We're Movin' on Up!

As if the addition of a new baby girl were not exciting enough, our family has even more news to share:  we are moving up!  Up north, that is - to New Hampshire.

Not only has it felt rather cramped in our small townhome with three active boys, a new baby (and all the accoutrements that come with a baby - gosh, there's a lot of stuff, isn't there?), and a dog, but Pennsylvania holds a lot of sad memories for us.  We're excited about moving away from some of them and starting with a clean slate in a new place.  But we will miss the amazing friends we have made here, too.

The timing is quick - Patrick got a transfer with his current job and will be able to continue working for the same company in a new territory.  We'll likely be there by the end of February. (She says in mid-January with nothing packed and no where to go to yet.  We're very Keep Calm and Carry On around here these days, with an itty bit of Freak Out now and again just to prove we're human.)

Three boys, a baby who's just gotten over RSV, a dog, a slightly sick mommy, house hunting eight hours away, purging belongings, packing, and moving.  That's how it is nowadays!

A New Year's Post

We have had a lot of changes in our family over the last year.

The biggest news is our new addition: Maeve Bronagh!

She was born on November 4 and has lived up to the meaning of her name - the cause of great joy!

Her big brothers are completely smitten with her, and she is a very sweet, happy, and easy baby.  Let's hear it for that last part!

Jack is in kindergarten and just turned six in November.  He is a reading machine. He loves building things with Legos, and he just lost his first tooth a few weeks ago.

PJ is four and a half. He is loving preschool and really enjoys drawing pictures.  He is probably the most baby-crazy of the brothers, giving Maeve lots of hugs, kisses, and cuddles.

Tommy is just a few weeks shy of three years old. He is huge, fearless, unpredictable and wicked smaht.  He's also silly and cuddly.  It makes for an exacerbating combination, as we alternate several times per day between wanting to kiss him and duct tape him to a chair for a while so we can catch our breath.

We used most of 2012 to heal and reconnect as a family.  We are using 2013 to make a fresh start.  There are some other exciting changes on the horizon that will help us to do this, but I will have to post more about those later.

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

A few of my favorite things...

It's hard to believe Christmas is tomorrow.

I'm usually giddy with excitement by now, but this year has been very hard.  Yesterday marked six months since our little Brigid died, and we're missing her so much.  I am so excited for Christmas, only because I love seeing the look on the boys' faces when they come down that morning.  But I'm just not feeling it so much on the inside.

Still, there are things around us that make me happy when I see them.  These are a few of them:

I'm pretty crazy about paper snowflakes.  Jack is, too.  He decided that he wanted to make one for Santa, since the big guy doesn't really get a lot of presents for Christmas besides the ones from the elves and Mrs. Claus.  So we folded the paper and he carefully cut out a snowflake for him to put on his Christmas tree, writing "To Santa from Jack" on the back.

I just love our Christmas stockings.  Five of them just fit onto our railing and I remember thinking that we needed a new house if we were to add one more.  Or two more.  But now there are still just five.  And that one paper one that Jack made at school and added on the end for Blarney.  But there, over the door.  See that?  That's something that Patrick and I got in Ireland when we got engaged.  That's St. Brigid's cross.  It's like she's in the stocking picture, but in a different way.  When I look down the hallway and see that, it makes me happy.

Sort of.

Finally, there is a house nearby that has several of these Moravian stars hanging outside.  Some of them are over eight feet tall.  They're just beautiful and ethereal.  I love getting the boys in their jammies after dinner one night, giving them some sippy cups of hot chocolate, and driving around to look at Christmas lights.  This house is my favorite.  

And, of course, it's hard not to smile when I look at these three, even if they have been in off-the-wall mode for the past few weeks because Christmas is coming.

For the first time in years, I've gotten all of my wrapping done before Christmas Eve, which means that we can have a relaxing day together today and possibly even get to bed at a decent hour.

