Family Vacation, San Diego 2009

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Blessings & Loss

Our family has had some tough times this past year, although we are still blessed beyond belief. We have some amazing times together as you can tell from the blog. I think there are few parents out there that cherish their children as we do ours, but I am biased!
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In Aug. 2008 we suffered our first miscarraige (MC). I knew it would be a difficult thing to have to go through, I had always told myself if there's one thing I didn't want to have to go through it's a MC, but we did, and it was very hard. We grieved, and decided through the struggles of getting over our fears and disappointment that we wanted another child, and so we continued to try again.

In Feb. 2009 we found out we were expecting fraternal twins and we were not only shocked, but over the moon! In early March we again suffered another MC.

At this point our doctors sent us for lots of testing and it was a scary time. We thought perhaps our journey and dream of more children was finished. It was frustrating to think about moving forward and again suffering another loss. It was some thing I couldn't imagine not only for myself but for Justin as well, not to mention Waylon as we told him all about it and there's nothing more sad than for a 3 year to not be able to understand what happened to the baby. Especially when you can't explain it to yourself.

You believe in God, you believe in the plan, and you have to have faith, and we continued even if we didn't sing in church because at times it hurt so bad, we still continued to swim through the pain.

After the testing came results:

Diagnosis: Pregnancy related antiphospholipid antibody also known as APS/Huges Syndrome.

What is it: Hughes Syndrome (APS) is sometimes called 'sticky blood syndrome'. This is because people with it have an increased tendency to form clots in blood vessels (also known as thromboses).

Why is it associated with the losses: One miscarriage is a disaster. Two is worse. Imagine the suffering of women who have 3, 5, 7 or even 12 pregnancy losses, and sometimes as late as the last few weeks of their pregnancy. We now know that Hughes Syndrome is the most common treatable cause of recurrent miscarriage: depending on which study you quote, the figure is up to 1 in 5. Furthermore, late pregnancy loss, fortunately an unusual problem in pregnancy, is very strongly associated with Hughes Syndrome as is pre-eclampsia, placental abruption and intra-uterine growth restriction.For the sake of a simple blood test, patients with miscarriage or late pregnancy loss can be tested for Hughes Syndrome. Treatment of these patients has proved one of the true successes of modern medicine, the successful pregnancy rate rising from a previous low of fewer than 20% to figures now in the region of 75-80% success rate. Treatment is with low-dose aspirin and/or heparin.

If you would like to learn more click on the right corner or here:

http://www.apsfa.org/aps.htm

So we got the results and decided that we were done trying to have children and that we were going to go on a healing, LONG vacation to sunny San Diego. So we made the plans. In mid May, I started getting sick when I would open the fridge, and I told Justin he needed to clean it out because it was so bad, he checked it and couldn't smell anything. This happened 2 days in a row, so he joked and said "you need to take a pee test, aren't you late anyway?" I thought about this later that same day as I was really tired, and checked the calender and sure enough I was about 8 days late, but I had also just had a D&C so why would I assume I would be on time anyway.

I e-mailed him and said ~ Please pick up a pee stick on the way home, just so we could rule out the question. If I was pregnant I knew I needed to start blood thinners ASAP in order to prevent yet another MC.

That night Justin brought the sticks home and he asked me if I was going to go and test, I told him no ~ I wanted to wait for the morning, why test when I knew I wasn't pregnant.

I had a dream that the test was +, woke up took the test and it was just that +, so I went into the room at about 5:30 am, and told Justin...... He looked at me and said, "Dre, go back to bed", I had to get him to wake up a bit in order to grasp what I was saying.

So there went our plans to get our team of doctors on track..... I am now on blood thinners (Heprin), and am currently 10 weeks as of Saturday with TWINS, that's right IDENTICAL TWINS (which by the way were done the natural way, so don't ask if we did IVF). Also Identical twins are not "passed down".

True Identical Twin Definition: Twins derived from the same fertilized ovum that at an early stage of development becomes separated into independently growing cell aggregations, giving rise to two individuals of the same sex, identical genetic makeup, and closely similar appearance.

