Clothed in Scarlet

New Year's Hike

2012-01-28T17:11:00.001-05:00

Games in the afternoon

2012-01-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

The kids and I had a mellow school day today. Carver had to stay home from school sick, and I've been dealing with sick Hope in the middle of the night for the past week. So we did the necessary things, but then spent naptime playing fun games.

Goodbye, Sweet Baby James

2012-01-27T17:06:00.002-05:00

It will be fun to take a similar picture when James is 8 and Carver is 16.

Christmas Morning

2012-01-27T16:45:00.004-05:00

Christmas Game Playing

2012-01-27T16:36:00.002-05:00

Blast from the past

2011-11-29T19:42:00.002-05:00

Spending Thanksgiving with old friends was wonderful. Isn't it great how you can immediately pick up where you left off 5 years ago?

Yep, asking for a raise after this one...

2011-11-29T19:08:00.009-05:00

It took me about 2 hours to notice, and only then it was because I couldn't figure out why there was hair all over the upstairs.
Sorry for the poor picture--but all of a sudden she looks like me!

Ellie didn't want to be left out of the hair chopping action, so we took a few inches off hers, too.

I figured as long as I had the scissors out and there was hair all over the bathroom, I might as well trim the little girls up as well.

Hope pics

2011-11-23T20:24:00.005-05:00

I'm cleaning off my camera's flash card before Thanksgiving, and I found some good ones to show you! They're all out of order, but I'm sure you guys can figure that out :)
This is Miss Nancy working with Hope this week. Can you believe she's on her hands and knees? She did not like it. Otherwise, she's doing so well. Every week she makes noticeable progress, and her sitting up is getting so much better.

Isn't this a nice picture? If only I'd given her a haircut first...

When you're the fifth child, you have to put up with a lot of shenanigans.

Look who's sitting up! (kind of)

2011-10-31T12:07:00.002-04:00

We have been doing PT with Hope for about a month now. I have to admit, I was not convinced that they knew anything I didn't, but it has been such a huge help! Two different women come, once a week each. Miss Kim works with Hope on fine motor skills, and Miss Nancy works more on gross motor stuff. Hope will now reach for a toy and grab it, with either hand. She's not putting them in her mouth yet, but that's what we're working on next.
And as for gross motor, look at this!
This was about 2 weeks ago--her first few days in the Bumbo. She gets tired quickly, and her body position isn't quite how Miss Nancy would like it (she's curled over a little too much in the bumbo, not have to use her back muscles), so we don't use it too much anymore.

This was last week, transitioning to the high chair. It turns out our high chair is ideally suited to her--it curves around her sides, giving her floppy arms the support they need. In the high chair, she can play with toys while having her arms supported by the tray. This gives her longer eye- and hand- interaction with the toys. If she drops one, she can still see it to pick it up. Getting her eyes involved is key--we want her to learn the connection between hands and eyes. In the high chair, she doesn't have to work so hard and sitting up, and can concentrate on hand movements with toys.

And here's sitting in a tripod position this weekend! This is so huge!! When we're working on posture, we give her toys that aren't quite to interactive so that she can concentrate on holding her back straight and head up.

Isn't she cute? I like these pictures because her eyes are straight. She really doesn't cross all that often--mostly when she's tired, and it seems, for the camera. But here you can see her looking at you!

Her weakest muscles are across her upper back and shoulders. She tires quickly lying on her back and holding toys in the air. Her neck is also very weak, and she hates tummy time. She will tolerate it for about a minute. My mission this week is to get her doing more tummy time, even if it's only for a moment at a time to try to build up some more of those muscles. The therapist and I also worked on carrying her facing out in the Moby wrap. While facing out is not ideal for most babies (it encourages a reverse curve in the back), Hope needs to strengthen those muscles. So we will be doing it for short spurts to encourage her to get her head up and off her chest, and to be looking around and compensating for my movements.

Her progress in the past months with the PT has been huge. It is a very good indicator for her future development. When we started PT, she was so wobbly that she couldn't grab a toy, and she couldn't really hold her head up without wobbling. Now she can do both those toys without wobbling. Just imagine what the next month will bring? Maybe rolling over, maybe sitting up all by herself!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T11:50:00.002-04:00

We got about 6 inches of snow. Our power was out for about 12 hours, which is much better than a lot of the people around us, some of whom still don't have power, including the hospital where Hope was supposed to have a head ultrasound today. We have a dead tree in our front yard, which survived earthquake and hurricane, to finally succumb to heavy snow. About 1/3 of the tree came down--one of the main branches. It feel into the yard and street, though, not getting close to our house. How God has sheltered us through natural disasters this year!

Stop the ride, please, I'd like to get off...

2011-10-10T16:47:00.004-04:00

This past month has had a lot of changes for us. I know--it can't possibly be as many as we'd had this summer, but David and I often get to the end of a day asking each other, "How come this state makes me so tired?"

Carver is now in school full swing, after a week's delay due to flooding from Hurricane Irene. It has been a little bit of a rocky transition for him and for us. While the past two weeks have been a little better, we have spent a lot of time doing homework, working on things like formatting your paper to take the spelling test correctly, and learning how to follow basic directions on the vocab test. He does not have good handwriting, and that is meaning that he has to redo a lot of stuff and make corrections. He has been up till 10 many nights finishing up homework, which is making him pretty exhausted by the end of the week. I saw some victory today, though, when he wrote a postcard to a friend, and the finished product (without my help) was neat and mostly in complete sentences. Success! And, lucky for us, he LOVES school, and doesn't seem to notice that he's doing an insane amount of work. We're really hoping that as he continues to figure things out, the homework will let up a little bit.

David is loving his job. The students are great, and he's getting some really good chances to interact with them and push them on issues they haven't thought about. I think it's fair to say that he's becoming known as the guy who will talk about Biblical manhood and womanhood without apology. We got the chance to go spend a Saturday out in PA at a retreat center with about half of the student body, and he taught a breakout session titled, "Why We Hate True Community." I spent the day getting to know some of the girls, and getting really excited about spending time with them. I will be going into the city every 2-3 weeks to participate in their Bible studies, and can't wait to get started!

Thanks to dear friends, we were able to get a 'stay-cation' without our kids last weekend. We spent the weekend eating out and exploring the city. It was so, so relaxing, although much too short. From that weekend, I've got a few pictures of Hope, which are the only Hope pics I've got for you today (sorry!):

It really was fun--we basically spent 3 days pretending we were tourists who didn't live in the suburbs with 4 other kids. We got lots of comments about how cute our baby was, and we'd always walk away laughing about how they'd have been so disgusted if we'd been trooping around with all of our kids (which we have done several times, and are getting much better at).

Ellie turned 6, and I don't have a single picture from the entire day. We decided to go meet David in the city and get Chipotle, but due to traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel, the 45-minute trip in turned into a 2 1/2 hour bummer. Fortunately, Hope was asleep most of the time, so it wasn't nearly as stressful as it could've been, but we learned an important lesson about trying to go into the city in the evenings during the week.

I've been learning my way around Morristown Memorial, meeting different specialists. I took Hope to the neurologist last week, and came home with a glowing report. She was so upbeat, she didn't want to see us again for 6 months! How sweet is that? We will be going to have our 6-month checkup with the neurosurgeon this week. But I'll continue my Hope update in a minute. The other specialist we met was a pediatric ophthalmologist, who gave Rosie some glasses ("gasses" she says). Rose has been crossing her eyes for about 6 months now, but she was finally doing it consistently enough to take her in to the doctor. Sure enough, she's extremely far-sighted, and has earned herself a cute little pair of glasses. They're pretty thick, and make her eyes look bigger than they actually are, but other than that, they're really pretty cute. After a few days of easing her into them, she's now wearing them full-time and doing very well with them. She asks for them in the morning when she wakes up, and doesn't give us trouble after that.

And glasses makers are getting smart--we get one completely free replacement, no questions asked!

Hope continues to do very well. She is now lifting up her head when we put her on her tummy, and attempting to support herself with her arms. Through New Jersey's Early Intervention program, we are now seeing a physical therapist once a week and an occupational therapist once a week. I like both of the women very well, and am excited to see what forward progress we can make with her. We have learned, both through them and the neurologist, that a lot of her wobbly movements are due to the damage to her cerebellum. She has a lot of muscle weakness in her neck and upper back, which has contributed to her tendency to prefer turning her head to one side. This in turn has caused her skull to be slightly lopsided. When I go to the neurosurgeon this week, I'll be asking her about this, and a possible treatment is a helmet. Hope's a chunk--she now weight 18 lbs, 10 oz. I still carry her around a lot in the baby carrier, but I'm not sure how much longer my back's going to put up with that.

The biggest thing that continues to make us feel unsettled, though, is the fact that we do not yet have a permanent church home. We have been going to a church for the past two months, but we are viewing that as a trial period right now, and now sure if we'll stay there. Not to be rude, but I'm not asking for recommendations--but I would covet your prayers on this issue. We are really praying that God would show us where He wants us, and where He wants to use us. Funny how you only realize what you had when it's gone, right? If you live within any kind of commuting distance from ClearNote Church (there's one in Indy, too), go! Don't waste another precious moment! We are so very, very excited about going back at Christmastime for a wedding, and we're even looking into the possibility of me and the girls going a week early to the Christmas concert, and then to spend a week being refreshed by dear friends.

Hope Update: 5 months

2011-09-14T13:54:00.007-04:00

Hope is 5 months old today! Can you believe it?

She had her first physical therapy evaluation on Monday. It went well, and I liked the women that I was working with. The people who do the evaluation are different from the actual PT who will work with Hope, but even the evaluator gave me a few ideas of things to do differently with her.

Hope is a couple months behind, which is about what we were expecting. She came in at the physical and cognitive level of a 2-3 month old. However, the therapist made a point of telling me that she thinks Hope's cognitive delays are due to her physical limitations, and will go away as soon as Hope gains better muscle strength and control. In the picture above, she is reaching for a toy, which she has just started doing in the past few days. Her movements are very jerky, which the therapist said is to be expected with damage to the cerebellum.
Hope loves people and faces. She is very expressive when you sit and talk to her. She's vocalizing, and will make noises with you. She loves Ellie, although she responds differently to Ellie than she does to me. I think she somehow knows that Ellie's a firecracker who might explode at any moment :)

While her neck control is getting better, it was by far her lowest scoring area on the evaluation. She's just starting to hold her head up when you hold her to your shoulder, and even then she's pretty wobbly.

While it is clear that she's seeing us and able to track, her eyes cross a fair amount. The therapist thought that this might just be due to muscle fatigue. She looks at something for a little while, and then after a bit, her head goes down and her eyes cross. Poor kid--she's tired!

One area where she's clearly excelling is eating and growing. She's a chunk, weighing in at 17 1/2 lbs. I love carrying my babies around, but she's so heavy and so floppy that we're starting to think about stroller options that will work for her. If you have a stroller that you love that would work for an infant (since she is still so floppy), but doesn't involve a snap-in car seat, let me know!

Hope is a super sweet baby. She is by far our easiest baby, which is the Lord's mercy to me! She is happy in her car seat, she loves a bouncer that I've been borrowing from Delene, and she's happy to sit in her baby seat and listen as I do school with the big girls. While we still don't know what the days ahead look like, we're so grateful to God for giving her to us!

Home Tour: The Dining Room

2011-09-01T16:44:00.000-04:00

The dining room is still one of my works-in-progress. Things I love? The table. The rug. The huge windows. The chandelier. The picture rail.

Things that need some work? The pictures in the frames on the picture rail. Storage. And something to absorb sound.

You can see the trunk at one end of the dining room. It's housing pantry items that I can't fit into the pantry--mostly baking goods: sugar, flour, etc. I think I'll probably center it along that wall, in between the windows. Along the wall with the big window in the middle, I would like to put two of these on either side of the window. I think they would break up the wall, add a splash of color to a room that's very blue-and-gold, and provide some much-needed storage space for china, canned goods, and other misc. items. They would also give me a horizontal surface to put some decorative accents on. But, I've got to convince my husband first :) He's not sold on the red yet. And for sound-absorbtion, I'm going to add curtains at some point. I'm not sure when that'll happen: it's not really high on the priority list, both for decorating funds and my time. But I did find some fabric that I would love to use for curtains, if I get to them any time soon. This would make wonderfully graphic curtains and be a strong counterpart to the yellow walls.

Home Tour: The Kitchen

2011-09-01T16:20:00.006-04:00

Here's the room I should've started with: the kitchen.

As you can see, the kitchen is beautiful. It has great brown tile which hides an abundance of dirt and kitchen debris, lovely stainless steel appliances, and beautiful cabinets. As far as functionality goes, it's great there too--it has a gas oven and range, which I LOVE, and big fridge, and even a teeny-tiny bathroom tucked in one corner (it's on the right-hand side of the last picture, next to the door out to the backyard). It was a little lacking in space, though, so we had to get creative to figure that out. As you can see, one of the cabinets is missing a door. It was one of those in-cabinet trash cans, which I abhor. They are disgusting. The grime on that thing was super thick, so thick that the drawer wouldn't open smoothly at all. So we pulled it out, cleaned up the cabinet door, and are still working on installing the hardware to put it back on. Doing that gained me an extra bottom cabinet, which helped, but we still needed more.

We decided to use on of my antique dresses as a DIY island in the middle of the kitchen. We bought $10 Ikea butcher-block cutting boards and put them up-side-down on the top of the dresser (with a layer of carpet non-skid stuff underneath) to add more counter space. I use the drawers for storage of spices and kitchen linens. But the back is the best part:

A couple of evenings with some chalkboard paint, and I've got a kitchen kid-distraction that they all love! The back of the dresser was painted a hideous pink, so it was not hard at all to start swiping away with primer and paint. And the kids LOVE it. And I'm super excited that I had the gray matter to come up with the idea :)

Here's the view looking down from the pass-through that leads to the living room. The step-stool is the same one that's up in the blue room (I have two), and it's the perfect size for kids to pull over and help with dinner prep.

The door in the back leads out to the backyard, and the pass-through to the dining room has been wonderful. I'm still working out the bugs of learning new appliances, but we're getting there. Today I was cooking grape jelly (from real grapes!) on the stove and home-made refried beans in the crockpot--both ideas from Delene :) I'm looking forward to making applesauce here in a month, hopefully finding some peaches for peach butter, and super-excited about Thanksgiving! We're hoping to rustle up some stray college students to fill our table up, and I'm guessing we won't have any trouble!

