Whoaw am I ever thankful!

At the beginning of January someone asked hub and I what were our "goals" for 2009. Hub quickly responded "we want to have a child in our home by the end of the year." At the time this seemed like a lofty goal given our fertility status. At that time we had just begun the foster process but we had no idea what that was going to realistically look like.

Fast forward just 11 months and we not only have one child in our home, but 3! Even more remarkable is that the girls were only suppose to stay with us a very short time and yet we still have them, almost 7 months now. The Psalms says that "children are a blessing from the Lord." We are so blessed to have experienced that blessing this year, not only with 1 child but 3. The countless hours we have poured ourselves into these children we have by far received so much more from them then we've given them.

This year has been by far the most crazy year of my life. It has been a roller coaster to say the least but it has been a thrill to ride. I am so thankful the Lord not only let me ride it, but he was sitting next the entire time. This year isn't even over and so much could still change before we enter the new year, but for now, we are enjoying every moment we can.

For a quick update on all our kids, their status' change all the time. Right now we are literally month-to-month with the girls. They could leave at anytime or they could be with us for quite some time. We'll have the baby for a while still. His adoption status is still unknown and we won't know for a while. We count every day we get with them such a joy and we trust the Lord will comfort us if/when they depart from our home.

My thankful list this year is virtually endless. I am astonished and blown away at what the Lord has let me experience this year.

Remembering

I can't believe it's Oct 1 already. This date marks the due date of another life we had the privilege of celebrating 8 months ago. I have such mixed emotions about this loss in our life. All of the "what if's" start coming to mind. "If" we had been able to maintain this pregnancy we would not have the 3 children we have right now. I'm looking at my living room and I see 3 precious living lives the Lord has entrusted us with. Like our pregnancies, we don't know how long we will be able to love and care for these love bugs but we celebrate everyday we have with them. I know that God does not hold any good thing from His children and I trust in that.

I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the blessing children are. I am able to parent and experience those blessings even though my body rejects life. How awesome is that! God is good, all the time.

Life in the fast lane.

Whew! Has it really been 2.5 weeks since I last posted? Sorry guys. It's getting late and I really need to get some sleep before the baby wakes up for the first shift so I'll give you the low down in bullet points.

-We LOVE being parents of a newborn! I think everything he does is so adorable...even the yucky things. So far things are going pretty well with him. He has had a few rough nights due to a little congestion but last night he seemed to do much better.
-Miss Z is finally sleeping through the night!!! The first 2 nights we had the baby she woke up several times. I thought I was going to go crazy with 2 kids waking up at different times. We experimented with a few things and were finally able to get her to sleep without waking up. Seriously PTL!
-The girls are doing really well adjusting to the new addition. MUCH better then I expected. Miss Z had a few hard moments the first couple days but she has been doing great the last week.
-We no longer have the 2-on-2 advantage. We, as parents, are out numbered. This poses some unique challenges but we're figuring it out as we go.
-Now for the sad news. We found out we were pregnant 2 weeks ago. Four days after celebrating all that the 2 pink lines meant, we found out we were no longer pregnant. I honestly thought that miscarriages would be easier after we had kids in our home, especially a baby. I can now say it is not. Just different. With our other loses, I grieved a dream. I didn't have anything tangible to grieve. After holding a newborn in my arms and watching Miss M and Miss Z grow and change, I know what I've lost. A child. I don't know if that makes sense at all. This pregnancy was a weird one on several accounts but primarily because it was so short. My doc is running a few more tests to see if anything has changed since February. I'm doing pretty well with it all right now. I had a few meltdowns when the bleeding began but the Lord has sustained me through yet another loss.
-We got many comments about how hard newborns are. We braced ourselves for the worst. So far he is way easier then the toddlers. He can't talk back, he can't get into everything, and he doesn't have years of baggage. Maybe it will get harder but for now, we can't complain. Going from no kids to 2 toddlers was a shock to the system, to say the least. Adding 1 more into the mix who sleeps a TON has been an adjustment but nothing like we experienced just 3 short months ago.
-It's really fun being a family of 5. I will be really really sad when we have to go down to a family of 3. Someone is always doing something silly or cute. There is never a dull moment and time seems to slip away into never never land.

That's it for now. I need to start writing down all the funny things Miss M has been saying lately. She has been cracking us up non-stop with the way she phrases things. I'll try and do a post of her latest comments soon.

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.