Each day is just like Avery's pregnancy but much earlier, we are thankful and look forward to the end of the pregnancy while trying to enjoy being pregnant at the same time, which isn't easy. It's filled (like Avery's pregnancy), with lots of fears due to the diagnosis we have. However we do feel like God has a plan and that God is with us ~

As Gloma says, "Let go, let God",

My 4-eyed Friend says "Here is a great scripture to memorize and keep close to your heart---it will help you through all things and give you strength": Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.

We are taking one day at a time as we all should, an we don't really understand why we are constantly put in a situation where we have to be some what fearful if we bring children into the world, but we have faith that there is a wonderful end to this story.

Thank you all for your support and understanding if this past year we haven't been around much. The losses have been hard to recover from and we have been sad a lot, but we are healing slowly and are excited about the future.

Avery's First Kiss!

Our 4-eyed friend and her dear hubby (Steve) had us over for dinner so we could help them move forward (they are starting their own business), I'll post more so you can check it out when they have more completed.

Anyway ~ Seth had been such a sweet-heart with Avery, and we were saying good-bye when Avery said a loving good-bye with a hair rub for Seth and a kiss...... I didn't get the kiss on camera, this picture below is after the kiss. Seth may be thinking there is more because he doesn't move and goes back in for another sweet kiss when......
WHAM he gets slapped by Avery..... Boys better not mess with my little girl!

I really do love these pictures, it's such a telling case of her personality. Avery is the sweetest thing until she's had enough, when she's done with you, she's done!

I'll post more from our fun night, but had to share these with friends and family!

AVERY NO MORE KISSING.....

Oh when we got home I was telling Waylon, that Seth and gave Avery a kiss, and he said "Seth is a bad boy, next time I will tell him no more kissing", as you can tell we are training Waylon early to be VERY PROTECTIVE!

We had tons of fun 4-Eyes, Thank you!

Easter with Gramie and Bam-pa (Eggs and Dinner)

Easter at Gramies and Bam-pa's! Avery is so excited about her Easter basket, the grass is her favorite part! Waylon realizes that there is fruit in the eggs, YES, less chocolate!

Oh a little chick is in the egg and it's hoping on Avery!

Avery thinks the chicks are her babies.

Gramie helps take care of Avery's babies, Waylon doesn't understand, those aren't babies, they are fake chicks.

Avery finds a fruit egg too!

We had a Great Easter dinner and lots of fun. Thanks for having us over gramie and bam-pa.

Easter 2009

Easter 2009 (pre-party)

Izzy and Waylon
Waylon and Elenor
Avery and Emery
The kiddos looking at the eggs!
Hot tub time, I like this picture because it looks like Waylon needs a boy present (lost of girls can do that to a boy)!
More fun!
Avery was ready for a rest.

Our neighbor who we adore and are glad she moved in and I decided to do a huge egg coloring day with the kids, here are some of the pics of that as well as the afternoon hot tub experience.
We had a great time!

Spiritual Disciplines

As we grow up we begin to understand more and yet understand less, how is that possible.
In a book I'm reading it says that God uses three primary catalysts for changinging us and conforming us to Christlikeness:
1. He uses people ~ "as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17)
My husband and I met this way, we were some what lost ~ we wanted a relationship with God, yet had no "remote control" of how to get there.... The bible and a good pastor/preist can give you this gift, but finding a GREAT pastor/preist is hard to do.
He uses our Enemies:
How many of us have felt hurtful things from people we didn't like, but thought about it a second and realized that perhaps changes did need to be made here and there.
Parents, children, spouses, coworkers, customers, theachers, neighbors, pastors - God changes us through people.
Some may call these people angels, and perhaps we won't know that they acted like one untill we are gone.
Do we become more open as we age, or more closed because of all the circumstances ~ Are we soupose to learn more as we grow older, or do we just finally realize the whole time we didn't really know a thing.
2.) Another change is circumstances
3.) Placing OURSELVES before God for him to work in us

All relationships take work, and this one is going to be much harder than I orginally thought!
Meanwhile as I work on my relationships ~
Here are some worthy pictures to look at.

Remember: (a quote)

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