Home Tour: The Blue Room

2011-08-24T23:06:00.008-04:00

I'm finally getting started on my house pictures! In part, truthfully, these room tours will also be my catalogue of things not yet done. Sigh. Such is life with kids :)

I must also start with two confession and one caveat:
Confession: Over the past three years, I have come to love decorating my house. I love design blogs, DIY blogs, mommy-craft blogs--all of it. While I try to limit the amount of time that I spend reading such blogs, it has been fun over the past few years to get lots of new ideas, learn new things I can put into practice, and start transforming my house. I have been thinking about how I wanted to decorate this house for the past 5 months--ever since we made the offer on it. I have had to learn in the past month, though, that putting it all together the way I want it is going to take more time than I thought. So, some rooms are more finished, and some rooms are more works-in-progress.

Caveat: My house never actually looks like this. I have staged these pictures while my big kids were watching TV in an attempt to get some of the cool design-blog-type pictures you see out there. But seriously? Never looks like this. Ever. Maybe for 2 seconds after I've cleaned it. But then I leave the room and it's back to chaos. (You can partially see this in the last picture here--the train that is supposed to be neatly in line on top of the bookcases is jauntily awry. Now the question is--who did it? I honestly don't think Carver could reach up there to mess with it, but I'm also pretty sure David doesn't go around the house messing things up just to see how long it takes me to notice...) But, it's also true that I'm a bit of a neat-nik. We do have set clutter-control times around here (before lunch, before dinner, and before bed) because when it gets too crazy I get crazy, but it still never really looks like this. Only when I've been the one doing all the cleaning, and that's very rarely the case.

So, on to the blue room!

As you can see, the room is very, um, blue. We did no painting in this house. While there are a few rooms that I would prefer to be a different color (including this one), the paint color in those rooms is not bad enough to justify the work needed to paint them. This is our homeschool/playroom. Rosie is my child-model. If this were a BHG shoot, she'd be my only child :)

I did the silhouettes of the kids several years ago. I need to buy another silver frame and actually do one of Rose and Hope. And, I haven't quite figured out how to hang pictures on plaster walls. This attempt involved some spackle and paint. They're almost straight.

The wall behind the couches will be our bulletin board wall. I have three boards, which I still need to figure out how to get on the wall (see above problem).

These are cheap-o Wal Mart bulletin boards. I painted the frames white, used spray adhesive to glue some cool fabric on, and then lined the edges with ribbon to hide my not-so-straight fabric edges. They really are cool looking, and they'll help break up that wall.

Next is the toy corner. The pictures above the kid's kitchen are pages from a used copy of "One Morning In Maine." I cut up the book, saved the best pictures, glued them to cheap mat board with spray adhesive, and put them on the wall. Very fun.

And last but not least is our wall-o-books. These are Ikea expedit shelves, which David and his dad and BIL spent a week putting together (along with the Billy shelves in our room). They also help break up the blue walls, and each shelf is deep enough and tall enough that I can put puzzles and games and other random stuff on the shelves. Homeschooling stuff is closer to the top, and along the bottom row are baskets hiding coloring stuff, crafting materials, musical instruments, and our bird-watching items. The step-stool is also Ikea (I've never been this close to an Ikea--they really are wonderful) that I painted a fun color. As you can see, Rose has figured out that the big kids are not the only ones who can climb it to get to what they want.

The one area I did not show you is the little closet in the corner, which houses bins of toys. I like to rotate toys--only have two or three things out at a time that the kids can play with, and every month or so, switch them up for something else. The keeps the toys fresh, and makes rainy mornings super fun when we go switch them out.

30 years and 4 months

2011-08-20T20:23:00.005-04:00

I turned 30 last week. Somehow, with all the other things we've had going on in our lives this year, that just does not seem like a big deal. In more exciting news, Hope turned 4 months, and she's still doing splendidly!

For my birthday, David took us all into the city. We left the kids with the officers (all girls) of the house that David will be advising* (one of whom we had on good authority that she's a great babysitter!), and went out to dinner by ourselves. Well, with Hope. That's by ourselves, right? After we picked up the kids, we ran around the 15th floor of the Empire State Building a little, then took the kids over to his office to let them burn off some more steam there. Before heading home, we went to Greenwich Village and found some cannoli. It was a fun evening, and I'm thankful for a husband who can navigate Manhattan!

*To help its students bond, King's has a house system. This looks very similar to a frat/sorority system, except that every student is assigned to a house as a freshman. David will be advising the Queen Elizabeth I house this year.*

In other news, we have had a little bit of a rough start to figuring out Hope's doctors here. While we love the neurosurgeon that Dr. Young referred us to, our insurance situation it not ironed out yet, making the process of seeing more doctors and getting her head ultrasounds done very messy. I did go see a pediatrician with her on Friday for a 4 month check up and immunizations. Unfortunately, this doctor is not somebody that I will get along well with, and I left the office feeling very discouraged. It didn't help that I had all the other kids with me, and Laura had an accident in her pants close to the beginning of the visit. Once we got home, I gave Laura a bath, made a couple phone calls, did some online research, and found a doctor who will let me interview her before becoming an official patient. I will be doing that Tuesday morning, so please pray that she and I will hit it off, or, if not, that I will find a doctor that I am comfortable with. After that, we will be waiting until our insurance sorts itself out a little bit more before seeing any more doctors.

So, what's coming up next? We will be starting school on Monday. Carver doesn't start until a week from Monday, but the girls are pretty bored, so we're going to go ahead and start. We have not found a church home yet, so please pray that God will show us where He wants us here. We are having ClearNote friends come visit over Labor Day, and I'm sure I will be making more trips down to Philadelphia to spend time with the C's. We are getting settled in, figuring out grocery stores and shopping malls and indoor playplaces for rainy days. Slowly it's starting to feel more like home.

Hope has been doing a little better with sitting up and holding her head up, so I'm hoping to capture that with my camera over the next few days to show you. And I am working on a house tour--it's coming, I promise!

Pictoral fly-by of the last month...

2011-08-08T20:20:00.007-04:00

On July 4th, Carver turned 8:

Our last week in Indiana, we took a day and visited Conner Prairie. It was super fun.

Carver got to try out his tomahawk-throwing skills:

Rose turned 2 on the day moving chaos started (Friday):

Packing-up-the-truck day (Sunday afternoon and evening). We think we had over 30 people from church show up to help us pack the truck. Except for the circumstances, it was a blast, and I got one last (staged--can you tell?) picture of representatives from our small group, which we have had in our house on Sunday nights for the last 4 years:

Filling up the cul-de-sac with cars and trucks and things that go:

Little house on Fridley Ct, we will miss you!

Grandpa Talcott and Grandpa Bray (who flew out to surprise us with Grandma Bray!) discuss fitting all of my possessions in the moving truck:

As an aside, we are so, so thankful for all the help we had moving. We had no idea how much help we needed until it was too late and we were in the thick of things, up to our necks in mess, excitement, children, and stuff. Talcotts and Brays both came to help, and Grandma Bray spent most of the weekend holding Hope, which was such a huge help, freeing me up. We had people dear to us show up on Monday morning before the closing to help us clean, and to sit and chat with me one last time in our house. We love all of you, and miss you all terribly.

Hope hanging out with Dad:

Laura turned 4:

Rose reads to Hope:

Hope listening to Dad sing hymns, in the absence of our piano (which we believe is still sitting in storage in Bloomington, hopefully coming to us soon!):

Sisters.

Bob, Ben and Thomas came to visit us this week. In all fairness, they did the hosting, taking David and Carver into Mozart at the Met and feeding them dinner in the city. We had them over for dinner Friday night, and then went to church with them on Sunday morning. Before Hope was born, we were told that she had a very high chance of having cerebral palsy, which is what Bob has. Bob has been a huge encouragement to me as we have thought about what life with a handicapped child could look like.

Today, we drove down to Philadelphia to spend the day with the C's. What a fun day, and so refreshing to me to be able to spend the entire day talking with Delene. Thank you, Lord, for friends.

I know, I know--there are no pictures of our new house. But they will be coming, as I finish getting rooms set up. I can't wait to show you our house, in the hopes that you'll come visit!

Last Indy Appointment

2011-07-09T19:04:00.004-04:00

On Thursday, Hope and I made our last trek to St. Vincent in Indy. It's kind of sad--we have been very happy with the care we have gotten at St. Vincent (with the exception of Dr. Doom-and-Gloom, whom we never saw again), and would recommend it over other places in a heartbeat. I have also gotten to know the St. Vincent campus pretty well, so I'll have to work at learning the ropes of a new place out in New Jersey. We're thankful, though--thankful that Hope is healthy enough to move, thankful that David has a job he's looking forward to in the fall, and thankful for modern medicine.

Hope and I west up to see a pediatric neurologist, Dr. Pappas. David and I had met with Dr. Pappas in the hospital after Hope was born, but all he was able to tell us at that time was that he had no idea how Hope was going to do. He said that seizures and cerebral palsy were likely, but only time would tell. His game plan was to watch her developmental milestones to see what was going on with her brain. He said 3 months would be the earliest he'd like to see her to asses how she was doing. So when we went on Thursday, he went through a checklist of milestones, asked tons of questions, and examined her pretty thoroughly. His end conclusion? She's doing great!

She is not, however, 100% normal. For those of you who do not see her every week at church (and maybe even some of you guys who never see her outside of the Moby wrap :), she does not have the muscle control that she should. She cannot lift her head, and when I hold her upright, she will only try to balance her head for seconds at a time. She does not play with her hands, and does not reach for toys. She will not support her body weight on her legs like a normal newborn will do. When I talked to Dr. Pappas about this, he said that she has something called "poor tone." He said that it is to be expected with an encephalocele baby, and he glanced over it pretty quickly, like I should know what that is. I had no idea what it was, but I have been figuring it out since then. Between google and a friend at church who has three adopted children with this problem, I feel like I've learned a fair amount in the last few days. Poor tone is a neurological problem. It is not simply a case of weak muscles, where work-outs (or in this case, therapy) would help them grow stronger. Something in her brain has made it so that her muscles do not work the way they should. There are varying degrees of this problem, everything from slight clumsiness to paralysis. So for Hope, it explains why her eyes cross a lot, why she has reflux, why she's not holding her head up at all, and why we have given her the nickname "Floppy." The good news? It's not nearly as bad as it could be. She does track with her eyes, even though they cross a lot. She will focus on your face, and she smiles. She does move her arms and legs, but when she relaxes them, they feel like noodles. The other good news is that therapy can help this significantly. Lord willing, she will learn to sit up and walk just like other kids, but it will probably take her longer. This is something that she will have to deal with throughout the course of her life, probably in lots of ways that we can't foresee right now.

In everything else, Dr. Pappas was very happy. He said that she is doing much better than he would have anticipated. From here, we just wait and see what happens next--get her evaluated at 6 months and see if we know any more about how she's going to do.

Whatever happens, things will not change around here (in one sense,anyway:). The big kids love her to pieces. The biggest ones sit and talk to her, waving her arms around, laughing at her funny hair, and giving her kisses. Rose runs up to her in the morning and says, "Ope! Ope!" She was given to our family, and we are already overwhelmed by how much we have learned by having her with us. She will continue to cause us to grow in compassion and love, and we will continue to love her and care for her in the best way that we know. We love you, Hope!

Carver @ 8

2011-07-04T13:39:00.003-04:00

Carver is turning 8 today! I can't believe how it has flown by. We started off the morning with presents after breakfast (because what fun is a birthday if you can't spend the day playing with your stuff??!) He got this cool skateboard-thingy, some water guns, a new sprinkler to run through, an addition to his snap circuits kit, and some books. Sadly, all of the books are taking an extreme backseat to all of the cool, hands-on stuff. He spent about a half-hour playing water guns with his sisters, and the rest of the day he has spent mastering the skateboard. He's already improved much more than I expected--he can make it all the way down to the end of the cul-de-sac without falling off. Very impressive.

We'll finish off the day with spaghetti & meatballs, banana bread, and taking chocolate cake to the church gathering to watch fireworks. Happy birthday, Carver!

Hope pics

2011-07-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

She truly is our miracle baby!

2011-06-22T21:43:00.004-04:00

When we first learned that Hope had an encephalocele, I wondered how I would be able to see the love and kindness of God in this situation. When one feels pain, you want to lash out at everything and everyone around you, and wonder why God has done this to you. I prayed that I would see our lives in the light of eternity, and that I would not grow bitter. And, praise be to God, He has shown me His love and kindness, even in the darkest moments. The past two days, He has shown me how much He cares for me, for our family, and for Hope.

We went back to the neurosurgeon yesterday for a followup. Hope had an ultrasound for her brain done first, so that Dr. Young could compare the ultrasound we had in the hospital after her surgery to where she is currently. Just as a reminder, they were doing the ultrasound to measure the size of the ventricles in her brain. These are the open pockets in your brain where cerebral-spinal fluid is stored. If there is a drainage problem, the fluid will build up, putting pressure on the surrounding brain tissue, causing damage if not treated--this is what hydrocephalus is. When we were in the hospital, the measurements of the ventricles from the ultrasound showed that her ventricles were on the large size of normal, but not abnormal (which is what every ultrasound before she was born showed as well). When we went in yesterday, the ventricles had decreased in size just a little bit! What a total miracle! Dr. Young checked her over, felt her soft spot, and said that he does not see a single indication of hydrocephalus. David and I were completely flabbergasted. I had thought that we would go in and he would tell us he wanted to do a shunt in 3 days, much like he said the last time about getting her encephalocele removed. Instead, he gave her a clean bill of health! How amazing! He also told us that if she had hydrocephalus, it would certainly have shown itself in this appointment--he believes that she is unlikely to develop it at all. As a precaution, though, we will continue to see a neurosurgeon in NJ. We gave him the name of the nearest hospital to where we're moving, and he had his scheduler call them up and make a follow-up appointment out there for 2 months.

Deep in unfathomable mines of never failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Today, Hope and I drove back up to St. Vincent to see a pediatric cardiologist. Hope had been diagnosed with ASD in the NICU. ASD is a family common condition where a small hole in the valves of the heart does not close properly. The treatment is to wait and see what happens--sometimes they close on their own, sometimes they never cause a problem even though they're there, sometimes they need surgical repair. This was our first visit with the cardiologist, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was all prepared to ask what kinds of worrisome signs I should be looking for, what treatment options are, etc. Instead, he told me that babies' hearts develop with this hole in the womb, and frequently if they do echos in the NICU, they will see a heart that hasn't completely closed this. That is what Hope's echo showed, but now, it has healed! Again, I was completely blown away. God has formed her, and He has seen fit to heal her little body. What a miracle. What a kindness to us.

