My hair do.

So on Wed. we had an easter egg hunt with the mom's club. I was hurrying around trying to get ready and get everything together to go. I decided to save time, that I would just blow dry the front of my hair and put the rest of it up in a clip. So Emma is sitting on the bed watching me and she says, "That's an interesting hair do you've got there". I said, "oh, you don't like my hair do?" And in very teenage, mom, you have no style kind of way, she says, "uh uh". So I found myself sounding just like my mother and said, "Well, I'm trying to get you to your easter egg hunt on time and I guess if you want to go, you are going to have to deal with the embarrassment of your mother looking like this. LOL oh dear. Maybe next time, I'll try a mohawk just for fun.

Love from Above

What's New?

Not a whole lot really. However, I did want to make a post of a couple of things that Emma has said recently. And, do a pregnancy update since this is the only journaling I'm doing through this one.

Ok, so Emma.. I'm sad to say that recently, I have gotten so caught up in the parts of life that I will actually want to forget one day that I haven't recorded some of the things that I would like to remember. But, while I have these on my mind.. 1) The other night, we had put Emma to bed and she was yelling things to us from her bedroom. Now, she knows that it would not be a smart move to get up from her bed so she does all that she can do to try to get us to come back in her bedroom once we've already put her down. Sometimes she has to go to the bathroom again (and this one you don't chance unless you want to change sheets in the middle of the night) sometimes she needs a drink of water and sometimes it's more creative than that. For instance, right now, as I write, she is yelling, "mom, my lips are chapped". Anyway, most of the time, we ignore it and it goes away. But the other night, she started yelling, "I don't like shadows". Now having gone through this before for we know that the only way to get rid of shadows is to make the room totally dark. That usually doesn't work either. I guess she couldn't think of anything new that night. So, we like usual were ignoring it. And then we heard, "ATTENTION EVERYONE I DON'T LIKE SHADOWS". Ok, I don't know if that sounds as funny as it seemed to us but Adam and I did quite a bit of rolling in the floor over that one. Adam did finally give in and go back in there (what a sucker) and she opted for having the lights out. Who would have known. 2) This morning, Emma and I skipped Sunday school and went to the main service only. She has a little bit of a cold and didn't sleep well last night and I thought I would be nice and try not to get anyone else sick. Especially since we might already be responsible for giving half of the church rotavirus. First, I will say that apparently, the punishment for missing Sunday school is having to go into church in the middle of a thunderstorm because just as we got there, the bottom dropped out. So, I looked around the car and was happy to see that we had a very tiny tinkerbell umbrella. So, I devised a plan. I would turn around and unbuckle Emma's carseat, she would crawl up front and then we would get out of the car together. I would carry her so that the little umbrella would cover the both of us (three of us actually)and all would be swell. This plan probably would have worked fine if she hadn't stopped to pick up the three barbie dolls that she had dropped on the way to the front seat leaving me standing outside of the car. Anyway, we finally got it all together and Emma said this.. "I'm afraid that the baby is going to be the only one of us that doesn't get wet today". I didn't get into the logistics of the fact that the baby is actually in a bag of amniotic fluid but it did make me laugh.

Ok, now for the pregnancy update. I am now somewhere between 17 and 18 weeks depending on whether you go by the doctors date or the measurements of the ultrasound. The pregnancy sickness has pretty much subsided other than a little bit of nausea at night. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and then at that appointment I will schedule an ultrasound appointment for the following week where we will find out what the sex is (if the baby cooperates). My mom and dad are going to come up for Easter and they will be able to go with us and that makes me tremendously excited. I am at that in between stage where nothing fits me. My normal clothes are getting tight but the maternity clothes are too big. Regardless, I do have a little baby bump that I'm sure will turn into a large mountain soon. I am feeling a little movement here and there though it isn't distinct enough to feel from the outside yet.

And the best news.... In the post where I announced that we were pregnant, I mentioned that we had several friends that have been struggling with infertility. Well, some of them still are so please keep praying!! But there is one wonderful success story I want to share. Our friends Tony and Susan have been trying since 2004 (I think). Well, about a month ago, they called us to tell us that they were pregnant!!! Praise God. But, it gets better than that.. Susan calls me the other night and says, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that we had an ultrasound today and I saw the babies". After I had time to catch my breath she explained that there were only two. Now Susan if you are reading this, I'm sure you are thinking ONLY TWO!!! But, I had four pictured in my mind. Anyway, I think that is just perfect. I am so happy for them. They are going to be wonderful parents. And best of all, there will be two more people in the world that are going to be raised by Christian parents to show Jesus to the world. Thank you for your prayers. Please keep praying for their pregnancy, mine, and our ministry.

