Save a Life, PLEASE!

Before I go to bed, I have one favor to ask. Please follow this link: http://bit.ly/VOTE4RR and vote for Andrea from Reece's Rainbow in the People Magazine contest to give $10,000 to a charity. After having a child with down syndrome, Andrea began Reece's Rainbow to help find children in orphanages with disabilities (namely, down syndrome) adoptive families before they are instiutionalized at the age of 4!

In just a few short years she has helped hundreds of children and families come together and has literally saved these children's lives!

I have shared my love of this organization on my blog before, but now this is a chance to really help these little ones. Please, please take a few moments to vote and maybe check out the Reece's Rainbow blog and/or website to learn more about them.

My brother-in-law, Daniel, will soon be 22 and he has down syndrome. He is one of the most joyful and alive people I have ever known. I can't imagine how different his life could have been if he had born to a different family, been raised in an orphanage and then institutionalized. What happens to these children is literally a crime.

Please pray for all of God's Holy Innocents.

I wasn't told!

Both my boys have been in bed and sound asleep for hours! I, in turn, having been sitting on the couch for hours BURPING! I feel like a 12 year old boy! Of all the things I expected to happen during pregnancy the one thing that never occurred to me was that I would have ongoing indigestion that would rear its ugly head at night when I crawl into bed.

My wonderful husband had to work all weekend after a busy week and worked until nearly 10pm each night (his mornings usually began at 5:30!). Monday morning he got up at 4:30 to drive with friends an hour away to pray for 2 hours in front of an abortion clinic as part of the 40 Days for Life. He came back, worked until 10pm, worked at home until 1am and then got up at 5:30 to go to a mens Bible study at our church before starting another day of work. When he fell asleep on the living room floor at 7:30 I sent him off to bed and decided to remain in the living room (so I would not wake him with the noises coming out of me!) where I would be somewhat sound proofed.

My 12 week ob appointment was this afternoon and hearing my little angel's heart beating again was indescribable! I must say that I LOVE my ob! She is a wonderful Catholic mom herself and just made me feel so at peace about having her as my doctor just by the way she speaks about life. I was really nervous when I realized I was pregnant in a new state and had no idea if I'd find a good doctor.

I've always wanted a home birth or to at least be able to deliver at a midwifery. All but one of my sibling were delivered by Mennonite midwives at a midwifery clinic. But, living in an apartment that adjoins the apartment of young, single women that my husband is supervisor to just didn't seem like the best place to give birth.

The midwife that I called was not Catholic and actually delivers at the local general hospital. The ob that I chose is the mom of one of our counselors, spent time in the convent, is 10 minutes from my house and delivers at the Catholic hospital 15 minutes away.

The hospital itself has just redone the spacious delivery rooms with skylights and jetted tubs and you stay in the same room for delivery and recovery. If you have to be at a hospital it might as well feel more like a nice hotel, right?

My dear husband has been at all my doctors appointments. As we were waiting in the lobby he was kicking himself that he hadn't brought a backpacking magazine with him. In response I handed him a copy of Pregnancy. He didn't want it, but I made him read it anyway. Well, he found an article for dads and read that ONE article before tossing the magazine aside. He laughed as soon as he began reading because the author began by questioning why ob office never have anything for fathers to read and listed the only reading options he'd seen. Paul actually dug through the basket filled with magazines to see how accurate the authors list was. He had pretty much hit the nail on the head, but in his search Paul actually discovered a lone copy of Popular Mechanics that he carried like a security blanket until we left the office.

I don't think being referred to as my partner instead of husband by a nurse made him feel any better either. We did ride our motorcycle (for the 1st time in ages!) to the appointment, so his masculinity seemed to be immediately restored as soon as he revved the engine. :)

So that is how our day began, continued and ended. I hope your days was equally interesting.
I think I'm going to watch some of the Dick van Dyke Show on Netflix and then hopefully fall asleep!

Thank you, Lord, for good doctors, amazing husbands, miraculous babies, Dick van Dyke (the greatest tv show ever made!!) and TUMS!

Meander Down Memory Lane

I've been reading Colleen from Martin Family Moments story of how she met her husband and it took me on my own trip down memory lane. Colleen and her husband met while studying abroad in Austria with Franciscan University of Steubenville. Both my husband and I studied there as well. I had a few pictures in a file on my desktop that I thought I'd put up for fun just to give you all a small taste of some of my favorite memories.

My first glimpse of where I'd be living for the next several months. I thought I had stepped through the wardrobe and into Narnia.