What's next? We will see a neurologist and a geneticist at St.Vincent right before we move. The geneticist will look for indicators of some large over-arching problem, and tell us if he thinks chromosomes are involved. The neurologist will help us track her developmental milestones, and give us guidance about what the steps are if she is falling behind developmentally. Hope is 2 months old now, and she is smiling, tracking with her eyes, and interacting with you when you talk to her. She does not have the neck and head control that she should, but I think that's justified at the moment! I've been trying to think of her head control as being closer to that of a 3 -week-old, based on when we came home from the hospital after surgery. If you think of it like that, I think she's doing ok--she's moving her head around, and working on holding it up, at the point I would expect about a 3-week-old to be. We'll just keep watching and waiting to see if she catches up. Please continue to pray that she will develop normally, that her brain will compensate for the small part that is missing. But most of all, praise God with us. Praise Him for His goodness, mercy, and kindness to us and to Hope. Pray that she will grow up to glorify Him and demonstrate His power.

Before Surgery Pictures

2011-06-04T22:41:00.002-04:00

I happened to catch Rose and Hope in a cute moment the Sunday afternoon before Hope had surgery. I took a few pictures, and then I had David take some of Hope and me as well.

Yes, we did make it home.

2011-06-01T16:37:00.002-04:00

I am an awful blogger. I just don't enjoy it. So that is my excuse for never putting up a 'We Made It Home!' post.
We did, in fact, make it home on Thursday. Dr. Young came by in the morning and told us that we were free to go. He said the ultrasound they did of the ventricles in her brain came back showing the ventricles slightly large, but that he wanted to wait and see what they did. We would've been able to leave immediately, but I had contacted Hope's pediatric orthopedist and asked him to come and see Hope in the hospital so that I would not have to make a separate trip to Indy. He was very obliging, and came around noon to see her. And, praise God, he said that while there is a slight click in her left hip, he believed it to be cartilage. He ordered an ultrasound of her hip just to make sure, and his diagnosis was correct. Both her hips look great--they both have very deep sockets, and there is no indication of hip dysplasia. Thank you, Lord! By the time we finished all that up, it was mid-afternoon. I finished up final paperwork, pulled the car around, and the nurse brought her out to me. We drove home through Indy traffic and pouring rain, but I was so glad to be home!
Since then, things have been normal. She's still eating and sleeping great. She's been a little cranky the past few days, but even that has been a little better today. Her incision still has a little bit of swelling, but it goes down a little more each day, and is already growing peach fuzz. Here she is, trying out her new range of neck motion with Grandma:

It has been blazing hot here recently. We went straight from cold, rainy spring to hot and humid summer. The kids and I got out the sprinkler and kiddie pool for Rose today, and they've been having a blast:

(The girl in the pink suit is our neighbor, not Ellie. Ellie is missing from all the pics because she was throwing a temper tantrum about not being allowed to turn the water on and off at her pleasure.)

Since I wasn't about to let sopping wet Carver hold the camera to take a picture of Hope hanging out with me, this is the best I've got:

One more night...

2011-05-25T15:52:00.002-04:00

I woke up hopeful that we would get to go home today. After an uneventful morning, Dr. Young came by at about 11. His assistant took Hope's bandage off, and he examined her head. After checking her over, he decided that he'd like to have us stay another night, just to make sure she's doing ok. He also ordered an ultrasound for her, to check on the ventricles in her brain. Her soft spot felt a little tense to him, and he wants to keep an eye on her hydrocephalus. While I'm trying to keep calm, it scares me a little. I got a good look at her incision when they took the bandage off, and it scares me a little, too. It's just such a big cut on a little person.

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; they best, thy heavenly, fridne
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, they confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He swelt below.

God has blessed me today--Hope has smiled at me twice. She has had an uncomfortable day since they took the bandage off, but in one of her quiet moments, she smiled at me while I sang to her. What a joyful end, just to be able to sit and sing to her.

Improvements!

2011-05-24T10:49:00.002-04:00

Hope and I both slept very well last night. She was only up once to eat, and I only heard the nurse messing with her once. This morning, the nurses started taking out some of her attachments. The first thing to go was the arterial IV line in her arm. It was splinted to her writst, so I was very happy to see that go.

Dr. Young came in this morning, and, among other things, pulled her ears out of the bandaging around her head. Isn't she cute? He showed me pictures on his iPhone from yesterday of Hope pre- and post-op. Her bump was HUGE, and I'm so glad it's gone!

Shortly after Dr. Young left, the nurse came in again and took her off the oxygen, so now I can see her face! (It also makes nursing a lot easier, having the canula out of her nose.)

Hope is now only on tylenol for pain control. This is great--it means that she's not drowsy or having breathing difficulties due to heavier medication. She has been awake for several hours this morning, happily lying in her bed and listening to me talk and read to her. She is nursing well, and is no longer receiving any fluids through the IV, although they did leave the saline lock in. Dr. Young said that today we'll be moving to the regular pediatrics floor, and that if all continues to go well, he'll discharge us tomorrow! Wouldn't that be a blessing!

Night in the PICU

2011-05-23T19:09:00.004-04:00

Hope and I are alone in her room at the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital PICU. She's quietly sleeping, after finally getting a full belly. After a long day, the nurses are finally leaving us alone for more than 5 minutes at a time. I'm looking forward to some rest tonight.

We started this morning at 4 AM, leaving the house at 4:30. We arrived at our surgery check-in spot at 6. Hope was not allowed to eat after 2:30, but after a fussy car ride up, she sat happily in my arms in the waiting room, sucking on her pacifier. I made David take some before shots, just so we have something to compare the after shots with:

After calling us back and getting some vitals on her, we got to dress her in a tiny little hospital gown and spend a few more minutes cuddling with her:

At 7:45, they wheeled her in a huge adult-size bed back to surgery. Saying goodbye was very, very hard. We got settled into the surgery waiting area, and were joined by my dad and Pastor Bayly. The surgery took about three hours. It went very well. The doctor said her blood loss was minimal, and everything went exactly as he had expected it would. After about half an hour in recovery, they brought David and I back to the recovery room. We went from there up to her room in the PICU. Here she is!

She has had a little bit of a rough afternoon. When we first got settled into her room here, she had some trouble keeping her heart rate up, and there was a scare about her hemoglobin levels. Fortunately, the hemoglobin numbers were incorrect, but we did spend about an hour dealing with her heart rate fluctuations. It turned out to be the result of the morphine she was given after surgery, and once they gave her a drug to reverse it, her heart rate and breathing became much more normal. With that scare, I was not allowed to hold or feed her for a couple more hours, but at about 4, they relented and let me hold her. I held her for a half hour, and she did so well that they let me give her a bottle.

Now, with a full tummy and appropriate pain medication, she is sleeping peacefully in her bassinet. I am praying for a quiet night, so that both she and I can recover a little bit. If all goes well tonight, they should release her to a regular pediatric room tomorrow.

While today has been stressful and tiring, there has been much joy also. Hope made it safely through surgery. One of the best moments for me was looking at her straight on in the recovery room, and realizing that she looks exactly like Rose! It was also such a joy to be able to hold her normally after surgery. Thank you, Lord, for giving us good gifts!

More about surgery...

2011-05-20T11:30:00.003-04:00

As I wrote last night, I ended up cutting the post much shorter than I had originally planned because I was so tired. So today, I'm hoping to give a little more information about the surgery on Monday.

We do not know what time it is yet. Because the doctor is coming in on a day he does not normally do surgery, there was no operating room slot reserved for him. They were going to work us in to the OR schedule, and we're waiting to hear today when that will be--mostly likely in the morning. The surgery will take about 2 1/2 hours. He will remove her encephalocele, any brain matter in the encephalocele, and then sew up the skin. He will not be putting any plates or anything to close the hole in her skull. The reason he will remove brain tissue is that the part of her cerebellum that is in the sac has not been getting proper oxygenation from blood flow, and it has been extremely pinched coming out through the opening in her skull--so it is already non-functioning. He will not be putting a plate in because she is still growing (obviously!), and they do not want to put anything artificial onto bones that are still developing. When we asked how the hole will close, he said it will naturally close on its own, once the brain tissue protruding through it is removed. He reminded us that the soft spot on the tops of babies' heads are also holes in the skull, and they naturally close over time.

She will go into a recovery room after surgery, and they will try to wake her up enough for me to nurse her. Then she will go to the ICU, until she's stable enough to be in a regular room. Once she's in a regular room, I will be allowed to sleep in the room with her for the next few days. We are anticipating 3-4 days in the hospital.

Once at home, David and I will keep an eye on her. We will be looking for signs of hydrocephaly, and the two main indicators to look for will be leaking of fluid from the incision (spinal fluid coming out), and bulging of the wound (indicating increased pressure). If either of these two happens, we will go back up to Indy, and she will have a shunt put in to relieve the pressure. We have not done any research on shunts yet, and only know what he told us: that a shunt is a lifetime thing, and it will need maintenance, attention, and replacement over the course of her life. They will not do the shunt surgery on Monday, with the hope that she might not need it. We are praying that she does not need it, but because her encephalocele has grown so much, the doctor thought it was very likely that she will need it.

The mortality rate on the encephalocele surgery is very low--they have never lost anybody in their practice. He said that because she is about 10 pounds, her blood loss will be minimal, and he was not worried about it. The shunt surgery is slightly more risky--about a 2% mortality rate. While this number is very low, we know that we can only trust in God for Hope's safety in both of these surgeries. He has seen fit to protect her thus far, and we know that He carries her in the palm of His hand.

I do have one piece of very exciting news from our visit yesterday: they measured her head circumference, and it came in at 37 centimeters. When I plugged this into an online growth chart, it came back as being the 40th percentile for head circumference. What a miracle! The last measurement, two weeks ago, was in the 10th percentile. I know that there is probably some human error in both those numbers accounting for some of the difference, but I watched the nurse measure her head yesterday, and she certainly didn't slip with the tape measure. It makes me cry to think that she has gotten so much bigger over the month, and I cannot help but praise God, who has given us one more little miracle in this process!

Monday's the day!

2011-05-19T22:00:00.003-04:00

David, Hope, and I made a trip to Indy today, the first one since Hope was born. We went to see Dr. Young, our pediatric neurosurgeon. We went into the visit hoping to get an idea for when he would like to do surgery, and wanting to ask what he thought about her encephalocele getting larger, which it has over the past weeks.

In the first few minutes, he took care of all our questions. He walked into the room after reviewing her chart, and his first comment was, "We need to take care of this." He said that the most likely reason her encephalocele is bigger is because she does have some hydrocephalus. In her case, instead of the excess fluid putting pressure on her brain and causing damage, instead the pressure is simply making her encephalocele larger. Because her encephalocele has grown, and because we will be moving in mid-July, he asked us if we would be willing to do the surgery soon rather than later. We agreed, and he went to consult his scheduler. When he came back, he told us that he will be doing the surgery this Monday, May 23. He will be coming in on his day off to do the surgery for her.

May 23 will be our 9th anniversary. It is certainly bittersweet to be doing her surgery on this day. Honestly, what we keep coming back to, though, is the fact that we have so, so much to be thankful for. We are thankful for 9 years of marriage, and we are thankful for our five children. We are thankful for modern medicine and technology, health insurance, and a doctor using his day off to help our daughter. We are most of all thankful to God, who has blessed us so much with the birth of Hope. Every day with her is a blessing, and just by saying that, we realize that every day with our other children is just as amazing. We treasure the good gifts He has given us.

Please pray for us this week. Pray that Hope will be strong for surgery and stable afterwards. Pray that we will know soon if she has hydrocephalus that needs a shunt. Pray that we would continue to give praise and honor to God in every circumstance of Hope's life.

1 Month

2011-05-15T20:33:00.002-04:00

Hope was one month yesterday. This marks another milestone passed for her--the mortality rate for encephalocele babies is 50% in the first month. We rejoice in every day that God has given to us with her. We praise Him for his mercy to us, and ask that He will continue to give us the ability to praise Him in every circumstance of her life.

In honor of her birthday, I tried to take a few pictures. As you can see, getting five kids in the same spot, happy, and looking the same direction has its complications. But I got a few good ones, and just the progression of expressions is funny:

2 week update

2011-04-30T10:35:00.002-04:00

Hope had her 2-week birthday on Thursday. We rejoice continually in these milestones, and know that every day with her is a gift from God. She had her 2-week checkup with Dr. Laughlin yesterday, and it went very well. Her head circumference is in the 10th percentile (which is on the charts!!), and her weight jumped an entire pound in the 10 days since we last went to the doctor. She was exactly 6 lbs, 9 oz on the Tuesday after her birth, and yesterday she was 7lbs, 9oz. Dr. Laughlin was thrilled with this weight gain.

Hope is an extremely good baby. She really does not cry, unless she's got a dirty diaper that I haven't noticed, and she sleeps a lot. When I asked the doctor about her sleeping, he said not to worry as long as she continues to gain weight. So I won't--I'll try to bask in these early days when she's easy!

We still have a few more weeks before the trips up to Indy for doctor's visits begin, so I'm trying to recover and get her eating as much as I possibly can. We praise God for the blessings that he has showered upon us, and pray that He will continue to heal our daughter. Psalm 30 says:

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,
That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to Your forever."

There is nothing that more represents how we feel right now, and we pray that no matter what comes our way, we will continue to sing praise and give thanks to God.

He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

2011-04-25T14:53:00.001-04:00

Sweet Hope

2011-04-25T14:49:00.001-04:00

1 Week

2011-04-22T07:46:00.003-04:00

This picture was taken Monday night, after we got home from the hospital. I'm hoping to get my camera out today, since every day she's looking less jaundiced and more like a real baby.