Love from above,
Dana

PS: Ignoring the chapped lips seems to have worked;)

It Still Amazes Me

I have been worried that things with this baby weren't going to as special or seem miraculous like they did my first time with Emma. So here's the story: I didn't sleep well last night, I woke up at three thirty this morning thinking about things that I should turn over to God. I somehow think that lying awake and antagonizing over what's wrong with world, and the church will make things better. My hope and prayer is that one day I will be able to truly cast my cares upon my father so these sleepless nights are a thing of the past. So anyway, I have gotten so behind on house work from being so sick that I decided that I would go ahead and get up and start hammering away at it. So anyway, I got up and got to work. It somehow amazes me how I can work all day and my house be in a worse mess than it was before I started but even though it can't be noticed yet, I got quite a bit accomplished. Hopefully, I can tie things up after I get Emma to bed. So anyway, I got Emma down for a nap around 2 and collapsed on my bed. And there it was. You know those feelings that you never forget but you can't quite remember and try as you might, you could never picture it in your mind until you experienced it? Just as miraculously as the first time, I felt the baby move. And I just laid there and cried, and thanked God for letting it feel like a miracle once again. And also for letting me know that even after the stressful week we had last week and weeks and weeks of not getting proper nourishment to stay down, He had it handled. And just for a moment, all of this world was perfect.



Love from above,
Dana

PS, for some reason I can't figure out, when I edited this post, it deleted my comments. sorry Anna.

Where have we been?

Well, I can answer that by saying that the majority of the last six to seven weeks, I have spent in the bathroom with morning sickness. Wait did I just say morning sickness? I mean all day long sickness. What lucky woman named it that? Every time I begin to think I'm getting past it, I catch a stomach virus. I have had two stomach viruses and a very bad upper respitory infection in the past six weeks. But somehow in the middle of all of that, we did manage to take a trip to Winterfest with the youth group. It was a good trip. Everyone did just as they were supposed to and everything went smoothly except for the near death experience we had in the Civic Center. Six thousand people in one room and a fire alarm starts going off. The worship team just keeps singing and we are all looking around trying to figure out if we should take this thing seriously or not. Adam and I decided that since we were in charge of other people's children, we were not going to take any chances. So we exited the building. Come to find out, there was a small fire in the kitchen of the civic center. One of our kids started a blog ring called, "Watershed tried to kill me" (watershed is the worship team) LOL. My parents met us in Gatlinburg to keep Emma during the youth rally and then Emma and I went back to Birmingham with them. We had a very nice trip even though we were sick the first week of it. The second week, we drove to Enterprise to see Adam's parents. We even made it to Panama City one day for a nice little day at the beach with my friend Pam and her boys. We left Enterprise the morning that the tornadoes came through to go shopping in Montgomery for dresses for Jan's wedding. To make a long story short, we made it back to my parents safely and we thank God for that. But, there were some people that weren't that lucky. Adam's parents are down there dealing with the aftermath from the tornado. A girl in their youth group was killed. Please pray for everyone there. On Saturday, my mom and my sister drove Emma and I to Nashville to meet Adam and our friend Matt after their week long class at Lipscomb. On the long drive home, I got pretty sick but we finally made it. I had a doctors appointment on the Monday after we got home and Emma and Adam went with me to hear the heartbeat. Everything looked good and somehow I had managed to gain back the few pounds I had lost being sick. Nothing a week or two of mom's home cooking couldn't take care of. So anyway, I had almost gotten things back together from our trip just in time to get hit with the rotavirus. To read about that, see the next post down.