And then, in the morning we get to tell the boys that we're going to see this guy:

I can't stinking wait!

photo source:  http://www.americanconsumernews.com/2009/01/disney-announces-military-travel-promotion-for-2009.html

Getting ready

We've been doing a lot of Christmas prep around here lately. There is so much to do, it's hard to juggle everything. It's also hard to balance the joy of the season with the grief that we're feeling. It was this time last year that we knew we were going to be having another little someone in our family, and we spent a lot of time thinking about what this Christmas would be like with another baby: another stocking to hang, another little someone to be in awe of the lights on the Christmas tree.

It was just two days after Christmas that we learned that little someone was going to be TWO little someones. How exciting that was! So this year, amid the hustle-bustle and the anticipation of the season, there is a sadness about what could have been. And there is so much to do that there are days when I wish I could just sit and cry. Or be bitchy and sad. Just one day when I didn't have to worry about taking care of the rest of the family and could just take care of myself...by just doing nothing. But that's not to be. I was reflecting on this as I was in the shower this morning. The shower is usually where I do my crying. It's the only time I have a few minutes to be alone with my thoughts, to be reminded, as I wash the scars on my belly, of what we went through. Of all that we did to try to make sure that at least Brigid came home safely.  But it still wasn't enough. It was so hard, and if she was here, it would have been more than worth it, but she's not. I realized the other day that I have cried every single day since March 9th. That's a lot of crying. My eyes burn constantly.

Anyway, this morning was a little different. This morning in the shower, I was laughing, remembering something funny that happened two years ago around this time. It was a little respite from the usual sadness I feel while showering, and it was like a gift for the day. Bear with me while I recount this gem of a story:

I was eight months pregnant with Thomas. Patrick had taken the two boys out for something - to Walmart, I think - and I was home alone and able to take a leisurely shower. Something I don't often do. We'd been having trouble with the toilet in our master bathroom - one of those jiggle-the-handle-or-else-it-just-keeps-running problems. Well, I used the toilet and then got in the shower. I was taking my good old time when I started thinking that the sound of the water echoing in the shower was something I hadn't noticed before. Probably because I'm usually thinking of other things and rushing to finish up. Gosh, I thought, it sounds like a babbling brook or something. Very relaxing. I finished my shower and turned off the water. Except the sound didn't stop. I opened the curtain and saw that there was two inches of water all over the bathroom floor. The toilet must have clogged and then continued running until it overflowed - a lot - and was still running.

Quickly, I jumped out of the shower (as much as an eight-month-pregnant woman can jump and be quick) and turned off the water supply to the toilet.  Think, think, think! I couldn't even think of where to start making this better.  I grabbed every towel out of the linen closet and started sopping it up, but there was still so much more.  And now the towels were so heavy and I could hardly bend down to grab them all off the floor. I threw them all, soaked, into the shower and saw that it had hardly made a dent in the mess. Then I remembered the shop vac.  I threw on a bathrobe that didn't even close around my pregnant belly and ran down to the garage to search for the shop vac, calling Patrick on the way down to ask if he knew where it was (our garage is crowded) to make the search easier.  As I got to the bottom of the steps, I could hear the water dripping down behind the walls of the foyer.  I had to be fast or else it would start soaking through the drywall.  We have a huge, industrial-sized shop vac, and I finally found it and dragged it upstairs, still dripping wet and half naked.  By now, the water is seeping out into the carpet of the bedroom as I frantically plug the shop vac in a couple feet outside the bathroom door and turn it on.  Thankfully, it served to eliminate the water in the bathroom quickly and effectively, and I started to calm down a little bit as I saw that I was making progress getting rid of it before it started draining down into the floor and through the ceiling of the main floor.  I took my time and made sure I was getting up as much of it as I could, knowing that there were no more towels to use to dry it up.  I sort of vacuumed myself out of the bathroom and as I got to the door, I started to feel some drops of water on my head.  It was only then that I looked behind myself and realized that the shop vac had merely been sucking the water out of the bathroom and then shooting it up in the air all over the bedroom!  Our entire bed was soaked, along with the floor, the dressers, and the walls and ceiling.  I just stood there and screamed.  I'm laughing hysterically as I type this, recalling the feeling of shock and horror I felt when I turned around.  I didn't have a single dry towel to use on it and I just started grabbing for sheets and blankets in an effort to dry everything.  And then I just started laughing.  I mean, honestly, it was one of those where's-the-hidden-camera moments, you know?  And I sort of just had to laugh or go crazy. 

