tested

I've had a few tests over the past weeks, and not the multiple choice/short answer kind. Both my patience and my composure, outside of parenting :), was pushed. I'm pretty ok with the way I handled myself, but none of the situations are over and I'll continue to be involved with both. Sometimes life feels like loop of those tests, just a different course number.

I think in the midst of those times, you draw on your memory banks and realize the questions on this test look vaguely familiar and you respond based on the fact that you know you've passed a similar test in the past. 

Following on the heels of my last post about my fabulous child and his humble beginnings, my second child has an even more miraculous story and was a game changer for our family. Among the rushes of hospital stays and doctor appointments and medication schedules, somehow I got pregnant. Yeah, God has a real sense of humor... in fact, I found out I was pregnant just 4 days after Todd and I, traveling home with Wy from a hospital visit, said "yeah, I think one is going to be just fine for us." Some encouragement from my grandma (cuz, really, mom couldn't help since she'd never had 2 little ones at a time!) and processing time, helped me to realize that maybe I could do two kids 18 months apart.

And then at 20 weeks, we had our first sense of what was in store with this baby. At a routine sonogram, we found out that the baby had a single umbilical artery. SUA carries with it a whole host of potential complications, including increased rate of miscarriage, intrauterine growth retardation, early delivery, and 25% of these babies are born with severe birth defects. I was monitored weekly for the rest of the my pregnancy and fast forward 19 weeks, Sis was born - small, but healthy. What an awesome two days of soaking it all in we had, and then they took her for a hearing test...