15 weeks pregnant and counting!
Love from Above,
Dana

Our little visit to St. Joesph's hospital

It's been a long week. Well, we spent this week in the hospital. On Tuesday morning about 2:00 a.m. we woke up to Emma crying. I went in her bedroom to find that she had vomited all over her bed. Knowing that she was having a little sinus drainage, I determined that it was from that. Adam stripped the bed while I cleaned her up and then we put her in our bed with us. Fifteen minutes later, Adam was running back to the bathroom with her. Ok, I have to admit that my first thought was, "I cannot get another stomach virus being pregnant". Yep that's right, I said another. I had a stomach virus three weeks earlier but back to the more current stomach virus... So, Adam made out the couch bed and got in it with her. After hearing them up every fifteen minutes for a couple of hours, I decided that Adam was the one that had to work the next day and that if she was that sick, I couldn't let her feel like I didn't want to touch her when she needed me the most. So, Adam and I switched places and on it went. Now, I realize that this is not the most pleasant of posts but hello? Did you read the title of my blog? "Thoughts on Life and Dirty Diapers" and I'll warn you, the dirty diapers are coming too so if you have a weak stomach, this may not be the post for you. Here are the facts of life. The job of mothering is not always a clean one. Back to the story... So on it went every fifteen minutes all night long. I eventually got a garbage can and brought it into bed with us because both of us were getting too tired to make it to the bathroom. A couple of times during this, her eyes rolled back in her head and I was really scared. Really, really scared. So as soon as the doctors office opened, I called in. At this point I didn't feel like we were in any danger of dehydration since it had only been a few hours but apparently the doctors office had a different idea. They told me to bring her in so, I loaded up some changes of clothes for her and a few plastic bags. Without going into too much detail, we needed it! So we see the doctor and she tells me that she is dehydrated and that she is going to admit us to the hospital for IV fluids. I can't even describe to you the state that my normally bubbly, energetic, fun loving little girl was in. It was as if she was barely conscience. I called Adam while we were waiting to be admitted and was so glad to find him waiting on us when we got to the room. I did not want to be by myself while she got the IV. First, a nurse came in to take blood. We talked to Emma and explained that it was going to hurt a little but we needed her to be brave because they needed to test her blood to find out what was making her sick. She didn't even flinch. Then, on to get the IV. Again, we told her we needed her to be brave because she had to do this to get better. Her veins were almost flat so they didn't get the IV in on the first try. At this point, I had a flashback to a time when I was in the hospital when I was a little girl to have my appendix removed. I was dehydrated and they had to stick me twelve times before they got the IV in. I started praying , "God please don't make her go through this". Thankfully, the second try was successful. Her eyes teared up but she never moved or said a word. I, of course cried and when the nurses asked me if I was ok, I told them I was pregnant and hormonal. Pregnancy is a good excuse but those of you that know me know that I would have cried anyway. Someone once told me that to have a child was to have your heart walk around on the outside of you. Isn't that the truth. So anyway, we were in the hospital for two days. She began to have diarrhea so badly that we had to put her in diapers. I can't tell you how many diapers I changed in that two day period but I can tell you it was A LOT. She was so sweet the whole time. The first night, she couldn't have anything to drink at all and she kept begging me for water. I felt like I had her out on a desert island and I was forbidding her drink. So, at about 2:00 am, her fever went up to 102. The nurse told her that she was going to give her some motrin and then she could have a couple of sips of a drink after. Emma asked for sprite and I asked the nurse to bring me a water. She brought our drinks but told Emma not to drink hers until she got back with the medicine. Emma looked up at me and said, "I can't drink mine yet, but you can drink yours". I said, "Oh no, I'm not drinking this drink until you can have yours. It wouldn't be very nice of me to drink in front of you when you can't have anything" Her reply, "but the baby likes water". Now how sweet is that? She is going to be the best big sister ever. She got several teddy bears that people sent her and I asked her what I was going to do with all of those teddy bears. She says, "well, when the baby gets here, I can give some of them to it". So anyway, she got lots of fluids and at about 4 o'clock on Thursday morning, she woke up obviously feeling better, and I, much worse. Yep, that's right, I had caught the rotavirus (not nearly as badly as she had, glory be to God!) so Adam and I switched places, I came home, threw up a few times and crashed. Emma was discharged after lunch and has been stir crazy every since. I slept a good portion of the day on Thursday and pretty late on Friday and that my friend is why I am up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning not sleeping. After washing every piece of linen in the house and dis-infecting everything that I could have dreamed of us possibly touching, we are back and at it. At least for now.

God's design for The Church: a community of believers that know that they are by nature sinful and are deeply in need of God's grace, a body of people that would love and nurture each other in selflessness, and a group of people that will make it their passion to impact the world around them by displaying the love and grace of Jesus every where they go and in everything they do.