I think that's really the key to survival.  Recognizing when you just need to laugh.  When everything is so far out of your control and you just can't believe that it could happen like that.  It's been my survival mechanism for most of my life - being able to find the humor in things.  This story sort of parallels our situation with the twins.  The blissful time in the shower is like that feeling of joy about adding twins to our family.  Opening the shower curtain and seeing the mess was like learning they had TTTS.  Working so hard to clean it up was like the surgery and months of bed rest and medications round-the-clock, and hospitalizations to make sure Brigid would be okay.  And then that shock of seeing the water all over the bedroom after I'd done all that work to clean it up was like the shock of Brigid's death. But the situation with the girls is just never going to get to the laughing stage.  And that's hard to accept.  Grief is exhausting, and I'm all kinds of tired.

Meanwhile, we're looking forward to Christmas with anticipation.  We'll be taking our boys to Walt Disney World in January.  It's a much-needed family fun time to help us reconnect and forget a little bit about what happened this year.  We're telling them Christmas morning, and I'm feeling like a kid just getting excited for both that morning and the trip itself.

Jack had his preschool Christmas program this morning and it was so fun to see him up there singing all his Christmas songs that he's worked so hard to memorize.  He only shared one of them with us beforehand and said he wanted to keep the others a surprise.  He's such a smart kid and it's amazing to see him learning new things and enjoying school.

I'll leave you with a few photos from this month.  I can't seem to get the video of the program uploaded to the blog right now, but when I'm able to do that, I'll post it.  It's so darn cute.

Thomas LOVES Santa, so it was funny to see him get shy as soon as he sat on his lap. He is rarely shy.  After a few moments of questioning from the Big Man and silence from Thomas, we said, "Okay Tommy, say bye-bye, Santa!"  Tommy said "NO!  See Santa more!"  He just liked being with him in silence, I guess, and the magic of knowing that the man in red knew his every unspoken Christmas wish.

Or something like that.

Dinner prep

Every once in a while, I like to give a little glimpse into the craziness of our house.  I love doing what I do, but there are times when it is just too much and a mommy needs to get out of the house. 

To babysit someone else's children.  (Yes, that's what I did. Now I realize why I was so very wrong to think that I'd have no problem being a mother for the first time because I'd done so much babysitting.  The two are not alike in the least. That was a piece of cake.  And there was wine.)

Here's how tonight's dinner preparation went:

I was using a meal that I had to add my own shrimp to, so it's basically just seasoning the shrimp and cooking it and then cooking the pasta that it gets served with.

I set the three boys up at the table with some new coloring books and new crayons, (well, Jack with a new doodle pad and sharpened pencil 'cause that's how he rolls), since the box for the meal says it takes about 15 minutes. Blarney is at the bark-her-ever-loving-head-off stage, so I have her gated in the (postage stamp-sized) kitchen with me.

The boys did their thing for about one minute. Then PJ wanted to show Jack how to play the box game (you know, finish the box by connecting the dots and put your initial inside. I just showed him that yesterday) well, Jack wouldn't let PJ use the pencil, there was yelling and hitting and finally Jack spit (!) on the book so I gave him a time out. He screamed "no!" and I gave him the option of a time out by itself or a time out with a spank. He opted for the first, but threw a toy across the room before he went to the time-out spot. That's an automatic smack on the hand for him today since that was his fifth toy throwing for the day, and he was warned. I'm sauteing shrimp and the water is boiling for the pasta, but I go over the gate, smack his hand, and Blarney grabs something off the counter. 

