The stork delivered!

We got our tiny Baby T!!!! He is so precious! I'll give more of an update later. Right now I'm going to enjoy holding him but wanted to give you a quick update.

We are adding another car seat!

Last weekend we bought a minivan. There is something wonderfully ironic about this picture. I'm 25, infertile, and yet I can't fit all our car seats in our semi-luxury sedan. So we lowered our debt, and got an amazing deal on a used Honda Odyssey.

I'm sure glad we decided to get it! This Friday we are getting an baby boy! Now I can't tell you how old he is or his name but let's just say he is really really really young and we'll call him Baby T for this blogs sake.

We've been almost this close to getting an infant before an then it fell through at the last minute. So while I am very confident we will get him on Friday, nothing is certain until we have him in our spiffy van. I'll let you know if it all works out Friday night.

We'll have gone from 0 kids to 3 in exactly 3 months if this works out. Crazy to say the least. We will love on these kids for as long as the Lord will allow us to. Miss Z and Miss M are still a temporary placement and we have no idea how long we'll have them. The verdict is still out on this baby's future but it looks like we'll have him for quite a while at the minimum.

Oh, quick update on Chase. He is doing MUCH better! We avoided surgery thanks to a speedy ENT doctor at the ER.

Strep can turn into what???

We've had quite an eventful few days. Thursday night Chase was not feeling well at all and called into work sick. By the next day he looked at me and said he was going to go to an urgent care doctor to get his throat looked at. Side Note: My husband doesn't go to doctors! Seriously, he has only been to a doc 1 other time in our 3 1/2 years of marriage...and that was a couple months ago with his staph infection. So when he told me he needed to see a doctor I knew he really wasn't feeling well.

They put him on an antibiotic and said it was strep. Great. Strep goes away pretty quickly with an antibiotic...or so we thought. Saturday morning, well really the middle of the night, he woke up in horrible pain. I look a look at his throat and said he should probably go to the ER. It was bad! I had never seen anything like it before! This was no longer Strep.

He went to a local ER who tested him for Strep and Mono, both came back negative. They didn't let him see the ER doctor and gave him another antibiotic and sent him home. Ugh! No answers.

So let's fast forward to this morning. He had been running a high fever for 4 days straight now. He woke up and said it was now effecting his breathing. I take a look at it and what do I see? I giant white puss pocket that is taking over half of his throat!!! I wish I was exaggerating. This time I take him to a different ER which was a good move. After the ER doc looked at it, he immediately called an ENT doc. Dr. S, the ENT doc, said it was on the verge of becoming an abscess. The only way to get rid of an abscess is surgery. He immediately placed hubby on a really strong antibiotic through the IV. He said if it doesn't get better or gets worse by tomorrow morning, he'll have to come in and do surgery.

His fever has broke, praise the Lord!, and he is feeling a lot better. The bulging puss pocket seems to be getting small, but definitely still there. We are praying we can avoid surgery! On our way out of the hospital this morning, they said this is really serious. If it gets to the point that it did this morning, don't bother driving him to the ER, just call an ambulance. This makes me even more frustrated with the first ER he went to as they would not let him see the ER doctor. If only we were into sewing....but we aren't. I'm just glad we went back in for a second opinion.

The moral of the story is: if you have a sore throat and think it may be strep, seek medical attention immediatly. If it goes untreated too long, it can develope into a deep infection that is called a really long word that I can't pronouce...this can then turn into an abscess which is really painful (so I hear) and will result in immidiate surgery. Oh, did I mention that you can also have perminent kidney damage? Minor side effect.

The Coaster Continues

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail here but I wanted to briefly catch you up on our week last week. We were offered an infant, accepted, but at the last minute we weren't able to take the baby. We continue to wait for the baby the Lord has for us. For one reason or another, most of our plans last week did not go as planned so we had to be majorly flexible.

We celebrated my youngest sisters birthday on Friday night. It's hard to believe my baby sister is already 21! I made homemade lasagna and ravioli in a cream sauce for our family get together. I have a pasta attachment to my Kitchen Aid and the past turned out great! That was the first 'high maintenance' meal I've made since we've had the girls.

Mom and sister and I saw Julie & Julia yesterday. I highly recommend it! It was hilarious and had a great story line. The only thing I would not recommend were the previews before the movie! Seriously! 4 out of 6 of them were trailers for horror films coming out soon. Really? Do you know what audience is attending Julie & Julia? Not people who will see horror films anytime soon. It was really strange.

My Bad

Tonight at dinner I totally forgot to pray. In the middle of dinner, Miss M said, "We forgot to pray! Jesus, Thank you for this food. I love you Jesus. Amen!" Thank you Miss M for remembering to pray!

Lord, thank you for allowing me to see how much Miss M is learning about You. Continue to teach her about how much You love her and desire an intimate relationship with her.

THIS makes the ENTIRE journey worth it!

Visiting the PoPo

For those of you who don't know, 'PoPo' refers to police officers or cops. My youngest sister affectionately refers to them by this name.

When we first got Miss M, every time we saw a Cop or police car, she would FREAK out. She frequently said, "Cops are bad. They will hurt me." We've been working with her quite a bit on this. We tell her that cops are nice and they are here to help us when we need them. Now when we see one she will look at us and ask, "Are cops bad? They won't hurt me?"