Adam and Emma's First Snow

A couple of weeks ago, we had the first real snow that we've had since we've moved to WV. So Emma and I had stayed home from church because she had a little bit of a case of pink eye and I was having lots of pregnancy. But, I forced myself outside because I didn't want to miss their first snow experience. Adam grew up in Florida, so he hadn't really ever experienced snow. Though I grew up in Alabama, we did have a few big snowfalls so it wasn't so new to me. Anyway, we pulled Emma around on a snow board thing that we have since we don't have any really big hills around our house, failed miserably at building a snowman, threw a few snowballs at each other and had a really fun time.

Ok, yesterday was not such a good day with the nausea stuff. I think I stopped counting at 15 with the throwing up. I was starting to get worried about getting dehydrated but my wonderful husband came home at lunch and took pity on me and fixed me soup and I was able to keep that down. He also talked to my doctor at church and she said she'd call me in some anti-nausea medication. I'm not sure... I was trying to make it through without taking anything but I may have to. I'm just scared that they are going to find out years later that there is some kind of birth defect in the children's children of the mother who took the anti-nausea medication. I'm sorry dear, your child has a third ear because your mom took anti-nausea medication when she was pregnant with you. Anyway, hopefully it will stop in a few weeks. I'm praying it does!

Love from above,
Dana

Our Big News

Ok, before I share this big news with you, I must go back and share with you a piece of an earlier post. So just a warning, this is going to be long.

This is from Sept. 14, 2006:
On Tuesday, after preschool, I got a call from Emma's teacher. So I answer the phone, and I hear, "Dana, this is Missy". Of course, my heart skipped a beat because I was thinking, "oh no, she's been in school for a week, and the teacher's already calling me to tell me we have a problem". This is what she said, "I just wanted to let you know that we pray every day and Emma is praying for a baby sister. She's not just praying it, she's praying it with all her heart. It almost made me cry". It's all Emma talks about. We will be going through a store and she'll see something in the baby section and she will say, "can we get that for my baby sister?" I'll say, "Emma you don't have a baby sister." She'll say, "not yet". I haven't figured out how to explain this to her yet but here's the situation:

In May 2002, I had surgery to remove a cyst the size of a softball from my ovary. When they were doing the surgery, the doctors discovered that I had endometreosis growing pretty much everywhere. The doctor then told me that the chances of me having children was very slim. He recommended me taking a drug called Lupron and said that if I didn't do that, the chances were next to nothing. I remember getting home and lying in bed praying (lying in bed only because I was too sore from surgery to hit my knees) "God, all I've ever wanted to do is be a mother. If it is in your will for me to adopt, I can do that. I know I can love any child but, I really long to know how it feels to carry and nurse my child. If you will only give me one, that's all I ask for". So, to make a very long story just a little bit shorter, After a lot of prayer and counsel from some Godly women, we decided not to do the Lupron. It had some harsh side effects, was very expensive, and I was very concerned about the long term effects of putting something that strong into my body. I started looking into natural ways to control the endometreosis and in October 2002 became pregnant with Emma.

So anyway, I tell her every day that I know God must love me a lot because he gave me her and her daddy. But, I don't think that she's quite old enough to understand the miracle that she really is. And, that I'm sticking to my deal. If God decides to bless us with another child, wonderful! But, I'm satisfied with my one. But, she's praying hard. And, the faith of a child.... I guess we'll see. But, I did attempt to explain a few things to her and this is how it went:

Me: Emma if God decides to give us another baby, He will also decide whether that baby is a boy or girl.
Emma: Then we can have twins and the boy can live with someone who wants a baby brother
Me: No, if we had twins, both of them would live with us.
Emma: Lots of crying with real tears.
Oh goodness, what will I do!