I come back, turn down the shrimp, add the pasta, get the papers from Blarney. She's looking for something else to get, so I squirt her with some water in a squirt bottle as I tell her no, then Thomas is trying to climb over the gate into the kitchen, so I squirt him with some water too, which sends him screaming (it was not my finest mommy moment, admittedly), then Thomas goes back to the table and falls off his bench. 

Over the gate again, kiss the booboo, back to drain the pasta quick so it doesn't overcook, bring Blarney outside. finish up with the shrimp, add the seasonings to the pasta, combine the two and Blarney is scratching the shizzle out of our screen door so I bring her back into the kitchen. Jack hits PJ with a plastic sword and PJ is screaming. I head back over the gate to separate and threaten the two of them with timeouts. 

Then I go back to kitchen to finish stirring, and Blarney has left a puddle on the floor. I pick her up to take her back out onto the deck - this time leaving the screen open and just closing the glass - and realize that she must have walked in it too because where her paws touched my teeshirt is soaked. I ran upstairs to change my shirt and come down to Blarney out on the deck barking, Thomas asking me to read him a book for the thirtieth time, and Jack and PJ seeing how far they can run and slide on their knees on the new laminate floor. I'm counting down the minutes until we're going to need stitches from that new game.

Dinner is ready, but now I'm sweating and exhausted. 

15 minutes my arse.

Wondering how long it will be before I'll have the time to cook something from scratch...

To Honor Fiona and Brigid

Our local newspaper published an article yesterday about TTTS and an event that we have coming up to raise funds for the TTTS Foundation.  It was online and also had a huge section devoted to it in the paper copy with a large photo of the family, and the headline...  Oh, the headline: 

"To Honor Fiona and Brigid"

It was bittersweet.  The editor emailed me to ask if it was okay with me to use their names like that.

I started sobbing.

Um...yes.  That, for me, is the point, really.  Thank you so very much for getting it.

Their names don't feel real to me.  They're sort of abstract, like they're not my children.  But to see them in print like that was so amazing.

I love the photo of our family because it shows that we're all still having fun together.

You can read the article here.  Please feel free to share it with others.  The goal is to make as many people aware of the cause and treatment of  TTTS as possible.  Sometimes, they might have to make their doctors aware.  I know when I asked my OBs specifically about TTTS - because I'd read about it online as soon as I learned we were having monochorionic twins (twins who shared a placenta) - and if I might be able to be seen by a perinatologist earlier for monitoring, they pooh-poohed my concerns.  Both of them (I switched after the first one dismissed my request) felt it was too rare to warrant "extraneous" ultrasounds.  I wouldn't need one before the usual 20 weeks, they said.  I even called the perinatologist to ask if I might be able to come in on my own, without an OB's referral.  They said no.

And yet, when we finally did get that ultrasound, at 19 weeks and 5 days, it was much too late.  The disease had progressed significantly and was in the late stages.

In hindsight, I wish I'd demanded it.  What would it have cost them to have me checked out early?  A form?  Probably not even that.  A computer click or two?  Women who are having multiples who share a placenta need not to feel like they are being pushy or silly for being concerned about this very real threat to their babies.  The doctors and midwives at my OBs' offices are not losing any sleep over dismissing my concerns right now.  They remain completely unfazed by it.

Yet here we are with two dead babies.

I guess this is the anger stage of my grief.  I'm not angry at God.  I'm not wondering why he did this to me or why did this have to happen to me.  I'm angry, though, that my physicians were ignorant, and that, even when I was the one who did the research and brought this disease to their attention at appointments asking to be monitored for it, they did not think it was important.  That is terribly frustrating.  And while I don't know that it would have made a difference in our outcome, it would at least have meant that everything that could have been done to stop it was done.