The hospital did indeed let us go on Monday. As I had anticipated, there were a few speedbumps getting out the door with Hope. Unfortunately, just because I knew there might be some problems did not make those problems any less emotional for me. We started by being given a list of specialists we would need to follow up with. It included a pediatric cardiologist. Hope has a condition called arterial septal defect, or ASD for short. The gist of this is that she has a small hole in one of the walls of her heart. It is non life-threatening, and could possibly fix itself. We are praying that it does fix itself, but if it does not, will require surgery in about a year. We had known about this for a few days, since they do routine echos on newborns with any birth defect. What was new to us, though, was needing to follow up with a pediatric orthopedist. We were told, by a new NICU doctor that we had not been working with, that Hope had hip dysplasia. They did a quick ultrasound on her and confirmed the diagnosis. This condition, when found early (0-6 months), has a non-surgical treatment that is very effective (the baby wears a brace for about 2 months). If not treated, it can lead to all sorts of problems, including varying degrees of lameness. At the time, I felt that the doctor was being overzealous. How come our other doctor had not heard the tell-tale click in Hope's hip that this new doctor had? I was extremely frustrated. When we got home, though, my dad helped me think through the benefits of something like this being found early: it means that Hope won't have trouble walking, and although the treatment will be annoying, it will cure her problem and she will never remember it. What it meant for me, sadly, was yet another impediment to bonding with my baby--which I felt I had already missed 5 crucial days of in the NICU. Our final speedbump involved them declaring our carseat unfit, and David needing to go down to the hospital supply and buy a completely new one. I'll leave that story at that. There were several times where I needed to leave the room and cry by myself, and David took care of the situation. I am so thankful that he had the ability to handle the situation with composure and grace, where I just wanted to throw up my hands and scream.

Finally, they let us go. We came home to 3 big kids completely thrilled to see Hope, and one littler kid less thrilled. In all the worry about Hope, I had completely forgotten to worry about Rose adjusting to being a big sister. And it has been an adjustment. She has cried a fair amount, thrown some pretty decent temper tantrums, and generally been clingy. But each day is getting a little better for her, and I'm trying to hug her and hold her as much as I can.

We also came home to a house held completely in order by grandparents. My parents and David's mom have done a great job taking care of everything: I have not had to worry about entertaining kids, taking sick kids to the doctor or picking up prescriptions, and I think I even heard the vacuum just now. Our parents have been amazing.

While there is still so much I could write, I'll try to hit the highlights of the past few days quickly. Our pediatrician down here, Dr. Laughlin, referred us to an orthopedist here in Bloomington that could look at Hope's hip for us. My Dad took me to see him on Wednesday. He was able to relieve my worries a lot. Hope's hip is a little loose, but that is not uncommon in 5-day olds, and often they tighten up on their own. Additionally, if Hope's dysplasia does not tighten up on its own, it is such a minor case that she would not need to wear a brace--they would just keep a close eye on it over the next year and then re-evaluate. We also learned that Bloomington does not have the technology to do the hip ultrasounds, so we will be needing to go back up to Indy in a month for an evaluation by a pediatric orthopedist who can do the ultrasound. We got paperwork in the mail yesterday from Peyton Manning Children's Hospital with a list of about 5 appointments with different specialists that she will be seeing in the next 3 months. The most significant is the neurosurgeon, Dr. Young, and we will be seeing him mid-May. Until then, we only have routine new-baby checkups with Dr. Laughlin, who has been extremely kind and helpful through all this stuff the past few days. He has even come to recognize my mother-in-law, who had to take Laura in last Friday with a burst eardrum, and then Rose in on Tuesday with an ear infection. She'll be going again today--taking Carver back to see if his strep has reincarnated.

Please pray that our children will heal. All 4 of the big kids have a cough and runny nose. Laura and Rose are on antibiotics for their ear infections, and we'll see what Carver needs today. The kids all want to touch and hold Hope so badly, but we're trying to hold them back a little bit so they don't cough and sneeze on her. It's tough.

But, above all, we are still rejoicing in our miracle baby. We pray that she will continue to grow strong, and that we will be able to handle whatever comes her way with grace.

Moving Forward

2011-04-17T09:01:00.002-04:00

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

We feel extremely blessed today. We gaze in wonder at our sweet baby, and cannot help but praise God for the gifts that He has given us. We know that as time goes on, our memories will dim, but we pray that we will remember how God has healed our diseases, redeemed our lives from the pit, crowned us with lovingkindness and compassion, and satisfied our years with good things. We feel that He has pulled us back from the edge of a cliff, and given us more than we dared to hope. He has been so good to us.

This is my last full day in the hospital, and Lord willing, Hope's as well. The neonatologist has cleared us to go ahead and start preparing to take her home, and will be monitoring her today to double-check that she is completely ready to come with us. She is nursing as well as any of our other babies did. This morning, they pulled her NG tube (the tube that was going through her nose down into her stomach so they could feed her supplemental meals) because my milk has completely come in. She and I are on our own for feeding, and they are just going to watch her today to make sure she's getting enough. David's assignment today is to jury-rig the carseat so that we can get her home. He went to JoAnn's last night and bought several different sizes of foam padding, and today he'll be working on that to get it to fit into the carseat and provide support for her encephalocele. And tomorrow, we'll be discharged!

I am looking forward to bringing Hope home and introducing her to the big kids (Rose has now graduated to this elite status :) I am looking forward to resting up and being able to attend holy week services at our church. I am looking forward to being able to introduce her to many of you, and letting her testify to God's amazing power in our lives. Thank you for your unceasing prayers for us. Thank you for letting God work through you to minister to us and encourage us. We would ask that you would continue to pray that Hope would grow strong and healthy for surgery this summer, and that God would continue to be merciful to her and to us.

Hope pictures!

2011-04-16T09:09:00.001-04:00

Successful Delivery!

2011-04-15T15:04:00.004-04:00

Hello, everyone. This is David writing, so things will not be as eloquent as usual. Here is the quick version, since we are still tired and short on time.

Hope is alive and doing very, very well! She was born on Thursday, April 14 at 11:25 AM. She weighed 6 lbs. 12 oz. and was 17 3/4 inch long. She had an APGAR score of 9 -- she came out of the womb screaming with her lungs open wide.

Hope has continued to do well since then. She has breathed on her own from the beginning. She has not needed any life support of any kind. Other than her encephalocele she is completely healthy. We give God glory for His kindness to us in this. As far as Hope's health goes, this is just about the best outcome that was possible. She is alive and strong.

Hope is still in the NICU, but only because her blood sugar level has been borderline from the beginning. The NICU here at St. Vincent in Indianapolis is "aggressive," in their own words, on the blood sugar level because of the way it helps babies to remain stable and grow. So, they want to see her able to keep a consistently strong blood sugar level before they are going to release her (either to Anna's room or from the hospital). In order to keep her blood sugar level up Hope is getting supplemental nutrition from donated breast milk (check it out if you are able to donate. If you are having a baby soon and he needs extra nutrition, ask if donated milk is available instead of formula.) Because Hope is not very interested in eating -- like all our other kids at this point she falls asleep after a few sucks -- she has a tube inserted in through her nose in order for the additional milk to be given to her. This is apparently pretty common in NICUs and they do it because it is less invasive than giving nutrition through an IV.

Anna was very tired yesterday and in a lot of pain. She was grateful for a few women who stopped by to visit, and especially for her Doula, Barbara Lehr, who was faithfully by her side throughout the day. I was often with Hope, making sure she was getting the kind of care we wanted. Barbara was able to stay with Anna for the many times that I was not able to be with her. Barbara's wisdom, experience, and godliness was of great help throughout the day -- thank you!

Anna slept well last night: "Well" relative to sleeping in hospital rooms! She is feeling much better today. She is still tired and in some pain, but nothing compared to yesterday. She has been in to see Hope twice today and both times Hope was able to latch on.

About two hours after she was born Hope had an MRI done so that neurology could get a clearer look at what is going on her brain. We have met with our pediatric neurologist and our pediatric neurosurgeon to discuss the results and what their recommendation is going forward. Neither of them thought that there was any substantial change in the condition of her brain from what it was when she had a fetal MRI done. The sac is about 1/4 the size of her head and is filled almost entirely with fluid. There is a small amount of brain matter in the sac that should have been part of the cerebellum. As a result, the cerebellum is slightly undersized. This is exactly how things stood 6 weeks ago.

The neurosurgeon would like to wait about two months before performing surgery to remove the encephalocele. This is shorter than the 3 month period that he had discussed with us after the fetal MRI. He would like to see her in 1 month to check how she is doing and then hopefully do surgery a month after that. From his perspective, there is no reason at all that she cannot go home as soon as the neonatologists (the pediatricians who run the NICU) say she is ready.

We also met with our neurologist, who is different than the neurosurgeon. Surgeons cut stuff, other doctors don't. So, the neurosurgeon will be doing the surgery (literally brain surgery) to remove the encephalocele and then the neurologist would be doing all of the followup and any future non-surgical treatment. The neurologist basically confirmed all of the things that the neurosurgeon said about how Hope's brain looked. He talked with us a bit about what to expect about after the surgery.

The short version is this: the brain is really, really complicated. We know very little about it. Even with an MRI, that is still just a big-picture fly-over of how the brain looks. There could be little details wrong that we can't see (and even if we could see them all we wouldn't know what they all mean). So, with this kind of surgery and with a brain scan like the one he saw for Hope, there are a lot of possible outcomes. She could have everything from severe mental and physical handicaps to absolutely no ill effects. If the neurologist had to guess, he expects that Hope would have mild to moderate handicaps of some kind. Given the complexity of the human brain, that is the most that the specialists of the specialists can tell us right now.

In other words, as she has been from the beginning, Hope remains in God's hands. He knew her before she was born, and He made her precisely the way He intended to. The neurologist says that these defects in her brain were present well before the first trimester was over. From that point on, all that human hands could do is shear away the excess (the encephalocele) and do our best to nurture her as she is. That is what we hope and plan to do -- to bring Hope home to live as a part of our family, in whatever capacity she is able to. What a joy!

At this point, it looks very likely that we will be able to bring Hope home with us soon. Once she is able to get full nutrition from mom and keep her blood sugar level up that way then we will be able to bring her home. We are hoping that this happens by Monday or Tuesday, which is as long as Anna is able to stay at the hospital. So, if everything goes well, we will all be home together by the beginning of next week.

I also want to thank my mom who has been watching our kids for the past two days. The kids have been good for her, but we know it has been hard (even including taking Laura to the doctor for an ear infection and having two [2!!!!] house showings). We are very thankful that she has come out and is taking care of our children. It is a great burden lifted off me to know that the children are safe and happy. She is truly a "worker at home" who has "washed the saints feet." We honor her and ask you to do the same.

We thank you all very much for your prayers. Please continue to pray:

-- that Anna gains strength and that the pain remains under control.
-- that Anna's nursing progresses well and that Hope is able to get full nutrition from her within a few days.
-- that Hope remains strong.

Most of all, give thanks with us, rejoicing in God's goodness.

Pictures and video will be coming up soon in future posts.

Final Amnio Results

2011-04-08T16:20:00.004-04:00

It is a beautiful day here in Southern Indiana, and as I sit and write on the front porch, the kids are running around in the cul-de-sac. Thank you, Lord, for spring!

We finally have the full amnio results! And they are completely normal! We are praising God for this, and I am very, very thankful that we did not receive bad news so close to Hope's due date. I know, I know, we were the ones who chose to wait until the latest date possible to have the amnio, and I would not change that decision for the world, but as we get closer to Hope's birth, I am thankful for good news in the midst of increasing worry.

While this does not exclude the possibility of some over-arching genetic problem, it excludes a lot of them. After Hope is born, we will meet with a geneticist to determine if she has any other signs of genetic defects, and will go from there if he decides there are.

We are within a week of Hope's birth, which is hard to believe. On Tuesday, David's Mom will fly in to help us with the kids during this week. On Thursday, David and I will head up to Indy for a c-section at 11 am. David will go with Hope from there, as they evaluate her in the NICU and then, later in the day, do an MRI. Sweet Barbara will stay with me (actually, they don't allow doulas into the OR except when you get a nice nurse who lets her slip in--so pray we get one of those on Thursday!). What the days after that look like depend entirely on how Hope is doing. I will have my cell phone (but will not put the number up here--sorry!), and will probably be letting somebody else field the phone calls. We will be putting updates up as often as we can, but I have no idea how often that will be.

We are praying for what the doctors would consider a very unlikely possibility, and we would ask you all to join us in that, especially on Thursday. We are praying specifically that Hope will be healthy, stable, and strong, and that her encephalocele has a good skin covering. We are praying that the neurosurgeon decides to send her home with us to get bigger for a few weeks or months before surgery, and that Hope and I can regain strength at home.

We are thankful to our Lord for many, many things, the biggest and most obvious being the medical technology that we have today. We are thankful for our other children, our family and church family so willing to help and encourage us, and we are thankful for baby Hope, who has already made such an imprint on our lives. We pray that she will have many years here with us.

First Amnio Results and Quilt Update

2011-03-28T17:34:00.002-04:00

We heard the initial results from the amniocentesis today. They were able to do something called a "Fish" Test, where they flag chromosomes 13, 18, and 21, and are able to see if those particular chromosomes have abnormalities. Praise God, they didn't! These are the most common chromosomal disorders, although not necessarily the most serious. So we are not out of the woods yet. It will take another week to process the rest of the results, looking for other chromosomal disorders. But we are thankful for this good news at this point!

The kids and I have continued working on Hope's quilt, and we are just about done. Here is the final version, missing only the binding:

I knew I wanted to do something special for Hope, so here is what makes the quilt special: the white squares in the corners and top are actually the skirt from my wedding dress. I have always thought that the baby-quilt-from-wedding-gown idea is cool, but I never had the guts to actually cut into my dress. This time, though, I really wanted to. Sadly, my dress was not cleaned after our wedding, so I was not able to salvage as much fabric as I would've liked--9 years of grime was pretty crusted on a lot of it. But I was able to get enough for the front, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I'm going to cheat and use a satin blanket binding instead of making an actual quilt binding. That will be much less labor-intensive for me, and I hope Hope will enjoy feeling the soft binding.

3 weeks to go

2011-03-24T16:43:00.003-04:00

It has been 3 weeks since our last trip to Indy and my last update, and Lord willing, will be 3 weeks before our next trip. And that next time, we will be going up for my c-section. We pray that Hope will be kept safe until that time, and not try to come too early.