Ok, so it should have been a clue to me when I had to stop 20 times to go the the bathroom on our way to Alabama for Christmas. Well, apparently, I'm an idiot because I didn't figure it out until two weeks later. So we get back home on Wed. and on Thursday evening I'm laying on the couch under a blanket freezing. Adam and Emma are walking around and seem to be very comfortable. And ding, the light bulb comes on. Do you put thoughts in quotation marks? Well, for the sake of this post, I'm going to. So the thinking process goes like this.. "I'm cold. When you ovulate, you have a slight fever. If you get pregnant you're temperature continues to rise for a while. Could I be pregnant? No way". Ok, without getting too personal since this is out there for the whole world to see... Not that I think anyone will take the time to read this book I'm writing here. But hey, this needs to be on record right? So anyway, all my female stuff was all messed up the month of Dec. things weren't happening on schedule so I just didn't think it could happen. So anyway, I got up and went to the bathroom and took a pregnancy test and low and behold... POSITIVE. So in my moment of sheer geniusness.. I called Emma to the bathroom to tell her. No, I didn't consider the fact that I hadn't seen a Dr. and the kind of detrimental effects it could have on her had I told her and then found out that something was wrong. So anyway, the conversation with Emma goes like this:

Me: Emma do you still want us to have a baby?
Emma: I want two
Me: Well, hopefully there's just one but I just took this test and it means that there is a baby in my belly.
Emma: (gasping and shock) Really? There's a baby in your belly?
Me: Yes, can you go tell Daddy that you're going to be a big sister?

And she did. And of course, Adam didn't understand what she was saying at first but we kind of got it all straightened out, looked at each other in shock for a little bit and then called our parents and sisters. Emma told them and it was really cute. I let Emma call her teacher and tell her but other than her and a couple of very close friends, we didn't tell anyone here because Adam wanted to tell the teenagers first. So, our plan was to tell the teenagers on Sunday. But then, I started having some pain in my left side. And, in true hormonal pregnant girl fashion, I got freaked out and worried that I had a tubal preganancy or something. So, we decided to wait until I saw a doctor before we told everyone at church. The big problem here was that we had already told Emma. So I asked her if she could keep it a secret until I went to the doctor and she did. I can't believe it but she kept a secret for a whole week. I'm very blessed that my dr. goes to church with us and I told her what was going on and she got me in Tuesday morning for an ultrasound. This is what we found out.. There was in fact a yoke sack where it was supposed to be so, no tubal pregancy. However, there is a cyst on my left ovary. Not an ideal situation. It's a little painful and uncomfortable but nothing that would hurt the baby. So we went on with our plans to tell the teenagers on Wed. So Adam tells them and much to my surprise tells the whole church during primetime. So of course everyone turned to look at me and I got good and embarassed and all of that fun stuff. But, everyone is very excited for us and very supportive so that is really nice. As soon as we gave Emma the ok, she started running around and telling one that "she was having a baby". If you ask her, it's her baby. I'm so proud of her.

So yep, that's the story. I'm pregnant. Eight weeks today to be exact. I'm so much more sick than I was with Emma. I've lost three pounds. A day that I only throw up twice is a good day. Even so, I can tell that my stomach is already growing. I'm not looking forward to that part. But I can't wait for the end result..

On a very serious note.. We have several friends that have been trying to conceive that we've been praying for for a long time. I can't help but to think of them now. I hate to know that our joy is going to be their pain. We have Emma praying for them every night now. Apparently her prayers go higher :). Please pray for them too. And please pray for me to have wisdom with dealing with that particular situation.

Love from Above,

Dana

Disney Princesses Meet "The King"

I thought this was cute and thought I'd share it with you. This is what Emma was playing with this morning. She got the Elvis ornament off the Christmas tree and was using him as the prince.

Emma's Shows letter to Santa

I'm having the hardest time getting a picture for our Christmas cards this year. If you look at the first picture, you'll see why. I'll admit that this isn't my best photograph but it totally captured her sassy personality so I had to post it. The second is a picture of her showing her letter to Santa. He looks a little frightened. Hopefully, I'll have some good pics soon.

Love from Above,

Dana

Emma Sings a Thanksgiving Song

Emma sings us one of the songs she learned for her preschool Thanksgiving program.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My parents, Adam's parents, My sister, and her in-laws came for Thanksgiving dinner. I succeeded in feeding 12 people! I had a little help from mine and Adam's mom but really, I did most of it. I'm very proud of myself. I probably won't cook again for a month but I did it. I'm an official big girl. I had Thanksgiving at my house!

The visit was nice. Adam's parents left on Friday and then my sister left of Saturday and so we had my parents all to ourselves for a couple of days. I cried when they left on Monday... It kind of suprised me. That's the first time that's happened. It'll only be a month before we see them again. I don't know.. I think it's just knowing that if I feel like I need my mom, it's too far to just go.. I really like West Virginia fine. I just wish WV was closer to AL.