So now all I can do is warn others.  Be concerned.  Be pushy.  Demand.  No one loves your unborn babies like you do, and you are the only advocate they have.

New Post

I wonder when I'll feel like writing a blog post again.

I'm writing this one now, but not because I feel like it. I come on here to update and talk about some fun things we've been doing and then I get caught up in reading the previous posts.  Then I start crying.  I read those posts and think, "How did I write that?  How did we live that?  How did I say we're doing okay when we're not doing okay?"  I mean, I guess we're okay inasmuch as we're not curled up in the fetal position sucking our thumbs somewhere, but there was some numbness to those posts.  Now, the numbness has worn off and we're aching.  A dull ache that we know isn't going to go away for a long time.  I feel like I can't quite move on from the heaviness of those posts to things like Jack's first day of preschool or our family's new puppy.  Or that the other upsetting things that have happened in our lives could even compare to losing Brigid.  Some of them come close, but I don't want to write about those either. Of course, it's having these three little boys to take care of and those other things going on in our lives that help us to keep going.  But sometimes they don't let us have the time to grieve.

So for those of you who have come here and seen no changes and thought that maybe I've gone private with the new posts, I haven't.  I just haven't had it in me.   Not for lack of material, but for lack of emotional fortitude, I think.  But I think maybe changing the look of things and writing a few posts with happy themes will not make me so sad to log on here.  They can put some space between those painful ones down there and the fun times that lie ahead for our family.

Maybe.

So, in addition to Jack's starting preschool (again)

and our new goldendoodle puppy, Blarney,

we have been having some good times together as a family over the last few months.  Here's proof:

This free scrapbooking design personalized with Smilebox

Cards from strangers

Something has been happening to us lately that is blowing me away.

We've been getting cards from strangers.

People we've never met have been sending sympathy cards to us, with notes inside about how they were affected by Brigid's story.  I find this amazing.  I'm so grateful for people reaching out to us to tell us how they were praying for us in the midst of our trial, and that they are still praying for us now as we heal from our loss.  A nurse who cared for me in the hospital called me yesterday because she had just learned what happened.  I was able to share with her that God has been so good to us, helping us to heal by enjoying our time together as a family in a way that we never have before.  I shared the example God gave me for Brigid's eulogy and she was encouraged and asked if she could share it with others who are hurting from a loss.

But perhaps the most amazing thing to me is to see how God is carrying out the example, using the experience to touch more people than we ever imagined, just as the birthday surprise would have blessed more people than the chocolate chips alone would have blessed my son. 

I miss Brigid terribly.  She was such a sweet little girl, and I felt like I was really just getting to know her personality and her likes and dislikes.  It took me longer to learn these things about her since she didn't live with me, but a mother learns to read her children, and I felt like I was just learning to read her before she died.  I knew which songs she responded to when I sang to her.  I always said the same thing to her when I bent down to kiss her and she would open her eyes and often give a little smile.  It made me feel like she knew it was me.  I wish I could experience that again, even if it was still in the NICU.   Her due date is not for another ten days, but she's already been born and died.  That makes me so sad. 

But I know that she is with Jesus and with her sister.  And God is so good to show us, through cards from strangers, that her little life affected more people than we might ever know.

A new normal

It has been a week since the last post, and a lot has changed.

Our hearts have healed so much.  It's like God kept bringing the truth that He showed me back to mind and reminding me to keep an eternal perspective.  Our life is like a blip in light of eternity. 

