Where Have We Been

Well, we've been super busy being mommy and daddy to T. T has been super busy being 2!!!! Come back soon and mommy PROMISES to get our blogger updated on a regular basis.

The Good Life

Life is good. We have been so busy with T that I have not even had time to write. He's growing like a little weed........ Being one has been great to him, he is loving life!!!!!

Ya'll Come Back, Now, Ya Hear

I have not forgotten all of my friends in BLOGLAND…… I was sick and A worked nights last week and T was NOT happy that daddy was not home every night last week……… to be continued……. Over and out

CHOICES: Marriage and Children

I'll try to give you the short version, let me repeat I'll try to give you the short version............
I (AL) was born with a CRATER in the center of my heart (I won't give you the actual name, its hard enough to say, much less spell) and a defect in my Mitral Valve with the Tricuspid Valve fused into it. The CRATER affected all four chambers of my heart. My brother JD was born with the EXACT same thing (he's about 20 months older than me). This is not a genetically passable heart condition....... or so they said (since my birth, obviously, our younger cousin and JD's youngest daughter were born with the EXACT same heart condition).

When I was 5 weeks old I was FINALLY released from the hospital so that my mom and her parents could take me, my mom and JD (our dad and older brother would stay behind for awhile longer) from Oregon back to California for JD to have open heart surgery. My heart surgery followed 20 months later. Both JD and I spent our first 2 years in and out of the hospital; mom and dad rented a 2 bedroom apartment right next to the hospital and all three of us kids (an infant, toddler and teenager) shared a bedroom. For those of you that know me will understand N's Christmas present request during that time ---- EARPLUGS. It wasn't my talking it was the pitch of my practicing their names... He he he.....

When I was born the doctor that delivered me told my mom that "IF AND THAT'S A BIG IF THIS BABY LIVES SHE'D BE STUCK WITH A VEGETABLE SO SHE SHOULD HAVE ABORTED ME WHEN SHE HAD A CHANCE. NOW SHE WAS STUCK WITH THIS THING." This man WAS my mom's doctor when she was pregnant with me and she changed to another doctor when he told her this while she was pregnant (my mom found out she was pregnant with me right after the Roe v. Wade decision came down); however since I decided to GRACE the world with my presence about a week and a half before my anticipated delivery date my mom got whatever doctor was at the hospital since her doctor was on vacation. My mom's response to him was "DON'T BE TO SURE ABOUT THAT, SHE'S GONNA LIVE AND WILL NOT BE A VEGETABLE AND JD WILL LIVE TOO." My mom also kept telling the Dr.'s and my dad that she was pregnant with a girl and that my name would be AL. They were all convinced that I'd be a BOY (that was before they did sonograms so you did not know until the baby was born if it was a boy or girl). Way to go MOM, see her mother's intuition was RIGHT ON.

Our entire lives JD, our cousin and I have been closely watched, Cardiologist appointments were a regular occurrence in the early years, we then went to yearly appointments. JD, our mom and I lived in Texas but had a Cardiologist on call in California also since we visited there so much. I remember one Thanksgiving eating 2 pieces of HAM and spending several days in the hospital for eating too much salt.

My Texas Cardiologist during my childhood and through my young woman years was the most awesome, sweet, wonderful cardiologist, Dr. Dan McNamara. Dr. McNamara was grandfatherly, he set me down as I entered my teen years and said that even though Texas Children's was a training hospital that I would not be a "tester" and that I would not have people in and out of my rooms when I went in for my appointments, he would monitor which doctors in training would see me, if any. He respected the fact that I was a girl with a developing body and WAS NOT going to have me embarrassed. He also began preparing me for children (some of you are probably thinking, AS A TEENAGER??????). He would tell me that you may have to be in bed for some of your pregnancy and you will have to have a C-Section and explained what that was, he went on to say that when I was MUCH older and about to get married we would re-evaluate this.

What people don't realize is that JD and I are kind of the icons of this heart condition, JD is 34 and I'm almost 33 and there are not many people, if any at all older than us that survived this heart condition. So with every milestone it is a milestone for the medical community.