The past 3 weeks have been a little crazy. We had a visit from my parents, where they generously spent their week off cleaning our house to get it ready to sell, and watching our kids while David and I flew out to New Jersey to go house hunting. After getting back from that trip (me feeling thoroughly like a country mouse after seeing the city, I might add...), David and I made an offer on a house in Boonton, NJ, which has since been accepted! We are now waiting on inspections to happen next week, and then we'll be all set to close on the house this summer. We praise God for providing a house for us that we love, and showing us that He is preparing the way for us in the northeast. Just so you'll come visit us, here are a few pictures:

(The street's really not as steep as it looks--I just tilted the camera a little)

Our awesome, huge dining room, so you can come have dinner with us:

And the cool fireplace in the living room, complete with wood-burning stove:

Since getting back, David and I have continued to de-clutter this house, in preparation for putting it on the market next week. We were going to put it up this week, but a nasty case of the end-of-the-season flu bug made the rounds, and we pushed meeting with our realtor until next week.

So, finally, here's our update on Hope! We went in this morning for another ultrasound, meeting with Dr. Hiett, and amniocentesis. The ultrasound had nothing new: Hope is continuing to grow at the same rate, including her stomach and head. They're still a little small, but they're staying in the same percentiles as the previous ultrasounds. The tech said she weighs 4 lbs, 14 oz. This seems tiny to me, but if she puts on another pound in the next 3 weeks, she'll be about 6 pounds, which is closer to normal. Dr. Hiett really refused to comment on any of her measurements, instead deferring all comments until after she has an MRI the day she is born. He then did the amniocentesis. It didn't hurt much, but it did feel very strange. It didn't help that as soon as he got his needle in a pocket of fluid, Hope moved, and he had to try to find another spot. Because I'm so far along, they require a non-stress test after the amnio just to make sure the baby's ok. I've never done one of those before, and it was pretty boring--they hook you up to monitors for 20 minutes to make sure the baby's heart rate is where it should be. While we were doing that, one of the genetic counselors came in to talk about what tests they'll do from the amniotic fluid, and what tests will happen after Hope is born. The short version of the story is that we will get some preliminary results on Monday (or Tuesday at the latest), and then we'll get the full panel of results back about 10 days after that. After Hope is born, David and I will need to decide how much more, if any, genetic testing we're going to have done on her.

To finish up our visit, David and I met with Rosie and a team of 3 supportive care people. This is the team that will help us out with arrangements if Hope is not going to survive. They listened to what our desires are for the first few hours after Hope is born, and we talked about a few of the worst-case-scenario options. All in all, I was happy with the way the talk went. I think we're all on the same page about how we want treatment to look, and it will be helpful to know a few familiar faces if we have to deal with those end-of-life issues. Please continue to pray for us to have wisdom with all the medical decisions we will be making for Hope.

So, that's all for now. The next 3 weeks will be filled with some final organizational details (when will the kids come up to the hospital?), washing some baby linens and the car seat cover, and finishing up some packing and decluttering in the house. Did I mention that I'm in full nesting mode, and it's manifesting itself in packing every single item I will not need for the next 4 months (which is a surprising number of items--how did we get so many books??). I'm hoping to put up a picture of our almost-finished Hope quilt, and will certainly post the results of the amnio as soon as we know them. Thank you all for your love and your prayers--we cannot do this without you!

Day in Indy

2011-03-03T21:08:00.002-05:00

David and I had another day in Indy today at St. Vincent. We started the morning by meeting with the doctor who will perform surgery on Hope, Dr. Young. Then we went for an ultrasound and a meeting with a maternal/fetal medicine specialist, and finished up by touring the NICU and talking to one of the doctors there.

We went into the visit with Dr Young with a million questions to ask him. He surprised us, though, by starting out the visit explaining that he would prefer to wait until Hope is 3-4 months old to do surgery. This was something we had seen in stories online, but nobody that we have encountered in the process yet had said anything of the sort. Until today, we had been told that surgery would happen within 24 hours of Hope's birth. Naturally, this new information started the visit out on a good foot for us. He explained that he would prefer to wait until Hope has grown a little bit to do the surgery, providing she has a good, strong layer of skin covering the encephalocele. He told us he would be happy to let us take her home and have as close to a normal life as we can for those months, bringing her back this summer for surgery. When we told him that we would be moving to the New York suburbs this summer, he said, "Oh, I've got a friend in New York who could do the surgery!" While we liked him enough to hope that he can do the surgery for us here in Indiana, we were encouraged that he had somebody on the east coast he could refer us to.

Dr. Young's office was run so efficiently that David and I had about a 45 minute break before needing to be back for the ultrasound, so we took a Panera break and got some bagels to munch on, basking in the good news and thoughts of taking Hope home before Easter.

Back at maternal/fetal medicine, we were told that our usual doctor, Dr. Hiett, was not in, but that we would be seeing a different specialist, one of his 3 partners. We were taken back to the ultrasound room, where the tech took the measurements, and got the cool 3-D picture above. We were thrilled that Hope let us see her face today. We have had 6 ultrasounds up to this point, and this is the first time she has been positioned correctly to see her face. Thank you, Lord, for giving us this joy today! The tech talked us through what she was doing as we watched on the screen. Hope is continuing to grow well. She is still small, and both her head and abdominal cavity are smaller proportionally to the rest of her body. They are not off the charts, however (around the 5th percentile). But she is growing proportionately. The ventricles in her brain looked fine today, and we watched on the screen as she made breathing movements. My amniotic fluid level is still exactly where it should be, and her bladder was full, indicating that she is swallowing.

The consult that we had with the doctor did not go as well as we had hoped it would. This man seemed to have a different agenda than Dr. Hiett, and he used scare tactics to try to push us into having the amniocentesis today, and to move our scheduled c-section date up significantly. While I was frustrated and upset by his approach, David was as solid as a rock, telling the doctor "no" at every turn. Finally, he left the room and we were free to go as well. We will be returning to their office in 3 weeks to have the amnio and talk to Dr. Hiett. As it turns out, we will be changing our c-section date, but not for the reasons he had suggested. We learned that he is the doctor on c-section rotation the day we are scheduled, so we will be picking a day close to that when Dr. Hiett will be on duty.

Our visit ended by touring the NICU and speaking to one of the doctors there. We liked him as well. He was kind of a happy medium between the super-upbeat neurosurgeon and the overly-pessimistic maternal/fetal guy. He was careful to listen to what our desires are for Hope, while cautioning us about the dangers in our situation.

We will be returning in 3 weeks for another ultrasound, the amniocentesis (finally!) and a consultation with the team of people in the NICU who deal with parents choosing comfort care for their babies. While we hope we will not need them after Hope is born, we need to talk with them beforehand so they can get to know us and understand what our desires are for Hope, as well.

We realized today that we have another area that have not even thought to be praying for: we need discernment as we deal with doctors and nurses who will be informing our choices about care for Hope. Talking to Dr. Doom-and-Gloom made us realize that his interests do not seem to line up with Hope's best interest, and we need to be able to tell that about someone before they offer their advice or professional recommendation about what we should do in various situations. In dealing with St. Vincent generally, we have been thrilled that nobody has (outright) suggested we terminate our pregnancy. The suggestions of the doctor today were along those lines, and he was offering them with a heavy, manipulative hand. We pray that God will open our eyes and allow us to see the agenda of the people caring for us, and then allow us to respond with resolve.

And as always, we thank you all for your prayers. Thank you for praying, and thank you for letting us know you are praying and asking how we're doing. We're learning that God gives us grace to handle the problems of today, and we pray for peace as we try to not worry about the problems of the next few months. And thank you to those who have so willingly watched and offered to watch our kids. Sweet Heather had our 4 children from 7:30am until 5pm today, plus her own 5, and she looked as cool as a cucumber when I went to go get them. Thank you all for loving us in this way.

Hope's Quilt, week 3

2011-02-18T15:10:00.002-05:00

On the days that Carver is at the Schoolhouse, the big girls and I have been working on what is literally a "Hope quilt." When I first decided to do this, I had romantic notions about working during Rose's naptime with Ellie and Laura, letting them help cut and iron and put together. Ha. The arrangement now is that I work on it while they play beside me with special naptime toys, and occasionally come by to comment on the progress. Hence the fact that we are already on week 3 of the quilt, with small progress to show for it. But, they feel like they are involved, and they are excited when it's time to work on Hope's quilt. So here's our progress so far:

The pattern is called "Bethlehem Star," and hopefully, the finished product will look something like this, although ours will be way prettier. In our design, the outside corners will be just plain white, and it will have a small border around the outside edge. I'll post more photos are get further along. In the meantime, we're off the enjoy the February spring day!

April 19th!

2011-02-15T17:27:00.002-05:00

Is Hope's birthday! Rosie (my scheduler) called this morning to arrange our next trip up to Indy, and she had Hope's birthday all set up as well! The c-section is scheduled for 11 AM, and then Hope has been scheduled for surgery the next morning. While that could change, it was best for them to schedule Hope into the neurosurgeon's day--that way he'll have time blocked off for her in the hopes that she'll be strong enough for surgery. Obviously, all of this is subject to change if I go into labor earlier (pray that doesn't happen!), or if Hope is delivered but not stable enough for surgery (pray that doesn't happen either!). The rough outline of Hope's birthday is delivery at 11, the neonatologist checking her over, an MRI that afternoon to give more detailed and specific info about her brain and the blood vessels in the sac, David and I getting to consult with the neurosurgeon that afternoon, and then surgery the next morning.

David and I will get to meet with the neurosurgeon (Dr. Young) as well as the neonatologist in Indy in a few weeks. We have a million questions for them, and are hopeful that we'll have a few more answers at that time. Until then, we continue to pray that Hope will be kept safe, and continue to grow!

29 weeks!

2011-02-11T20:36:00.004-05:00

Hope and I passed the 29-week mark this week. She has been moving a lot still, and we've even had a few bouts of hiccups. David and I went to see Dr. Hiett (my maternal-fetal medicine specialist--the super OB) again this morning, here in Bloomington. He did the same deal as last time--ultrasound with commentary along the way. I was able to see the screen better this time, and we were feeling more comfortable with him, so I (at least) felt a little more free to ask questions, no matter how dumb they seemed to me. The basic point of these ultrasounds with him is to make sure that Hope continues to grow. As she gets bigger, it will be harder to get these measurements as she becomes more squished, and even today he had a little trouble with some measurements, but he was still able to give us a lot of info. Unfortunately, he did not have last time's measurements right in front of him, so he was able to tell us in terms of percentiles, but not necessarily in comparison with last time's numbers.

Hope, in general, is a small baby. She's pretty consistently in the 25th-30th percentile, which is pretty normal for our babies. Her head is a little small (less than 2nd percentile), and that is common with encephaloceles. He was able to measure the cyst on the back of her head, but he didn't have the numbers from last time to compare it to, so we don't know if that has grown or not. There were two other measurements that were not where they should be (her stomach size and the ventricles in her head), but both of those could just be attributed to variation between ultrasounds. Hope's head measured small last time, just like it did today, so we do know that that is pretty accurate. We are hoping that the other two measurements today that were a little off will show themselves to be ultrasound flukes the next time around.

There was some positive news from today. My level of amniotic fluid is exactly where it should be, and this indicates that she is swallowing. This was something he told us last time as well, but today he said it a little more definitively. He also saw today that she is starting to use some of her breathing muscles. Obviously, babies at this stage can't breathe, but they start gearing up the muscles that they will need for that once they are born. (I have no idea how he was able to see that, but I guess that's why they pay him the big bucks!) Trying to breath is a good sign. Those two are basic motor functions that we're concerned about--without those (and others), she will not be able to survive outside the womb, and it's encouraging to me that she's showing positive signs for both.

The past few weeks have been tough for me. It's very easy for my mind to race ahead to all the possibilities of things that could go wrong after she's born--everything from death to cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, life with a handicapped child, etc. After talking to my husband and several dear friends, I have been able to focus more on what's going on right now--the fact that she is moving around, and that I feel her moving often during the day, and frequently during the night. She is safe for now. I have bought a few things in preparation for her arrival--baby gowns for easier diaper changes, fabric to make swaddling blankets, and the sweetest little spring dress that Sam's Club had put out. I have looked at those things and wondered if it was foolish to buy them, but David has reminded me that it is also a way to ward off despair.

We will go up to Indy in 3 weeks. We will see Dr. Hiett again for another ultrasound to check on her growth, we will meet with the neurosurgeon at that time, and tour the NICU. Please continue to pray for us. Pray that she will continue growing, and that she will not develop hydrocephalus (the enlarged ventricles from the scan today could be an indication of that). Pray that we will have hope and trust that God holds our days in the palm of His hands. We know that He glorifies Himself through things this world considers weak and foolish, and we pray that He would glorify Himself through us and Hope right now.

Hope's MRI

2011-01-29T21:26:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, David and I drove to Indy to have an MRI done of Hope. We went to St. Vincent, which is where all of our care will be happening. The Peyton Manning Children's Hospital is part of St. Vincent, and while we won't be in the children's hospital, apparently my MRI was scheduled through them. So, much to my delight, I got a reminder call from Peyton Manning this week! It took me a minute to realize that it was just a recording of his voice, but that was definitely a funny moment, picking up the phone and hearing, "Hi! This is Peyton Manning calling!"

The MRI was long and fairly painful for me (imagine pregnant hips and knees lying sideways on a rock-hard board for an hour), but they were able to get the pictures that they wanted, both of her brain, and other parts of her body. After the MRI, we met our fetal care coordinator, Rosie, who took us over to neurology for our meeting with the pediatric neurologist.

So, where to start with the information? I have so much of it that I'm not sure I'll be able to make it all make sense for you all, but here goes!

On a scale of large-medium-small, Hope's encephelocele is SMALL! The neurologist said that this is a good sign. And, the amount of brain matter it contains is also small! Unfortunately, the amount of brain matter could change (get larger) over the next 3 months, so that is definitely something to pray for: that it will not grow any larger. The part of her brain that is in the sac will not grow as well as it should. It's receiving less blood and oxygen than it should be getting, and there is also the possibility that it is having pressure put on it as it squeezes out through the opening in her skull. What this means for Hope, after she's born, is hard to tell. The neurologist focused more on physical bodily functions being affected: ability to walk and write, and worst-case: Hope's abilities to breathe and swallow being affected.

The other thing that they were able to see with the MRI is that the bone structure in Hope's face is otherwise normal--she does not have facial deformities, which would indicate more extensive damage. While we still cannot be sure that she does not have a chromosomal disorder, the fact that everything else in her body looks good is a good sign.

We also learned that in most cases, surgery is done on the baby within 24 hours of their birth. The only reason they would not do surgery that quickly is because the baby's vital signs are not strong enough to do surgery. Either way, that is a scary scenario. We did not talk to a neurosurgeon, so we don't know much more than that about the surgery, but at least that is something we can be thinking about and trying to prepare for.