Sure, we still cry.  I look at photos of Brigid every single day and long to be able to hold her again, to smell her smell and feel her soft skin and kiss her little head.  My heart hurts to think of the pain that her tiny body endured during her short life - needles and IVs and tubes in the throat and nose and a surgery and probably a hundred heel pricks to draw blood.  It's not supposed to be like that.  That's scary and painful and it makes me sad to think of her going through that alone.  It's supposed to be cuddles and warm milk and soft blankets and kisses.  That's what babies are usually greeted with shortly after they come screaming into this world.  But not our Brigid.  And yet, she hardly ever cried.  It was her normal.  It's all she knew.  I wish it could have been different.  But that wasn't God's plan, and I know her reward is great right now, and she is not feeling any discomfort at all.

And this week, I've been able to devote myself to the boys in a way I never have before.  It's the same amount of time with them that I've always had, but it's so much fuller now.  I appreciate it so much more.  I feel engaged with them in a way that I didn't before this experience.  PJ especially has been struggling with Brigid's death and having a hard time understanding what it means.  He has been fearful of being alone and clingy with me, probably because I've had to spend so much time away from him in the past few months - sometimes he'd wake up and I'd be in the hospital and I know that was scary for him, and I have to keep reassuring him that that time is over now and I'm not going away again. I think he's finally understanding that.  I love that I can devote my full attention to them right now, playing with them and being with them in a way that's not just being in the same room together doing our own things, but really doing what they want much of the time - being silly or building train tracks or reading books.  Paying attention to them.  Because that's what it's my privilege to do right now as I am able to stay home with them for these short and fleeting years until they're all in school. Patrick and and I both feel like we have so much more patience with them and we all feel that time together as a family is so much more meaningful because of the time we spent apart.

So that's our new normal.  It's funny that on the outside, it looks the same as the old normal.  We're all the same people.  But on the inside, we're all so different now.

And that's a good thing.

I'm so grateful for all the prayers and cards and kind wishes you've had for us.  I have no doubt that these prayers have helped to carry us through and bring peace and comfort to our hearts. 

Thank you!

Another good report

We had another appointment at CHOP yesterday to check on Brigid's progress, and we're happy to report that she's looking even better now than she was a month ago.

In fact, from the obstetrical standpoint, we have been discharged from CHOP altogether. She is growing well, looking strong and healthy, and even the chorioamniotic separation seemed to be looking better - either closing or repairing - and doesn't seem to be a major issue anymore.

Only her heart is not 100% normal, and still it's looking better than it did at our last appointment. The valves are no longer leaking at all, and the ventricles seem to be functioning better. The only remaining issues are that the wall between the ventricles seems to be slightly weakened and the right ventricle appears a little "bulbous" in shape. Her heart is slightly enlarged still, but the hope is that all of these things would continue in their current trend and would heal over time. We will have one more appointment with fetal cardiology in a month, and if things are continuing to improve, that will likely be our last visit to CHOP altogether.

It was seven weeks ago today that we learned that our twins had TTTS. That has meant seven weeks of bed rest. Seven weeks of Patrick shouldering the majority of the childcare and housework, in addition to his job.

I've had two hospital stays - the first two of my life, besides the days following the birth of our boys. We have had good news, bad news, hopes answered, hopes dashed, reassurances and disappointments. We've cried through every doctor's appointment, good or bad, and are still not feeling one hundred percent confident that we'll be adding a healthy baby Brigid to our family in the next few months, though that confidence is growing more and more.

Patrick and I talked yesterday about how difficult this experience must be for people who do not have a faith in God. How sad to go through this with no hope for being reunited with little ones who have died, without trusting that there is a reason for this suffering - that it will make us stronger and bring us closer to each other and closer to the Lord. We have felt the prayers - of family, friends, and people we don't even know - carrying us through this difficult time. They bring us peace and comfort where we would otherwise feel overwhelmed and full of sorrow. Thank you for praying for us and for our baby girl! Thank you for doing our laundry, for cleaning our home, for mowing our lawn, for caring for our children, for sending us care packages, for bringing us meals, for checking in with us to see what we might need before you go out to do an errand. We are humbled, grateful, and so very blessed.

And we're pretty sure that we couldn't have gotten this far without your help.

