A blog while grieving

I have to tell you all about this blog. In my years of dealing with pregnancy loss and infertility, I gained a passion and a respect for people who are able to walk bravely and to clearly verbalize their pain and grief. Last August, a family from our old church in Atlanta lost their baby. This is the blog of Samuel’s grieving mother. Please read this blog if you have ever had anything to grieve over yourself, or if someone close to you has had to grieve a tremendous loss.

Samuel’s Heart

SNOW on SNOW on SNOW!

I think snow is what I missed most when we lived in Atlanta besides my family and friends. It’s now been snowing here since mid December I think, without getting above freezing to melt it. The kids and I have been stuck in the house (potty training) since Wednesday and the most recent snow fall. I am getting tired of being inside, but every time I look outside it is worth it.

Views outside our windows:

See Jadon’s sweet face just inside the window? I think the kids love it as much as I do. Jadon always has a big smile on his face when we talk about it and Eliza goes “oooohhh” whenever we look outside.

Family Pictures

In November, we finally got family pictures done. Took a couple tries, but we finally did them the last weekend the fall leaves were up. I am SO excited to share some of them!

Josh had a friend at work do them for us. If you like them, we’d be happy to pass on his info. He was really great with the kids and did a wonderful job in a very short amount of time we had. We highly recommend him.

THE shot

Just to try to keep up my desire to blog for real, I am going to post about my decision and feelings about our flu shots.

I have had several people ask me if we were getting the shots and why. So, I thought I’d write them down. But I want people to know I think this is a personal decision and I completely respect everyone’s direction they go with for themselves and their families.

The kids and I all got our H1N1 shots last week. I couldn’t drive fast enough, in sleet, to get to the place I heard was offering them in KC. I decided to get them for the following reasons:

1. For the selfish reason that I don’t want to freak out every time I forget to wash the kids hands before they eat or play with a friend who has a fever an hour after our play date. I can drive myself crazy before the holidays or during an outbreak with stuff like that.

2. As a pregnant person with other health concerns I didn’t want to put myself and the baby at an unneeded risk, plus I’ve heard that it can help the baby’s immune system too and since I probably can’t breastfeed, I want to give it the best immune system that I can. Although people have been fearful that this shot was manufactured fast, I haven’t heard any reason this flu shot is any more dangerous than the yearly shot. But most importantly, I learned while trying to get pregnant and then going through my pregnancy with Eliza while on arthritis medication, that you have to weigh the risks vs. benefits sometimes and then just go with the decision and not feel guilty about the “what ifs.”

3. I think we have the most effective vaccination system the world has ever known and our generation has never lived through a “plague” or dealt with anything close to polio or wide spread measles so we’ve lost touch with how devastating that could be. Our kids don’t even have to get the chicken pox any more. It’s easy with all of our conveniences and up to date medicine to get out of touch with the reality that for every shot my child takes, thousands, if not millions of children have died from that disease before.

Now, this is NOT to get into the debate about autism or vacinations related to that argument. I have strong emotions for many people involved in that debate and I do not want to touch on that on our blog.

I just have had several people ask me if we were getting the shots and why. So, I thought I’d write them down.

**For the record, that is the LAST time I am going to be able to fool Jadon into getting a shot by simply not saying the word “shot” until his pants start coming down. My boy WILL NOT be fooled again. But a sucker bribe, that may still at least soothe the wounds.**

What have you decided?

My Best Friend’s Wedding. . . . blog

My friend Jenni just got ENGAGED!!!!!!! WOO HOO JENNI AND BRANT!!!!

Everyone has GOT to be happy for a girl who’s name will be Jennifer Szambecki-Benninga!!! Doesn’t get any better than that! I am pretty sure they’ll never be able to move to a foriegn country because no one will be able to pronounce her name.

She has the benefit of planing a wedding at the age of 30, when she knows better than to go into debt for it.

Here’s her blog on how she’s doing it.

A Truly Affordable Wedding

Oh, and on a side note, whoever invented these:

I want to give a bear hug!

(yes, on facebook, I wanted to kiss them. I’ve decided I am not as excited about the hooks as I am Jenni’s wedding so I didn’t want to cause the post to get off balance)

Announcement!

We are pregnant again!!!

Believe me, it surprised us too! After 3 years of not getting pregnant and excitedly welcoming home Jadon, we didn’t think #3 would come so soon. But he or she is coming!!!!