Some of the peripheral things we learned:
*Rosie described what will happen during and after my C-Section, and how Hope will be handled.

*Rosie described life in the NICU for us. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but her descriptions of how long it would be before I am able to hold Hope (2-3 days after she's born) were painful for me to hear. In the midst of extreme sorrow for me in that, David has encouraged me that without modern NICUs and technology, Hope would die. As much as I hate it, this is for her good, and we are praying that God will use the technology to save her.

*That there really is nothing I could've done to prevent this. We even talked about folic acid, and after discussing my diet with the doctor, she said that she does not believe that a nutritional deficiency caused this. Right now, there is nothing I can do to make it better. I was nervous about continuing to exercise, but that will not help or hurt Hope.

*Because of the neurological damage that Hope will most likely have, her immune system is not as strong as a normal child's would be. She will be more susceptible to common flu and cold bugs, and it will be harder for her to fight and overcome this. With 4 other children, this worries us. In the past 8 weeks, we have had walking pneumonia, sinus infections, bronchitis, pink eye, Laura's ear-infection-that-will-not-die, and that nasty, nasty stomach bug that went around church (yes, that was the most miserable I have EVER seen David). While we know that there is no way we can protect Hope from getting sick, we will be trying to think about strategies for keeping our house a little more germ-free.

Here are specific items for pray for:
--the the amount of brain matter in the the encephelocele will not grow larger
--that Hope will not develop hydrocephalus (too much fluid pushing against her brain) while still unborn
--that David and I can continue to keep life as normal as possible for the other kids right now
--that we will trust God with our sweet baby, and not let anxiety take over. The statistics are still dauntingly against Hope, but we know that He holds her in the palm of His hands, that He sustains her, and that He created her exactly the way she is for a reason.

I will see Dr. Hiett down here in Bloomington for another ultrasound in 2 weeks. After that, when I am about 34 weeks, we will be scheduled up in Indy for a meeting with Dr. Hiett (my super-OB), the neonatologist (the super-pediatrician), the neurosurgeon (the guy who uses the knife), a tour of the NICU, and an amniocentesis. In between, we will schedule a date for my c-section, which will be at about 38 1/2 weeks. I am thankful that I do not have to be driving up to Indy every week, or even every two weeks, and that these last 3 months before Hope is born can be as normal as possible for the big kids.

Hope update

2011-01-20T20:13:00.003-05:00

This has been a week of waiting. We were under the impression last week, after meeting with the doctor, that we would be driving up to Indy at the end of this week for more testing and meeting with doctors. However, the scheduler did not contact me until today to set those things up, and it turns out we were mistaken in our impression of when the next set of tests would happen. But, after talking to her today, I have a better picture of what's in store for the next few weeks.

We will be going up to Indy next Friday to have an MRI done (of Hope, not me). After the MRI, we will meet with neurology (one doctor? the whole department? a team of doctors? I don't know). They will be able to discuss their preliminary findings from the MRI in that appointment, and we will be able to ask our questions about Hope's brain at that time. We're quickly realizing that we probably won't get many answers, but will just need to wait, trusting in God, until she's born to see how extensive the damage is.

I will continue seeing Dr. Hiett, who is now my OB, but he doesn't need to see me more than once a month at this point. Fortunately, I can make those appointments down here in the Bloomington office for the Fridays that he is here. So that will save us a lot of driving to Indy. As far as the amniocentesis goes, David and I were still undecided about what we wanted to do when I talked to the scheduler today. She was able to tell us, though, that we can wait and do the amniocentesis at a later date, which is what we were hoping for. We would still like to do it before Hope is born, but doing it closer to her due date will make the possibility of pre-term labor less dangerous for her.

One of the things that I'm thankful for today is the scheduler who has been "assigned" to me. She is a woman who works in Dr. Hiett's office, and her main job is to be the go-between between all the different teams of doctors, the hospital, and us. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have somebody like that. Up until today, I didn't even have phone numbers I could call to ask questions, and she gave me several numbers. She will also be sending me a packet in the mail with all her info, the doctor's info, the hospital's info, and my scheduled appointments at this time. And, unlike most specialized doctors, she has the ability to speak to normal people :) She understands our medical situation, but she does not treat is as another unique medical problem--she treats us like people. And I'm not saying that the doctors don't know we're people. They just tend to be super, duper smart, and not so much in tune with how the patient feels when you tell them something about their baby's brain. I think that's called "bedside manner." Well, she's got it. Her name is Rosie, so I should have no trouble remembering that over the next few months.

So, that's where we are today. Another week of waiting. But it's not waiting with nothing to do. Life keeps on going, school for the kids, laundry, cleaning bathrooms, and cooking dinner keeps me occupied. And in the quiet moments at the end of the day, I get to sit and feel Hope move around, as she wakes up right when I'm ready to lie down. David and I both enjoy those times, and try to interact with her now as much as possible. For now, I'm able to help keep her safe, and I want to enjoy that time as much as I can.

I have realized this week, in talking to several different people, that there might be some confusion about Hope's problem. She has a condition called "encephelocele", and the cyst on the back of her read is also referred to as "an encephelocele." The second, especially, sounds very similar to a different, but similar condition, called "anencephaly." If you'd like, you can google those terms, but beware--the pictures are intense. Hope does not have anencephaly. That is a condition (also in the family of neural tube defects, like encephelocele and spina bifida) where the baby's skull and brain fail to form, almost at all. Sadly, it is a condition that is not compatible with life outside the womb. The babies born with this deformity usually only survive minutes or hours. As I have poked around on the web this week, I have cried for the mothers of some of these babies who have shared their stories on blogs, and been oh-so-thankful that Hope does not have that birth defect. While Hope's chances are still grim, she does have a chance at survival, and she even has a tiny chance at a completely normal life, which is certainly what we're praying for.

So, until next week, that's it! I will certainly write more if anything of import happens, but between the above-mentioned school, laundry, dinner, and bathrooms, I manage to fill my days pretty thoroughly. Thank you all again for your prayers and support--we would be complete wrecks without all of you (right now, I'm only half a nutcase:).

Victoria Hope

2011-01-12T16:51:00.005-05:00

Last Monday (January 10th), we got the chance to see our unborn baby again. I had an ultrasound at 21 weeks, which revealed a baby girl. The technician was able to get most of the pictures she needed, but our baby would not move her head in the right direction to get the head shots. I was scheduled for another ultrasound, and I went in on Monday (almost 25 weeks), hoping that she would be positioned correctly and willing to let them take her picture. While she never gave us a full shot of her face, she was in a better position to take the pictures of her head that they needed.

After the ultrasound, I went in for my routine check-up with my midwife. After a while she came in and told me that they'd found an abnormality on our baby's ultrasound. Our baby has a birth defect called an encephalocele, located in the occipital region (meaning the back of her skull--closer to her neck). This is a disorder similar to spina bifida--a neural tube deficiency. Our basic understanding at this point is that her skull failed to close properly around her brain, leaving a hole at the back of her skull where an external sac filled with spinal fluid, meningeal tissue, and/or brain tissue would form. My midwife was grim about the chances for our baby. She was very careful to make sure I understood that her chances of surviving the pregnancy were 1 in 5, and that if she did survive, she would most likely have neurological damage. In God's providence, a maternal and fetal medicine specialist (Dr. Hiett) was coming down from St. Vincent's hospital in Indy on his once a month to my doctor's practice on Friday, and we were scheduled to have a more extensive ultrasound with him.

Needless to say, David and I had a long and painful week from Monday to Friday. But even in our week of extreme uncertainty, God was faithful to us in many ways, showing Himself to us in this situation. We knew immediately that we wanted to name her before Friday, and as soon as possible. Her name is Victoria Hope, and we will call her Hope.

Victoria--for the victory that Christ has already had over sin and death, and the final victory that He will have in the end.

Hope--representing the hope that we have now that God will strengthen her and allow her to grow, and if not, the hope that we will have in heaven to meet her someday. Romans 8:24-25 is especially what came to my mind with that name.

As Friday came closer, we were able, through online research and talking to a nurse from Dr. Hiett's office, to hone in on two areas where we were hoping to get some answers:

1. Does Hope have more extensive physical abnormalities, such as a heart defect, or facial malformations? These could be indicative of a chromosomal disorder, and would make her chances worse.
2. Does Hope have brain tissue in the sac on the back of her head? While the size of the sac could very considerably, it is the contents of it that are most telling. Fluid and meningeal tissue are better, brain tissue is worse.

While Hope did not show us her face to look for facial problems, the doctor was able to see that she is otherwise healthy. She has 5 fingers on each hand, her arms and legs are the right length, and they move freely, not in a constricted fashion. Her heart also looks great. One of my favorite quotes from yesterday was the doctor looking carefully at her heart, and then saying, "Her heart is gorgeous!" We praise God this all these!

Dr. Hiett was also able to look carefully at her skull. He showed us the gap in her skull, and then the sac, which is about 1/4 the size of her head. He was able to see clearly that there is brain tissue in the sac. He said it was part of cerebellum. He basically refused to answer questions about what that could mean for Hope, deferring all answers to the neurosurgeon that we will meet with.

We did not get any more answers about what our baby's exact chance of survival is.

We will be going up to Indy this week for a more detailed ultrasound, hopefully a meeting with a neurologist, and possibly an amniocentesis. The amniocentesis is the decision we need to make this week that we are asking for prayer for. It is a procedure where they go in with a needle and take out amniotic fluid. They will get one of the baby's sloughed off cells out of the fluid, and analyze it for chromosomal disorders. Hope's chances of having a chromosomal disorder would be 50%, but we are hoping they are lower, seeing that we have 4 normal children, and that Hope did not have any other deformities that we would see. However, there is still a chance. The risks of the procedure are 1/300 that I would go into pre-term labor after the procedure. We are trying to weigh those risks against the benefit of the knowledge of a chromosomal disorder would be for us. While it would not change anything we could do for her now, or cause us to abort, it could have some implications for how we care for her in the first weeks of her life if she has a fatal chromosomal disorder. The cells take 1-2 weeks to analyze, so while we could do the test after Hope is born, if she will die soon after birth, we would like to know that beforehand so we can care for her accordingly.

Here are the things that I have taken hope and encouragement from:
*The doctor said several times that we are far along in the pregnancy. I don't feel that far along, so it surprised me. Upon reflection and some googling, we realized that most babies with an encephelocele miscarry before 20 weeks.
*Hope moves a ton. She doesn't feel any different to me than the other kids did. While the doctor would not say that this is a good sign, he did say that if she was not moving, he would tell us that she had an extremely small chance of surviving.
*Most babies with an encephelocele are aborted. For that reason, the information about after-birth treatment and chances is limited, and doctors naturally tell you the worst. We have hope for her, despite all the nay-saying of websites and doctors.

In the midst of confusion, pain, and uncertainty, we have felt the love of our church family through this week. As we started telling our family and closest friends, we received prayers, hugs, love, and offers of babysitting. We were asked to come to the monthly elder's meeting so that the elders could lay hands on us and pray for us. As the news is starting to spread further, we are again astonished at how many people are praying for us, and for baby Hope. We are so thankful for all of you, and we know that we would not be able to make it through this time without the love of a church family. And through all of you, we feel God's hand upon us. We know that He works through His people, and in your love and care for us, we know that He is loving and caring for us. Thank you for being a tangible example of the work of God. Our trust is in God, our hope for baby Hope lies in the power of God, and we believe that He works all things for our good because He loves us.

Last of the Vacation Pics--Spokane

2010-09-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

Soccer Season

2010-09-24T15:57:00.002-04:00

The kids have started soccer for the fall, and this year Ellie was able to sign up as well. She was very excited to be doing it with Carver (even though they're not on the same team), and she is doing very well. Their first game was last Saturday, and they have another tomorrow.

First Day of School!

2010-08-26T16:29:00.002-04:00

Hey Mom, it's bright out here!

Waiting for the bus:

Oh wait--the 'bus' is in the garage.

We were very excited to send Carver off to his first day of school today. This year, he is enrolled in a brand new start up school, called Bloomington Christian Schoolhouse (I think--I never actually double-checked the name!). This is a hybrid school model, where Carver is at home with me for the first three days of the week, and then off to school for the last two. The teacher makes up lesson plans that help the parents know how to keep up on the at-home days. The school has been started up by a few of the families in our church, who love the academic rigor and character-building aspects of homeschooling, but dislike the all-consuming nature of it. So this way, the moms can have a couple mornings off a week to minister to the church, or maybe just minister to their younger children (that's me!). For us, it is an ideal set-up. Carver is surrounded by girls at home. At school, he has a few boys right about his age, and he is responsible to a male teacher for his work. The set-up of the school is like a one-room schoolhouse: grades 1-7 are in the same room, doing the same subjects at the same time, but on different levels. So, there's the gist of it! I could go on and on about how much I love the set-up, the curriculum, the teacher, the discpline, every part of it, but I'll quit there.

On a different note, David told me not to cry as I dropped Carver off this morning. That thought had never even entered my mind! Maybe I've just seen for a while now how Carver would benefit being around other boys, maybe it's because I love the idea, or maybe I was just happy to get rid of him :) That's not true at all, but it was nice to have all day with girls, reading books, folding laundry, reading more books, doing math with Ellie...it was just a laid back day, and I think it will help me to sustain the pace of our homeschooling schedule throughout the year to have two days to stop and take a breath.

Carver jumped in the car at 3:30, totally thrilled with school. He said, "Mom, I actually like school!" And he came home singing Latin verbs, so I've got some catching up to do!

Snapshots of the Lake

2010-08-07T10:37:00.003-04:00

Fun at the Lake

2010-08-07T10:30:00.002-04:00

Movies!

2010-07-06T20:49:00.001-04:00

David's cool new camera can do movies with sound! So here are some of the things we've been doing:

Random pics...

2010-07-05T20:23:00.000-04:00

...from David's camera.

Carver turns 7!

2010-07-04T19:34:00.004-04:00

I can't believe how the time has flown by. It seems like yesterday we moved to Bloomington and he was a cranky 6-week-old. No more! Every day he gets bigger, and I marvel as I see God working in his life. We are always praying that Carver will grow in wisdom and understanding as he grown in stature.