Some good news

There's our beautiful baby girl.

Patrick and I had a follow-up visit at CHOP today, two weeks out from the laser surgery, and were unsure what we might learn. Last week, the cardiologist was really hoping to see some improvement and instead saw that things looked a little worse one week after the surgery, so we were just praying that there would be some small step in the right direction this week.

We saw the OB technician for our anatomy scan first, and she was happy to tell us that Brigid was measuring right on track for her dates, whereas before she had been measuring a little large for her dates because of the excess fluid her body was trying to process. Her abdomen had been enlarged, and this week it looked just right. She looked beautiful, and both the technician and the OB specialist seemed encouraged.

Then we had our cardiology scan, which checked the blood flow in her brain, her umbilical cord, and her heart. The technician takes a series of doppler measurements, which show up as waves on the screen, but of course we had no idea how to interpret these and 30+ minutes of wave readings had us biting our lips wondering if they were better or worse.

They brought us into the consultation room afterward to meet with the doctor, and we just prayed yet again that she'd have made a change in the right direction. The doctor smiled as he told us that he saw significant improvement over what we had seen last week. He explained that there is still some mild thickening, and a little bit of leakage across the valves, but when I asked, "But it is looking a little bit better?" he said, "Not just a little bit - she's about 90 percent of the way to where we want her to be." Patrick and I just grabbed each other's hands and said, "Thank you, God!" The doctor explained that if we had continued where we had been last week, he'd have suggested we might want to deliver the baby at CHOP for the extra cardiac care she would need, but that this was such a significant change in the right direction that he didn't feel we needed to come back for another month and possibly not at all after that if things still looked good.

I am still on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy because of the separation of her amniotic sac, but we are thanking the Lord for answered prayers and a good report for our baby girl!

Not quite out of the woods yet

In fact, I'm thinking we're actually going to be living IN the woods for a while. We can pitch a tent, keep the food up high in a bear box, and sing songs around the campfire. Care to join us?

We had our follow up appointment at CHOP today, one week after my surgery, and while we hoped to see leaps and bounds of improvement in baby Brigid, what we actually saw was not too different from the scan we had the day after the surgery. Her ventricles in her heart (the bottom two chambers that do the actual "pumping" work) are thickened and a little weakened from having had to handle so much excess blood, and her valves are not closing as well as they should for the same reason. The cardiology team will follow me weekly in hopes of seeing improvement, and there is a medication that I can take that can help her heart (which is amazing to me), if it does not improve well enough over time. She looked beautiful, though, and was moving all over. I've been feeling her kick and move so much more since they removed the excess fluid and it's been a reassuring feeling that's reminding me every day that we just need to take things one day at a time. Every day that I carry her and feel those kicks is a blessing.

The scan also showed something that we knew was a possible effect of the surgery. That is, that my amniotic sac has detached from the chorion it is usually fused to, and fluid has gotten behind it. This does not really affect the baby at all, I am told; she has enough fluid for herself. The risk is that it gives me a greater potential for premature labor, and so I am to stay on bed rest for the entire remainder of the pregnancy. The longer this period is, of course, the better. This is quite daunting, but again, something we'll have to handle one day at a time.

We are so grateful for meals, childcare and offers of helping with chores and errands that have been pouring in. It is incredibly humbling to have someone over to your home for the first time and to watch them vacuum your living room while you're sitting on the couch. Patrick and I like to be self-sufficient, both individually and within our family. "No thanks - we can handle it!" But this may be part of the lesson that the Lord is trying to teach us - to humble ourselves and ask others to help us, because the reality is, we don't have another choice right now.

Family getaway

Last weekend, we had a little family getaway to the Pocono mountains. A friend of ours offered us his cabin and our day-to-day lives have been so crazy between Patrick's work, taking care of the boys and keeping up with housework that we thought it might be nice to do a little retreat of sorts. Not so many rules, barely any chores. Just quiet, fun time together as a family.