Answers to questions:

I am about 14 1/2 weeks now and the due date is around May 16th.

We are not finding out the sex. We wanted to know with Eliza, but since we have all the supplies (except for newborn boy stuff) and the baby will just have to bunk with someone most of it’s life, there’s really no reason we want to find out until the big day.

The two youngest siblings will be 15 months apart and Jadon will be a young 3 years old when the baby is born. We are buckling our seat belts!

We still hope to adopt again once these children are in Elementary school. We continue to have a HUGE heart for adoption and we also desire Jadon to grow up with another adopted sibling, hopefully also Latino.

Only God knows why we couldn’t get pregnant for 3 years and now we can. Probably had to do with my undiagnosed arthritis. We were completely at peace with building our entire family through adoption (although we knew we’d carry the ache of infertility with us the rest of our lives and my heart still hurts for those of you reading this who carry that burden). We remind our selves when we get extremely overwhelmed that if you would have told us 3 years ago that we’d have 3 kids in 3 years, we would have said, “Bring it on!”

I am blessed to experience pregnancy again because with Eliza I was fearful the entire time. My fears were always of the worst and even in the hospital with her I think I had my defenses up in case something happened. I was just used to thinking my body couldn’t do it. But now, I’ve experienced that it can. Plus, I don’t have time to worry. Many blessings with this one.

On with the ride!

I have high hopes

I have high hopes I’ll be a blogger again. Here’s my first attempt.

For now, I’ll try to share some pictures from our vacation that we just returned from. Only a few have been downloaded. But I’ll try to tell the story with what I have.

We began our extended week by driving to Nashville to do Halloween with Aunt Bekah and Uncle Jeff.

Here’s our little Handy Manny and cutie-patootie flower. I love this picture!

Then we drove through the Smoky Mountains to Glenville, NC to stay at an amazing lake house in the Nanahalah National Forest. The home belonged to the generous family I used to nanny for in Atlanta. Here’s the view from the back porch.

It was INCREDIBLE!!

Okay, side note. I am realizing that the photos Josh has downloaded are ones he took on his iphone. So, bad news is, we are missing most of the pictures we took with each other and with other people. Good news is, the downloading onto the blog is going really fast and I may get this post done before nap time is over!

After 3 days in the mountains, we drove to Atlanta for four CRAZY BUSY days of visiting the people we long to still be living life with. Most of the Atlanta pictures were taken with our camera so I’ll share them later (cross my fingers). For now, I’ll share the pictures Josh took on his phone in order to tweet them. Mostly, they are of the restaurants we have been hungering for a year now.

Here’s an artsy one of Eliza at a Buckhead breakfast stop:

Here’s our favorite Atlanta restaurant and their fish tacos:

We went to church on Sunday. It is hard to let go of our church and the idea of our kids growing up in the children’s ministry there. Jadon liked getting his picture under the taxi tower.

Then, there was the beautiful drive we used to take every day to our old house.

sigh. We miss the city and the people so much.

Finally, there was the drive home, ALL NIGHT Sunday night. Overall we spent around 40 hours in the car with a 9 month old and a 2 1/2 year old. . . . . . . . . the kids did A M A Z I N G L Y well!!! Here’s a picture of them at 5:30am on Monday morning when were were about 2 hours from Kansas City. Can you believe it? (mom and dad weren’t doing as well)

To close it all out. I’ll show you a picture that sums up how Eliza feels out her trip to the area of the country that is a big part of her family, but she never really lived in.

I think her words were, “Wha, what?! When yo’ taking me back to The ATL, my parentals? I already miss my peeps!”

Yeah, laugh at me all you want. Her words, not mine.

Soli Deo Gloria

Check out this cutie being united with his family in November from Ethiopia!

TWLOHA

“We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she’s known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true. “

“We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home.”

Josh and I have been reminded of the organization “To Write Love on Her Arms.” This is an excerpt from the story that started the movement to present hope and find help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide.

I am inspired and challenged.

A Long Way from the Theta House

This is my favorite blog. I have been impressed with this family for a long time. . . . let me rephrase that. . . . I have been impressed with the way this family allows God to use them to transform one of the roughest parts of the country with His love.

Check out “Hood Mama Mel’s” blog today. Read about her newest challenge. Pray for them.

a long way from the Theta house