In the spring, once the snow melted, we took pictures in the field overlooking school. Little did I know at the time that the friend who hoisted e on his shoulder for this picture would become my brother-in-law in just a few years!

Wahoo!!! I love joyful, happy memories!!!

You, Me and Baby make...4?!?!

Colleen, you're good at this game! :) 

Paul took his dream job working as a program director for a Catholic camp that offers year-around retreats and outdoor education. We packed up and moved North. I arrived at Camp, exhausted, on Friday night. Sunday morning (August 1st) we realized that I was pregnant! A lot of joyful tears were spilled that day. 

God is so good! In June God gave us Lil' Man and in July He gave us a miracle baby. The day we discovered that I was pregnant was also the day our new insurance began and Paul's job was starting the next day! God provides so well! I was thrilled that my mom was with us, helping us move, so we were able to tell her minutes after we found out. She was such a blessing because she stayed a little longer than planned to help me with Lil' Man since I was exhausted.

Exhaustion quickly moved into the realm of non-stop morning sickness and I rapidly lost eight pounds because I was unable to keep anything down. It has been an interesting experience going from being a brand new mom of a two year old to being pregnant and having two little ones demanding from me in very different ways. Its good practice, but it is a unique situation.

Being so sick made me feel at first like I just had a never ending case of food poisoning. We went in for an ultrasound when I was just over 6 weeks and the baby was so tiny. It didn't truly hit me until we heard the baby's heart pounding 156 beats per minute that this really wasn't food poisoning it was my own sweet baby making his or her presence known. That was when I REALLY began to cry!  

Our little jellybean is at 12 weeks now and I go back to see the doctor tomorrow. My morning sickness has eased up, but it is by no means gone yet. I have been so sick and busy that I haven't had a chance to blog or email or do hardly anything else, but I have been wanting to. Hopefully, as I feel better I will be able to do more.

I have a lot to share about our new town, the new job and our current adventures. Being so sick leaves me stuck in the house most of the time and anything that reconnects me with adults is such a blessing!

It is great to reconnect with my friends in the blogging world. I missed you all! :)

My little Peach

Life has been wild this summer! So many changes, so much excitement and, as always, so little time!

Paul, Lil' Man and I enjoyed a wonderful couple of months at home in Tennessee. Our family gathered for our annual family reunion, we made trips to the river for kayaking and swimming, friends from all our came to visit and we celebrated my 30th birthday (ahem, I mean the first anniversary of my 29th!)!

The farm was so beautiful this summer. Paul made me the coolest tire swing known to man. I spent hours eating ice pops in my hammock while snuggling with Lil' Man. We rode our horses and chased the baby pigs when they made their escape. We rested.

My sisters were inspired to have a family gathering at our local u-pick orchard. Paul, Lil' Man and I came home with 20 lbs. of fresh, sweet peaches! I made peach ice cream and cobbler. I had planned canning peach butter, but I was short on both time and energy and ended up freezing bags of sliced peaches.

Two of my younger cousins spent about a month with us. Paul created a tent town and we all camped by the spring that runs through our woods. I read Nancy Drew to the girls by the campfire as we ate s'more made with reese's peanut butter cups. In the morning, all of the kids played in the misty stream. It was all very dreamy.

Paul and I took Lil' Man to the drive-in to see Toy Story 3. We rolled out a play mat so he could play with his little cars and Mr. Potato Head while the adults enjoyed the movie.

Time flew by and before we knew it, Paul and I were rushing around the house packing for our move to Wisconsin. I hate packing. I hate the process of moving. I survived!

We left Tennessee and drove through unbearable heat to Illinois. I was driving alone with the baby in a car that was packed well beyond capacity and very much without air conditioning! Paul was leading the way on the motorcycle and pulling a trailer with our kayaks and mountain bikes. People kept pointing as he drove by!

After we made it into Illinois, the sky burst open and poured rain. I was in the middle of changing a very stinky diaper in the grass on the side of a hill. Paul stood over the baby trying to keep him dry, but it didn't work very well. We were a sight!!!

That evening we made it to a dear friend's house. I told Paul I could go no further, for now, so he left the next day to get our house set up while my friend and I visited and our small people played.

By the time I made it to Wisconsin, Paul and my mom ( who had driven out from Ohio), had moved in all our furniture, had Lil' Man's crib and toys waiting and had made my life 10,000 times easier! We spent the next day unpacking dishes and exploring our new town. Paul was excited to begin his new job and we were thrilled to get to know our new community, but God had one last crazy surprise in store for us here in Wisconsin...!