TIME TO UPDATE

It has been too long but we have been kept busy with a very sick little fella. So here are the updates. . .WARNING: This will be long since it has been a while.

Grayson: Came down with another fever on Monday the 4th. He has been sick ever since and currently has a fever of 100.7 with Motrin. We went to the doctor on Wednesday not really for this specific illness but because Grayson has only been fever free for two 1/2 weeks (around Christmas) since October. I took my calendar in and all the fever days had a big red X on them. I think she was kind of surprised by all the X marks. She decided right away to draw blood and check out his immune system. The results came in on Thursday. Grayson's immune system is fine (PRAISE GOD!). I guess his little body just picks up every yucky bug it comes in contact with. GREAAAT. We did not talk very specifically that day about his current sickness as it was overshadowed by all the previous fevers. By Thursday afternoon when the doctor called with the test results he seemed to be getting worse. The nurse said he probably had the flu as his blood work indicated some sort of virus. They checked in again on Friday and seemed concerned that he was maintaining a fever of around 103 without medication for a 4th day straight. The biggest concern is that all the congestion (has has been insanely snotty with watery eyes and a cough) will move into his chest resulting in pneumonia. After some chatting she felt confident he didn't have pneumonia "yet", but if he still had a fever on Monday they want to see him first thing. So now on Saturday with Motrin his fever is 100.7 (not so good) and at 5 am it was almost 103 (last meds had been given at 8:30 pm when the 5 am temp was taken). Basically, he is still really sick. He does seem less snotty today, but that has come with a worse cough. We have basically been on the couch since Tuesday only getting out to go to his doctor and mine. Until today he wouldn't even get down to play with his toys. He would occasionally color on the couch, but nothing else. That is very out of character for our 20-month old bundle of "all boy" energy. He isn't sleeping well at all, which means Justin and I don't get much sleep either. Yes that is 4 days of missed work for me. I AM SOOO BEHIND, but wouldn't want to be anywhere else than taking care of my little fella. We are praying he gets healthy by tomorrow (NO PNEUMONIA PLEASE) and that I can go back to work Monday as well (NO SICKNESS FOR ME PLEASE).

Baby Firecracker: Everything is going well with the pregnancy. The doctor is sticking with the July 3rd due date so far, thus I have been using the name Baby Firecracker (Justin, not so much). I went for my 15 week check-up on Thursday. From this point on I will be going every 2 weeks. You typically don't go every two weeks until MUCH later in the pregnancy, but since they never determined why my water broke early with the twins they will be checking the length of my cervix every two weeks. This week it measured at a 5. I don't know the unit of measurement they are using so we will just go with "5". Anything over 3 is considered "low risk". The doctor said something about how we were feeling about things and my response was "nervous". He said, "Me too". WAIT A MINUTE! I need him to be the confident one. Well, at least he is honest. I honestly feel like I will not be able to get excited about this pregnancy until I am like 34 weeks. That seems to be an eternity away. I shared that with the doctor and he seemed to share my feeling and understood why I felt that way. At this point with Grayson we already had a crib and were starting to pick out the items we wanted to add to our registry. Same with the twins. Well, we hadn't bought anything yet because the idea of figuring out what we needed for two babies was overwhelming, but we were looking at twin items on craigslist and what not. I must confess that we do have a crib already (more on that in a bit), but every time I try to look at nursery decor and other things we will need for our next baby I get really nervous. I am terrified to buy anything because if we don't bring this baby home I don't want to have things here to remind me of that loss. UGH. I hate that feeling.

Fostering: Although we haven't done much during the holidays we do need to get back on track with the rest of this process. The next steps will take 6-7 months, if we stay on track and get things done in a timely manner. About the crib thing. . .my wonderful friend Cindy gave us a crib and toddler bed. That means we have two cribs and a toddler bed. We will need to set the nursery up with two cribs in preparation of our home inspection for fostering. You must have beds for all of your children and an appropriate bed for whatever age child you desire to foster. We plan to foster babies and since we have a baby on the way we will need two cribs. Yes, it will be odd to set up a nursery with two cribs. It will be a bit of a painful reminder of the nursery we didn't get to have for Faith and Avery. However, we are fully committed to this calling and have to have faith that God will give us all the strength we need to set up a nursery for two babies. That doesn't mean that my stomach will not sink a bit the first few times I walk in that room once it is all set up as a nursery for two. Maybe that is another reason I have not really been putting a lot of thought into getting that process started. Then again it could be that it is just exhausting at this point in my pregnancy to think about reorganizing and rearranging our entire upstairs. Maybe once my second trimester energy burst comes I will get a move on and get really excited thinking about what this next year could bring for our family.

This Blog: I received an e-mail notification last week that babycenter.com is going out of business. I am so sad. I chose to use babycenter instead of just doing a regular blog for many reasons. 1. I started a regular blog and could never make it pretty. Technology is not my friend. 2. Unlike on a regular blog made by someone who is not gifted in the tech department, babycenter organizes everything for you and easily allows you to posts pictures and video. 3. Babycenter will give you a printed book of all of your posts. Yes, you have to pay for this but they do give you one. So your online journal can become a printed one. I like that idea. 4. Babycenter notifies your family and friends when you add something new. A regular blog at blogspot does not do that.
So, what will we do. Well, what can we do? We will be moving back to blogspot. I will work on our blog for a while before I give everyone the address. I am hoping to make it pretty and figure everything out before this site shuts down in JUNE. For a while I will maintain both while everyone transitions with us.

Here comes my plea. . .I have all of you friends out there that have your own blogs. I NEED HELP. When I said I was not technology gifted that may have been putting it lightly. Even hearing the words code or html boggle my mind. I would be willing to come to your house or do whatever it takes to get some help getting our blog all set up and user friendly. Any volunteers??? Again, this is a desperate plea.

Okay so that is pretty much it for the updates. Justin and I are happy to begin the new year. 2009 was a rough one for us that included job loss, the loss of many loved ones, the loss of our beautiful daughters, some financial stress, and lots of medical bills. Looking back God used every bit of what, at the time, seemed like total devastation and turned them all into blessings. Justin has been blessed with two new jobs (first at O'Brien Atkins and now at Clark Nexsen) following the job loss, both better for his career development. We can celebrate that all of those loved ones are together in Heaven. The loss of Faith and Avery brought Justin and I closer, changed our lives forever, taught us how to rely completely on the strength of God when our own strength wasn't even close to enough, and led to the revealing of God's plan for us to foster. And well, the financial stress and medical bills forced us to reevaluate our priorities and really take a close look as what God desires for his followers and how they manage His gifts to them. We are still working on it but we are really trying to get to a place where that area looks the way God desires it to.

Happy 2010 to you all!!!