This year, we decided to have a party for him. We've never done this, and it seemed like it was probably time. So we invited all the boys from his Sunday School class, and while a few couldn't make it, we had a great turn out of 8 boys (and Ellie :). We started off with the slip-n-slide:

Sad Rose only got to watch from the inside:

After a few more water games, we moved to a cup-tower building contest in the shaded garage. Here's Carver with one of his best friends, Samuel:

And Dad and Ellie really knocked out the competition:

After that was cake and presents (sorry--no presents pictures. I had to deal with sick Laura inside and missed that part):

And Spiderman tattoos:

Then, on to racing toy cars down the slip-n-slide:

Ellie had a blast on the slip-n-slide:

To finish the afternoon up, David did a quick devotional with the boys.

The most amazing part? Yesterday was David's birthday! He spent the whole day in preparation for Carver's party, and then running the party almost entirely on his own, since I had Laura sick upstairs. What an amazing dad! David and I had his apple pie celebration after the kids were in bed. I think this every year at this time, but I'm so thankful for my two boys!

Oh, Sweet Rose...

2010-06-28T16:40:00.002-04:00

Here is a tiny taste of Rose's handiwork this afternoon.

Yes, that is gray paint on the carpet in the shape of her sweet little hand. I've been redoing our master bathroom, and had left some paint in a cup uncovered (stupid!). I have been really diligent to shut the door, but apparently not this morning. While I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, the kids were playing. I knew that Rose had climbed up the stairs and that Carver had followed her up. 5 minutes later, I heard, "Mom, Rose has blue paint all over her!" I went upstairs to find gray/blue paint all over Rose, the bathroom, and the carpet in our room. I threw her in the tub and had a complete meltdown. All I had to do was shut the door earlier! Or take the paint to the garage! What was I thinking? After calming down a little bit, I was able to call a sweet friend up the road, and she came down, helped me clean up Rose, and then started in on the rest of the mess while I put all the kids down for naps. Then she and I worked together on the mess for 2 more hours. Thanks to her paint-getting-out skills the bathroom is completely clean. The carpet still has a little tint of gray, but I'm hoping after it dries you won't notice. I'm sure that in about 10 years I'll look back at this and laugh. In the meantime, I'll never leave paint out in the open again!

Week with Joy

2010-06-18T08:48:00.003-04:00

Joy is here for the week! We've been having tons of fun so far: swim lessons, jogging, painting Carver's bed, and Sam's Club on Wednesday; swim lessons, blueberry picking, picnic, and Mother's Bear's yesterday; and early birthday presents, blueberry pie and pool today! Tomorrow Joy's on her own while David, Rose, and I are off to a wedding, but she looks like she's going to make it just fine :)

I only got pictures of the picnic after blueberry picking yesterday. Sadly, I don't even have a picture of our insane blueberry amount: 20 pounds of blueberries!! We froze some, have been eating a lot, and will be making a few desserts this weekend.

We'll see how much more we can cram into the next few days!

Frock by Friday (finally!) and other tidbits

2010-05-25T17:15:00.001-04:00

Finally, here is my completely Frock-by-Friday! I've actually had it done for a few weeks, but finally decided to wear it today. It's actually perfect for summer! I ended up modifying it a little bit--I lengthened the ruffle to extend all the way down the bodice, and the hem was way, way too short, so I added a second skirt beneath the first to lengthen it. There was definitely a learning curve--I forgot to cut seam allowances, and had to adjust accordingly as I went along. I did end up making a second one out of different fabric, as long as I had the drill down, but who knows when I'll get a picture of that :) Over at Grosgrain, she's doing another Frock-by-Friday this week, a button-down shirt-dress. Very fun! I'll be doing it again, but we have a crazy week and weekend, so it might make me longer than the given week.

And, yes, you did notice something on my nose. Maybe you didn't. But I'll show you a little closer:

I went all hippie this weekend and got my nose pierced! What's the fun of living in crunchy, washed-up-hippie-land Bloomington if you don't pierce something?? It's also Biblical! So that was part of our anniversary date last Saturday night. Pretty fun! And yes, it is blue. And yes, for a certain sister who might be worried about her wedding pictures, I can put a clear plastic stud in if you want me to :)

Happy Anniversary to us!

2010-05-23T21:45:00.002-04:00

8 years today! 8 years and 4 kids--not too shabby, eh?

Haircuts for the girls

2010-05-11T17:10:00.004-04:00

Today was haircut day. I cut their hair myself, mostly because I swore I would after receiving a very mediocre haircut with Ellie when she was 2. I mean, seriously, how do you mess up a 2-year old's hair? This lady did. So ever since, I've been doing it myself, usually with help from some online tutorial. I figure, with three girls, I'll eventually figure it out, right?

I was very pleased with the way Ellie's turned out. Her hair is so, so thin, that I think short haircuts look better on her. And, I'm a sucker for short haircuts. Those of you who knew me in high school and college can attest to that. It wasn't quite what I had envisioned, but with a squirming 4-year-old standing naked in the tub trying to escape, I was happy with what I got. Generally even, no obvious missing chunks:

Laura's turned out well, too, though she wasn't willing to ham it up for the camera in quite the same way as Ellie :) I'm trying to grow her bangs out, a little at a time. So when I trim her bangs, I trim fewer and fewer of them, and pull the long ones back with a clip. It works pretty well, until she pulls the clip out.

But the true test is Dad's opinion when he gets home! We hope he likes them!

The Littlest Gardener

2010-05-08T17:47:00.002-04:00

My favorite part is how she's not much taller than the garden shovel!

I planted, Ellie watered...

2010-04-29T21:04:00.000-04:00

...but God causes things to grow! Isn't spring amazing?

Vintage Dress

2010-04-24T13:57:00.002-04:00

This dress was my mother's when she was a baby.

Photoshoot with an Orange

2010-04-23T16:19:00.001-04:00

Look familiar?

2010-04-23T10:49:00.000-04:00

How the kids occupy themselves...

2010-04-22T15:26:00.002-04:00

...while we dig in the yard.

Our last two weeks...

2010-04-22T14:52:00.003-04:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks around here. I definitely feel like real life has been put on hold as we try to finish up this plumbing project. The plumbers came Friday and replaced our water main, and they did a great job. If you're in Bloomington with a plumbing problem, I definitely, definitely recommend Aim to Please Plumbing. They were super professional and remarkably clean. They're a small, family-owned Christian business, and they were great to work with. After they left, David and I started the ridiculous task of putting all that dirt back in the trench. Interesting how once dirt is out, it doesn't seem to fit back in very well. One or both of us has been working on it for a few hours every day since, and the yard finally looks mostly normal. Yay!

With the weather report calling for rain for the next two or three days, we're hoping to get my plants back in tonight and get grass seed spread across the whole thing. My plans for a bigger garden have gone by the wayside, as I am currently having nightmares about cleaning Indiana clay off my shoes. We'll just be happy to get it back to the way it was. As sick as I am of digging and dirt, I've taken a few breaks this week to do other, more enjoyable tasks. I cleaned up the front porch, got all my pots out for the summer, and got them cleaned up and filled with dirt. I'm trying something new on the front porch this year: garden veggies in the pots. We'll see how it goes! Hopefully we'll get some fun produce out of it!

I've also been keeping a keen eye on Craig's List here in town, and have found two awesome items in the past two weeks. This one was $10 from a guy who's selling everything to go work on a dock in Alaska for the summer. Interesting dude. I love the table, because it's gorgeous, and because it will provide us with a little extra table space when small group is here on Sunday. It's always nice for people to have a place to put their drinks while they're trying to eat off a place in their laps :)

This is a king footboard that I found for $20. I'm in the process of painting it white, and then I'll figure out a way to affix it to the wall behind our bed as a decorative headboard. Our bedroom has been a work in progress for the past 18 months, but I think once the headbaord is done, I'll finally be able to post before and after pics!

I've also found a great sewing project that I'm going to try: A Frock by Friday. I got the idea off of B's blog, and I've got another friend in town enlisted in the project. Should be fun! I'll try to post an after pic of that, too!

The kids have had various things going on, including finalizing flower girl dresses for my sister's wedding, reading books to Laura, starting a new science program with Carver for the summer, and teaching Carver some about how cars work. Our Odyssey has a loose connection between [something] and the battery, causing the car not to start. We thought it was the battery, but then found that when the jumper cable was attached to one of the battery posts, the car started just fine. So the way I started my car today to get to Wal Mart was by standing, holding the connection, and having Carver start the car. He LOVES it. I think he's hoping we won't bother to fix the problem, and just let him start the car all the time. I was hoping that, once at Wal Mart, the car would start up magically on it's own, but to no avail. Fortunately, I had parked in the back of the lot to attract as little attention to myself as possible as I propped the hood and put my 6-year-old in the driver's seat. But it worked like a charm! He was disappointed that I wouldn't let him drive home, but that's a lesson for another day.

So, that's a snapshot of life around here for the past two weeks! Feeling a little loopy, but hoping that all the craziness will be over soon!

New Bikes!

2010-04-12T13:52:00.000-04:00

Carver got his birthday present from us way early this year. He has really outgrown his old bike, and now that the weather is nice, he's been outside every single day. So we decided to go ahead and get him the next size up bike. As a result, Ellie got a "new" bike also. She still needs the training wheels, but otherwise she's doing great. She also got a new helmet, since her head is huge and had outgrown the littler one. Sadly, her little legs are not quite strong enough yet to ride her bike on my 3-mile walk. Since Rose is getting pretty heavy to carry in the backpack, I need Ellie's spot in the double stroller for her. I haven't quite figured out how I'll get my walks in this summer. Hopefully the more Ellie practices, the longer she'll be able to go.

Saturday activities

2010-04-11T13:39:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was our church's women's retreat. It was a great day away for me--I learned a lot, and got to have sweet fellowship time with women that I love. As expected, I came home to a relative amount of chaos. David and 5 other guys were digging up the front yard, and the kids had been running loose all afternoon. They were in pretty good shape, considering. Ellie was very happy to see Rose, and she had the bright idea to have Rose ride the tricycle with her. Rose loved it!

At dinnertime, we fed everybody pizza, beer, soda and oreos. Here is what they were able to accomplish:

Pretty good, huh? They were able to find the pipe, but have seen no sign of the leak yet. We think there is about 10 feet more of digging until the water line dives into the foundation, and we're desperately hoping to find the leak in those 10 feet. While they were able to spare my front garden, it's not looking so good for the side garden now. Oh well--I guess those plants were ready for dividing, anyway...

The Black Hole

2010-04-05T21:50:00.002-04:00

...of mud.

We love our home. We have been so thankful to have a home here, and while it seemed huge when we bought it, God has blessed us and filled it with children. But, with the joy of home ownership come the, uh, responsibilities of home ownership. Like, when stuff breaks, you have to fix it. Bummer. Where's the landlord on this place, anyway?

So we have a leaky pipe somewhere in our front yard. David has started the excavation, and it looks like this at the moment:

This week, the hole will get bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until he finds that elusive water pipe and is able to locate the leak. Then the plumber will come and patch the leak, and all will be well! We hope. In the meantime, I'm trying to convince him that, as long as we're digging up the entire front yard, why not plant a huge, gorgeous, lush garden? We're already doing all the hard work anyway. And by we, I mean him (and the neighbor, who came over for an hour on Friday to help). But I have to time my garden appeals well: asking when he's up to his neck in mud, up to his ankles in leaking water that seems to have no source, back aching from digging and trying to throw mud out of the hole, so far hasn't furthered my cause much. But, tomorrow's another day :)

He is Risen!

2010-04-04T21:27:00.003-04:00

He is risen indeed!

Every year, I have a slightly different idea of what sort of activity I want to do on Easter. Some years, we have dyed eggs. Last year, we did a "spring party" on a week completely separate from Easter that included egg hunts, candy, fancy breakfast, and presents. This year, I was not feeling terribly ambitious, so all we did was a fun breakfast and presents before church. I didn't even dye eggs. (But don't tell the kids--I don't think they know they missed out! I can only get away with that for a few more years :) So the kids came down to a fun table this morning, with presents in a basket, Peter Rabbit plates, cinnamon rolls for us and GF banana chocolate chip muffins for Ellie.

The presents were a big hit:

And here's everybody before church (Ellie grumpy about something, but I can't remember what--it's better that way):

And don't worry! The meaning of Easter was not lost for the kids this year. We went to Maundy Thursday service, after reading about how Jesus served his disciples by washing their feet before the last supper. On Friday, we attended Good Friday service, read the story of the crucifixion, and discussed why Good Friday is "Good" when it seems like it should be "Bad." Yesterday we waited, knowing what would happen today. And today we praised God for raising His Son to redeem us! It was a joyful morning! We also had the privilege of picking up an international student on campus this morning so that she could come with us and experience and American Easter. She is from Malaysia, and is Muslim. She was very sweet, and enjoyed being around the kids. David spent a lot of time talking to her, was able to share the gospel with her. She will not be going home to Malaysia this summer, so we're hoping to get to spend more time with her.

He is risen indeed!

I Don't Think He'll Have to Wait Until Christmas...

2010-03-26T20:08:00.002-04:00

The question is--will he have David's straight teeth genes, or my keep-the-orthodontist-in-business genes?

Vacation at Lake of the Ozarks, MO

2010-03-21T20:04:00.003-04:00

This Spring Break, David's parents generously gave us a week in their time-share. You can choose different locations to take your week, and we decided to head down to the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri (which the kids have been calling 'misery'). So, after David got back from his second conference in as many weeks, we took off to this beautiful region of Missouri. I had given the kids sunglasses as a fun vacation treat, and they loved them. Ellie, especially, wore hers constantly. Here they are around the breakfast table the first morning:

The first day was a little rainy, so we actually did a boringly typical tourist activity: the outlet malls. The good news: we found some great deals on things we needed, including matching Easter dresses for the girls. And I splurged on an awesome spring rain coat from Eddie Bauer. Mmmmm, Eddie Bauer...

The second day was still rainy, so we headed down to the Bridal Cave, about 1/2 hour south of where we were staying, but still on the lake. We were the only people on the tour with 4 small children (in fact, the only other people with children had one 8 or 10 year old), so we got a few dubious looks as we joined the group, but the kids behaved marvelously. They didn't even freak out in the tunnels, which I was a little worried about. Carver thought all the formations were cool, and can now tell you the difference between a 'live' cave and a 'dead' cave.

We finished up the trip with lunch in a park, and made our plans for naps and wii and pool in the afternoon.