Or so we thought.

We arrived at the cabin on Friday afternoon, after a late start and driving almost five hours in the rain. We were all a bit cold and cranky, but when we got there, we seemed to unwind instantly.

The cabin was beautiful.

I pictured Patrick and I sitting out on the porch in the morning with some hot coffee,

with a view of the lake through the trees and lots of wildlife around.

Can't you just hear the boys mocking me for thinking such a thing?

The inside of the cabin was just as beautiful, but as you may be able to tell, the loft-style sleeping arrangements made it difficult to realize my other dream of Patrick and I putting the boys to bed and sitting on the couch by that cozy fire watching a movie or talking.

Because all day Friday had torrential downpouring rain, we did a lot of this

Candyland and Go Fish!

The combination of the pounding rain, the metal roof, the beds at ceiling level, and the open floor plan meant that Patrick and I each got about an hour of sleep Friday night. And that not all together - it was more like 10 minutes here and there up and down with the boys who couldn't sleep because of the rain, or fell out of their beds, or had bad dreams. It was rough.

Saturday morning, we discovered that overnight, we'd also had some rodent visitors who'd helped themselves to the food on the counter (shame on me for leaving it out). Tired and grossed out by the discovery, we determined to make the best of our day.

The boys wanted to take some pictures of their own, so I let them use the camera. Here are Jack's photos, straight out of the camera - no editing from me. I love to see how he chooses his shots.

First, our family






Then, of course, Lammy



(I love that he kept trying to get the right angle. . . and that in the last picture, Lammy looks like he's had enough.)



Next, his backpack and toys



Then, some other random shots:

My "red sweatshirt," which made me cry laughing when I actually saw the picture



Daddy's bagel (one of the few that wasn't nibbled by the mice)



And I love this one of his and Patrick's feet



PJ's turn to try his hand at it with some of his favorite toys



and the deer head which both fascinated and appalled the two of them.



Finally, the rain stopped and the boys were excited to see some sun peek through the clouds

So I dressed the older boys and took them for a walk by the lake while Patrick and Thomas napped.

It was good to stretch our legs

but it was COLD - sweatshirts were not nearly enough - and we had to dodge a lot of puddles.

The lake was beautiful, though


Then, we hopped in the car and headed to the nearby town of Honesdale, which has a train and some shops and, we figured, dry places to walk and let the boys burn off some energy.

On the way, we passed a road with a familiar name.

The boys loved seeing the train, and sitting on a tractor parked on the sidewalk


That night, we made a fire in the fire pit and the boys got a kick out of cooking their own dinner for the first time as they roasted hot dogs on sticks over the fire. Then, of course, we had to have s'mores for dessert.




We were all in bed by 7 that night and even though I'd put all the food in the refrigerator, we could hear the mice all over the house that night. They ran back and forth along the rafters and I even saw a furry nose peek through a space between the wood planks of the ceiling while I was lying in bed. They chewed holes in everything that had ever touched food, including the baby's bottle nipples, the rubber tips of his spoons, and some of the bottles for Patrick's medicines. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night either, though the boys slept really well.

Maybe it was a bit city slickeresque of us to expect anything different, but more than a little grossed out by the mouse droppings that were everywhere - in the coffee pot, even - we decided to pack up early on Sunday and go out to breakfast on our way home.

Thankfully, the boys have become pretty good travelers, despite the fact that two relatively new potty trainers require lots of pit stops. And hey, they look cool too!

It was a beautiful drive home on Sunday with clear skies and gorgeous fall colors. The boys especially enjoyed seeing all these wind mills which dotted the landscape for a good part of the ride.

The trip might sound like a total loss, but it really wasn't. We got to spend a lot of time together, and Patrick and I talked a lot in the car during the drives, something that we don't get to do much of for extended periods of time these days. Plus, it really helped me to appreciate our home (and our beds) and our family, and want to make being together here special too.