All they have to do is plug it into their TV and go. It works out great because the can switch back and forth in their rooms without having to make a huge effort of moving game consoles.

It is sad when you are almost looking forward to surgery..

What a week. I am doing emotionally better with the idea of a hysterectomy. I am looking forward to the positives like more energy and just feeling better. I have had so many others tell me how much better they felt after theirs. I am worried about my clotting disorder though. I am only supposed to be in the hospital for one night, but after my c-section my clotting factors took a week to get controlled enough for me to get discharged. That worked out well because the babies took a week to stop losing weight so they could be discharged. However, this time it will be my first overnight away from the babies. I am really hoping only one night will work out. I have spent the last few days working out who is going to pick the kids up school, who is going to help me lift the babies, and so on and so on.

In other news, we had a couple of friends and family over for superbowl. I was just not feeling well enough to go out although I appreciate all of the invites to parties we recieved. The babies are getting so observant. After the first few touchdowns, they watched all of us hoop and hollar and throw our arms up in the air for touchdown symbols. They started throwing their arms up everytime one of us would yell. It was adorable. James got very into the game as well. He was the only one rooting for the Colts, but he held his own cheering for them. Linda could care less about the game, but loved the Puppy Chow. Today both kids stayed home from school with sore throats and now mine is starting to hurt so it has been a very tiring week. That's it for now, time for bed.

Time to break out the chocolate. Warning-Discussion of Reproductive Systems

Well today has definitely not been one of the best days. I am going to tell you upfront that I am in a funk as I write this blog. I am sad, a little scared, grumpy and generally mopey. I am also going to talk frank about "female issues" so if you are sensitive to that, stop right here and come back later.

I went to my OB/Gyn today. I have essentially been having bleeding since I delivered the twins about 14 months ago. We did a D&C and it only helped for a few weeks. It was not always heavy, but it was almost always there. Sometimes it would stop for a day or two, but it always came back. Sometimes very, very heavy. Any activity would bring it on, when it was heavy I would be so tired and low energy. It was just not a pleasant way to live.

The problem that we ran into was that I have a clotting disorder. Any hormones I could take would greatly raise the risk of blood clots for me with potentially deadly consequences. So that ruled out being able to treat the bleeding with something like birth control pills.

Today my OB made the call that a hysterectomy was my last option. 3 days after Valentines Day I will lose the ability to have more children forever. I know I already had my tubes tied because I was informed the chances of me carrying another baby to term were not good at all and I couldn't face another loss. Deep down I always held a little sliver of hope that one day maybe 5 or 10 years from now there would be a break through with Incompetent Cervix that would allow me to have another child.

I know what I sound like, I have four kids, why would I want another one? I am not sure I do, but I don't want to know that it could never happen. I have loved every moment of the babies lives so far. All four of my children are such blessings and I am just frustrated that the option has been snatched away from me. I thought I wouldn't care, I had known it was coming, but I do. I can't even explain why I am so sad about it. I probably would never had tried to have another child, but at least the option was there. Now I am going to be sterile, before I'm even thirty. I just found out today, so maybe I just need a little time to adjust to the idea... I don't know. I have talked to a couple of other women who said they felt the same way so I guess I am not alone in this.

The good news is that my OB is going to do the surgery robotically (see picture below). It will mean a shorter recovery and less pain. I will still be fairly out of commision for around two week. I will also have lifting restrictions and driving restrictions. In addition, it will be my first overnight away from the babies.

I know this has been kind of a pity party, but it feels good to get it out. I am sure I will do better once I have had some time to suck it up. In the meantime, time to break out some chocolate.

The DaVinci Hysterectomy

Blog of the Day

"But to do justly, and to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with our God." Micah 6:8


I am starting a new feature on my blog. I already do products I love, now I am going to share blogs that I love. I had a lot of time when I was on bedrest to do well, nothing. One of the things that I would do to keep my mind busy was read other blogs that were about what I was going through, had gone through, or could go through. There are many great blogs out there about adoption, IC, OB/GYN issues, general medical blogs, grief, infertility, preemies, and child loss. Since many women are reading my blog for the same purpose, I decided to share my favorite blogs. I like doing it this way because I can explain why I love them.

The first blog of the day is Road to Mercy. This blog is a little different because I am blessed to call the author of this blog my dear friend. Her name is Melissa and she is my pastor's wife. Over the past few years our church has been going to Uganda for Libraries of Love (an excellent mission). While there last summer, Melissa met an infant at an orphanage named Mercy. She fell in love. Without repeating too much of what you can read in her blog, her husband and her decided to adopt her and are going through the long, stressful process of an international adoption.

Melissa and Mercy



This blog is a sweet, poignant, thought-provoking journey through the process of adoption and the call to serve as Christians. It is also fascinating to find out more about the people of Uganda.

If you didn't know, international adoption is very expensive. Her family is raising money to help cover the costs. One of the things they are doing is selling t-shirts designed especially for Mercy and the process to her her. I am showing it below. Read her blog and you will find out exactly what is behind the design on the shirt and what it means. If you are interested in one, the information to order one is on her blog, or just let me know. Here is the link to the blog: http://roadtomercy.blogspot.com/ I hope you are as blessed by this blog as I am.

The t-shirt (Jake, his cousins, and I are all ordering one)