Ha Ha Tonka State Park

2010-03-21T19:59:00.002-04:00

Our final day there was a beautiful, sunny, 65-degree day. We decided to drive down to Ha Ha Tonka State Park. The park has many trails and caves, but we tried to pick a few trails that would be short enough for the kids. So first, we did a natural bridge hike (about 1/2 mile), an then took a break for lunch. After lunch, we stopped by the castle ruins, but more on that in a minute.

Castle

2010-03-21T19:54:00.003-04:00

Our final stop at Ha Ha Tonka was the castle ruins. They were amazing. It's a European-style castle, built by a Kansas City businesman in the early 20th century. He died a year after construction began, but his son finished the building project. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground 20 years later. While tourists are not allowed inside the castle walls, walking around the perimeter it pretty fun in itself. Can you imagine living in a real castle? I think, after this, I can.

Mini Golf

2010-03-21T19:47:00.002-04:00

On the final day, we also went mini golfing. The place is called Sugar Creek, and it is a beautiful mini golf course. It was pretty busy the day we were there, and I can't imagine what it must look like in the summer. It was set in the woods, with frontier-style buildings throughout the course. Very fun.

However, golfing with small children is a little more stressful that I had originally anticipated :). Imagine clubs swinging like baseball bats, Laura handing me her ball halfway through a hole and announcing she's done, David and me watching as they push the ball all over the green. The kids had a good time, though, and David and I survived with no injuries, so I'm sure the good memory for them was worth it. Next time we'll leave the kids with the grandparents and go by ourselves.

That's it for our trip pictures. We had a great time, and really enjoyed the restful break. Thanks for the opportunity, Grandma and Grandpa!

On our own...

2010-03-04T12:38:00.003-05:00

David left this morning for a trip to Memphis, where he'll be presenting a paper at a conference. He'll be back late Sunday, so I'm in simple survival mode until then. School has been reduced to a bare minimum--like taking a walk this morning and looking at the trees along the way. They're learning, right?

When a sweet friend called a few minutes ago to ask if she could take Carver and Ellie for the day to have them play with her kids, I jumped at the chance. That will let me get my Wal Mart and Sam's errands done with only two children, which is a huge improvement on 4. So Laura and Rose and I are alone for the day, and I'm remembering back to the days when I just had two. Looking back, it seems like two would be so easy! But I remember feeling overwhelmed many days with just Carver and Ellie. I guess God gives you the grace to handle exactly what He's given you, and adds more grace the more He gives! And even two children He certainly used to sanctify me, and He's working on me more and more then more He gives me. Not that I'm a great learner. We had several bad yelling incidents this week. (Do you like the way I put that? Like they just happened, nobody was at fault. Somehow, the yelling just started.) Let me rephrase--I yelled sinfully at the kids several times this week, and hated the fact that I had to go ask for forgiveness. Maybe I need more children so I can be sanctified more :)

All that to say--thank you, Dawn, for letting me do grocery shopping with only 2!

Did I mention that we took a walk this morning? I think 40 is certainly warm enough. And with the birds chirping, it sounds like spring, anyway. I think it took me a solid 20 minutes just to get everybody in coats, hats, gloves, shoes, and jammed in the stroller (or on the appropriate bike). I'm wondering if I get to count all that running around as added calorie burn. Probably not any more than usual. Ellie rode her bike, and made it for our entire 3-mile loop around the neighborhood. I was very impressed, and Carver repeatedly told her that he was proud of her.

So, now, the part you've been waiting for: pictures! This first one is one that I just found on the flash card when I put it in the computer--I have no idea how long it's been there.

And here are the babies as we start out on our walk:

Yes, that's a rotten banana peel on the ground. I don't know how it go there either. I did go throw it away, though, to the great relief of our neighbors.

Hopefully, as the weather warms up, I'll be taking more pictures to post!

Log Cabin, anyone?

2010-02-25T08:16:00.001-05:00

For sale, right here in Indiana!
Go check it out!

Carver loves poker!

2010-02-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

With friends over for dinner the other night, Carver definitely gave us a run for our money as we played poker after the girls were in bed. In the end, he and Dad tied after the rest of us were out. Pretty funny, isn't it?

Grand Rapids

2010-02-04T10:33:00.002-05:00

We took this past weekend and went and visited friends in Grand Rapids. It's the same bunch that we spent time with in Chicago in October, and it was once again a great weekend. We're tired, but it was worth it! After staying up until 1 playing games on Friday, we got up on Saturday morning for a fun trip. Lisa, knowing that 9 kids would drive each other nuts if kept around the house all day, had arranged a field trip to a local fire station--super fun! Fireman Dan started the presentation with a video about fire safety, and then demonstrating the gear that he has to wear in a fire. The kids were fascinated (except the little ones, who were a little scared):

Here they are, demonstrating their "stop, drop, and roll" skills:

After that, Fireman Brian showed us around the trucks.

He even let the kids climb up in the driver's seat and try out the lights (he wouldn't let them try the sirens!).

Definitely a fun outing! I will have to keep that idea in mind!

After another late night playing games and talking (3 AM this time!), we all got up on Sunday morning and went to church to worship together. There is something about worshiping with good friends that is just wonderful. It kind of took me back to college days of going to church together (except now there are a lot more kids to corral in the pews!). Here are the group pictures before church, everybody dressed in their Sunday best:

I don't have a picture of all the adults yet--sorry Lisa and Emily! I need to photoshop me into the picture, and who knows how long that will take me :) But here is one that Emily took of us and the Simpsons--it turned out great! Thank you, Emily! I wish we'd done the same for you!

For a few more cute baby pics, go check out Emily's post, here.

All right, enough time spent on the computer--off to tackle math and handwriting!

Rose Goes Green

2010-02-04T09:59:00.002-05:00

Quite literally, in this case!

After a presentation at BloomingMoms on cloth diapering, I was inspired to give it a go. For me, the draw is money saved every month. While it's a little hard to gauge how much it costs me to launder each diaper, by my calculations, we could save up to $80 a month, after the initial diaper investment, which would take about 6 months to make up. So I poked around on the internet a little, and decided that FuzziBunz are the brand I like. Fortunately, a friend of mine uses this exact same brand, and generously offered to let me borrow some of her stash for a few weeks to see how I like them. So, we started with excitement this morning! Here's Rose, in her "green" diaper:

Isn't she cute?

In other news, she is dangerously close to crawling, which I am decidedly not ready for:

She has also had several exciting developments this week. We moved her out of our room into the girls' room, and she's doing very well in there. In fact, she has slept through the night the past two nights!! Yay!!

6 months!

2010-01-20T23:09:00.003-05:00

Rose is 6 months already (well, actually, last Friday, but what can I say? Life's a little crazy around here:). I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. She is a super sweet baby, and I just want to freeze every precious moment in time. I know that soon she'll be a potty training 2-year old who I've seen running around the house naked a few too many times this week (not that that actually happens around here or anything), or possibly a vocal 4 year old, singing at the top of her lungs at the dinner table (we're wondering if you can install one of those sound guards like you see in limos over the dining room table??). Rose rolls over proficiently, and has been trying to push her way up to her hands and knees lately. She smiles frequently, but is a little slower to laugh. She is learning how her vocal chords work, and has been making this crazy growling noise lately, prompting Dad to ask after dinner the other evening who had invited the exorcist over. I think her favorite sibling is Ellie, who loves to get in her face and talk to her. She's not sleeping through the night yet, but we're working on it; and she's so cute I don't really mind seeing her in the middle of the night, anyway. She hasn't started solids for real yet, but she's filling out 6-12 month clothes no problem, which makes me wonder why I can't get these last few baby pounds off. Oh well. I'd rather be chubby than send Rose back!

A couple new blogs to go check out...

2010-01-20T12:56:00.000-05:00

I've got a few new blogs for you to go peruse (because, like me, I know you all have tons of time to spend reading on the internet):

The first is the blog home of our church's church planting ministry, Clear Note Fellowship. The posts that are already up there are great, and I'm looking forward to an upcoming post by one certain philosophy Ph.D. candidate.

The second is a companion blog to the first, The ClearNote Ladies Blog. I'm very excited about this one, and proud to call the women writing my friends!

New Cookbooks!

2010-01-14T15:49:00.002-05:00

I was very excited to get two GF cookbooks for Christmas this year:

It is a bit of a slow process to get started in gluten-free baking because of the expense of the various flours and other things that you have to buy. I have been having David stop at the local health food store every Tuesday (their 10% off day) for the past few weeks, getting just a few ingredients every time. I finally have a critical mass of ingredients to start baking things, and Ellie has been my happy food critic. Actually, she's not much of a critic. Here's how the conversation goes:
me: "Ellie, I made you some chocolate muffins!"
E: "Really, that I can eat?"
me: "Yep."
E: "How many can I have right now?"

I've also made a GF sourdough starter, though haven't tried making bread with it yet, and tonight we'll be having corn muffins with dinner. The chocolate chip muffins were actually delicious, I would have no trouble passing them off as normal. I froze most of the dozen, after letting the other kids split one, and she gets them when the rest of us are having some dessert that she can't have.

My other fun new cookbook is something that I just decided to splurge on and buy for myself:

I've been using their whole wheat basic recipe for a while now, which can be found for free here. We have enjoyed it, so I went ahead and bought the book, which promises healthy, and even some GF recipes. The UPS man brought it from amazon today, and I've been using every excuse to nurse Rose so that I can sit and read it for a few minutes. So far, I'm loving it! There will be many breads coming from our kitchen this winter!

Solids!

2010-01-05T15:31:00.002-05:00

I've never been very excited about baby food. I find it a little disgusting and either expensive or very time consuming to make. With Laura, we skipped "baby food" almost entirely, and instead just gave her stuff from our meal, either mashed or cut up really small. So, I was very excited to realize this afternoon at lunch that the red lentil, sweet potato, and carrot soup I made last night easily converts to baby food! Rose and I shared a bowl at lunch(with me getting the vast majority of it), and she seemed to like it. But then I remembered my one rule about solids: wait until they don't spit up anymore to give them real food! I had to change her outfit shortly after lunch after watching her regurgitate a combo of milk and soup. Yummy!

Let it snow!

2009-12-28T16:15:00.003-05:00

Some days I look at Ellie and wonder how she got so big. Here's one of those moments for me!

Because you've all been dying to see my quarter cow...

2009-12-16T15:11:00.002-05:00

This is now our freezer. And, yes, the entire contents before yesterday morning fit into the door. Lucky for me!

There Were 10 in the Bed...

2009-12-10T10:59:00.000-05:00

Awww...

2009-12-06T21:20:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, I get these moments as a mom where I realize that God has been faithful, even through my many sins in parenting. I had one of those tonight (actually, it's been an ongoing conversation between me and Carver over the past few days, but I finally put it all together tonight) at dinner. Carver was trying to tell David and me what he wanted to get the girls for Christmas, and we were explaining to him that he shouldn't be trying to have that conversation sitting next to them at the restaurant booth. But then it hit me--he wants to get Christmas gifts for his sisters! How cool is that? So I told him that he and I can go and do it tomorrow when the babysitter comes to play with the girls for an hour.

Here's the great part--guess what he wants to get them? He wants to get them burp cloths for their baby-dolls (we'll be making those of felt so that all he has to do is cut squares--no sewing involved), and he wants to go and get silk flowers to make a bouquet of "fresh" flowers to put on their kitchen! How sweet is that?

Rose pics

2009-12-04T15:27:00.000-05:00

Rose plays pinochle

2009-11-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

Ellie helps change Rose

2009-11-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T15:01:00.002-05:00

Here are the kids, trying to amuse themselves while we get dinner on the table!

And here's our full dinner table!

Shameless, shameless plug...

2009-11-09T18:50:00.002-05:00

I've been making baby carriers for about two years now, mostly for myself and women in the church. Now that I have an infant again, I've had many people stop me in the store and ask where I got my baby carrier. After writing my info down on a piece of scrap paper from my purse yesterday in JoAnn's, I've decided to try to become a little more official. I'll be printing up business cards and carrying those with me to pass out to women who ask. Wish me luck!

So, with no further ado, here's the site:

www.mrstalcott.etsy.com

I almost forgot! The friends, family, and CGS (not that they wouldn't fit into the first category :) discount is $10!!

Fall Hike

2009-11-07T16:07:00.003-05:00

Laura update

2009-11-03T10:48:00.001-05:00

At the suggestion of my Dad, I took Laura to the pediatrician yesterday. I really should've been clued in by the fact that she had been waking up every hour for 4 nights, but it was only when she stopped being able to hear me yesterday that I realized she might have an ear infection. Sure enough, she has a double ear infection and one burst eardrum. Fortunately, our favorite pediatrician and antibiotics can make it all better! And, much to our relief, she slept through the night last night! Thank you, Lord, for modern medicine!

Halloween

2009-10-31T19:54:00.003-04:00

I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween. The first year we lived here, we passed out candy (Carver was just a baby), and I was so bothered by the ungratefulness and greediness of the kids who came knocking that we quit for two years. At that point, a friend of ours said to us, "Why is it that on the holiday where most Americans open up their front doors and are friendly with their neighbors, we Christians hide upstairs with the lights turned off?" We found that pretty convincing, and have been doing Halloween ever since. I'm still frustrated when kids walk up to the door, mutter something about "trick-or-treat", grab an entire handful of candy (at which point I tell them "1 please!"), and walk away without saying thank you. But for the most part, it has been fun to get out and see what the neighbors are wearing and get to say hi to their kids as they come asking for candy.

Here are our three, just about to start out.

Actually, you'll notice that Laura looks a little under the weather. We gave her the award for scariest costume: H1N1 Dino. She and Rose and I stayed home to pass out candy and the swine flu to ungrateful Halloween-goers :)

We invited several church families to trick-or-treat again with us this year. We had 17 kids total. Pretty good, huh?

Here's our little pandemic dino:

Side note: We don't know if she actually has the swine flu. We're not going to get her tested unless she develops respiratory problems, at which point we'll be headed to the ER, stat! Please pray that she gets over it safely, and that none of the others get it!

Rose makes dinner

2009-10-28T14:51:00.001-04:00

Firepit!

2009-10-26T11:32:00.001-04:00

David dug a firepit for us in the backyard. Pretty fun! It would've been more fun if I thought to buy s'more stuff...

Sunday afternoon snack

2009-10-25T18:03:00.001-04:00

First Sleepover

2009-10-24T11:28:00.000-04:00

Awww...