This morning on our walk I decided to give the local police dept a call. The Lt. on duty said we could come down and they would show us around. He was so sweet. He wasn't in his uniform when I called him this morning and all the officers were out so he changed just for us. They showed us the dispatch room with all the nifty computers. He then took us out and let the girls play in the cars. He let them turn on the lights and even the siren! Miss M LOVED this part of our visit. He let them sit on the motorcycle to which Miss M was simply giddy about. It was too precious.

As we were leaving Miss M said, "Cops are nice! They are here to help!" You got it sweetie!

This journey is quite the ride!

For those of you that have followed this blog for a while, you've probably picked up on the theme of our life...change and uncertainty. While at times this can be difficult it forces hubby and I to be completely dependent on the Lord for the next turn in the road. This is pretty ironic since we are both planners at heart.

All that to say, I got a call from our caseworker today saying that the visit this weekend has been postponed until 2 weeks from now! I'm SOOOO relieved! I was really anxious about what this visit would do to them. Hubby will be back by then and will be able to help out with the aftermath of the visit.

Another HUGE exciting update is that Miss M went THE ENTIRE day without a meltdown! This is seriously amazing! She woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6:25 this morning. By 10Am I realized we hadn't had a meltdown yet so I told her "Wow Miss M! We haven't had to do a think-about-it-time this morning! Great job listening to mommy!" To which she replied, "Oh I know." Smarty pants!

Single Parenting

Hubby is out of town for 2 weeks so I'm trying my hand at this single parenting thing....and I don't like it very much. Today is only day 2 and while it hasn't been quite as hard as I thought, it sure isn't fun or easy!

Two weeks ago the girls had a weekend visit with their bio family and it took a full week to get them back to 'normal'. I just found out today that they are getting another one this weekend. They weren't suppose to get another one for a long time but a few things did not go as planned so here we go again. I'm really not looking forward to the aftermath that these poor things endure with another transition like this. It is so hard on them since they can't communicate their feelings...well I take that back...they communicate through meltdowns and defiance.

Last time we had one of these hub and I were able to distract ourselves while they were away. This time, I don't have hub to distract me from missing them. While it is sort of nice to have the quiet house and time for me to nap, my protective mothering comes out and I don't want them leave to an emotionally unsafe place. It would be one thing to have them visit my mom or a friend for the weekend....its another thing to place them in arms that you dont' necessarily trust.

It's a good thing they are in the Lords hands even when I'm not there to protect them. Lord, protect their hearts during this transition and uncertainty.

We do have good news for the week! Miss M is almost fully potty trained!!! She has done such a good job at telling me when she has to go. We've had very few accidents this week. I hope she can keep up the good work when she is with her family this weekend.

A Rough Week

We were at the doctors 4 times this week! I went initially because Miss M had a bad rash. While I was there I asked that the doc to check out her throat because her voice was a little horse. She hadn't mentioned a sore throat and acted completely healthy, so too my surprise, the doc said she had strep!

The next day Chase went in because his nose was really red and swollen. Turns out he had a staph infection! Miss Z and I ended up getting staph the next day. Chase had to go back on Friday so the doctor could work on his nose again.

Needless to say, Chase and I spent all day Saturday sanitizing our apartment. We are all on strong antibiotics and no longer contagious which is great.

On a good note, Miss M used the potty 3 times today! We are majorly focusing on potty training this week. I've never potty trained a toddler so if you have any tips, pass them along!

Another Year

Friday, July 10th was the first year anniversary of our first babies due date. Last year when this date came around, it was rough. I was very emotional. This year I was more reflective on what the Lord has brought out of this loss. I was sad wondering what life would be like with a one year old running around but grateful that the Lord has led us to where we are right now.

Convo's with Miss M

Miss M got a doll from one of our friends that she has been obsessed with for the last 24 hours. I must say, she is doing a pretty good job as a mother. She rocks her, makes sure she has enough sleep, feeds her... I decided to ask her a few questions about her new baby doll and here's what I got.

What's your babies name? Baby

Is Baby a boy or girl? Girl

How old is Baby? 2 months

What does baby eat? Baby apple sauce

Do you love your baby? Yes!

After the questionnaire, she came up to me and said, "I want you to hold Baby in your tummy?"

Me: Tummy? How does that work?

Miss M: I mean on your lap.

Miss M: Baby wants Oatmeal. Tie It! (as she hands me a bib for her baby)


She is really starting to parrot us, most of the time that is a good thing :) The other day I was looking for a piece to my immersion blender. She asked what I was doing and I told her "Mommy can't find a part that I need to finish making dinner."

Miss M quietly watched me search through all the cupboards. When I found it she announced, "Good job Mommy! Good job finding it!"

What a Sceen!

So picture this: Miss M opened up our wedding album and found a page with both Chase and I on it. She layed prostrate hugging the album and said the following for about 10 minutes:

I love Chase. I love Chase. I Love Chase. I lUv Chase! I love Chase. I love Chase. I lUv Chase! I love Chase. I love Mommy! I love Chase......

I didn't know there were so many different ways to say I love Chase! And at least I got one I love mommy in there! Too precious. I only wish I had the video camera out. But alas, it was packed away and it would have taken me 10 minutes to get it out and start recording.

Oh, and today I was watching Paula Deen who always makes yummy desserts that Miss M comments on. She asked me what her name was and then said 'I love Paula!'