Dr. McNamara passed away when JD I were in our mid-twenties so we moved on to a new Dr. at Texas Children's (people with heart conditions that they were born with should always see a Pediatric Cardiologist, Adult Cardiologist are not equipped to treat us properly as the way our heart sounds would be HORRIBLE if you were an adult and developed it). Dr. Bricker was the new Chief (Dr.'s McNamara was the previous Chief of Cardiology) so he was the man for us.

During one of my last appointments with Dr. McNamara, he discovered that I was developing another heart condition, Cardiomyopthy (the form I have is called ASH, I was in the very beginning stages). By the time I began seeing Dr. Bricker my heart condition ASH had just crossed the line from the beginning stages to actually having ASH. The positive with this is that I am checked every year and I already due to the heart condition I was born with (and having NO COORDINATION, God knew I did not need any of that) I am pretty limited with my physical activity my ASH is developing VERY SLOWLY...... (FYI, I just had a checkup and they see no-difference from 4 years ago when it was noticed that I went from the beginning stages to actually having ASH).

Well when A and I were engaged he went with me to see Dr. Bricker; Dr. Bricker called me when I called to make my appointment (I had told his secretary that I was getting married and wanted to discuss babies) and said, come in and bring your fiancee. After my appointment, he (Dr. Bricker) said I know your a Christian (wow, I had never witnessed to him and so I wondered "did Dr. McNamara put that in my chart?") and I'm a Christian and I want to ask you something"........ I said, "yes, sir," he continued, "I have twins just about your age, a son and a daughter so I'm going to tell you exactly what I'd tell my daughter if she had your heart condition, ok?" I said "ok" he went on to say "You need to ask yourself if you are being a Godly wife and mother, to knowingly and willing bear a child that may have i) the heart condition you were born with, which we can fix; ii) the heart condition you developed which if they are born with they will die; ii) Tourette's (which A has), iii) Duschene's Muscular Dystrophy (my cousin had just passed away with this) and lastly MELAS (I won't even explain this one, just know its NOT GOOD)." He went on to say, "you will be in bed for your entire pregnancy and IF you live you may spend the rest of your life in bed. If your child is born with a several of these things, they may need to be medicated but may not be able to due to other ailments. Also, you will definitely have a C-Section but what if you die while trying to have a baby and leave A alone to raise a terminally ill child. If you want to do this, I'm behind you 100%, but I want you to know the facts." I looked at A and then at Dr. Bricker and said "thanks for being honest with, however I feel that if I tried to bear a child I'd be testing God. God has been awesome to me and I'm not going to test him, what do I do?" Dr. Bricker told me that with my heart condition that I could not take birth control (which I was already under conviction that if I could have children, I needed to have them and then get my tubes tied, no birth control). So I either needed to have my tubes tied or a Hysterectomy, however since I was 28 and had no female issues, I was looking at the tubes tied. Dr. Bricker also said "this does not mean that you can't be parents, there's Adoption and Surrogacy and like I said I'm behind you 100%, whatever you decide."

The decision to have my tubes tied was the easiest decision I've ever had to make, because I knew deep in my heart that my children were going to be adopted. God kept me from death's door many times over my life and I knew in my heart that I WAS NOT, I repeat WAS NOT going to test God Almighty. My mom prayed for JD and I to live and God answered that.

When we left the doctor's office I said "A my children will be adopted so if you want biological children then leave me now." He said that "he was NOT leaving me." I said "Adoption is not new to my family (my parents adopted my older brother N when he was a teenager) but it is to yours and your parents clearly want biological grandchildren." Andy said "well they'll have to get used to it, I've loved you since the 2nd grade, I always wanted you and God gave me my hearts desire, I GET TO MARRY YOU and I'm not letting you go." Yep, he really said that, I told him, "if you just made that up, remember it and keep telling me that, I like it." To this day he says that he did not make this up, that it took him until he was older to realize that what he felt for me was love.... We were getting married AND ADOPTING BABIES...... I was soooooooo excited.

On a side note, we did not find out Jay's daughter had the same heart condition until after Andy and I were married (another confirmation for me and Andy, after seeing Sydney with tubes coming in and out of her that we DEFINATELY made the right decision to adopt).

God has blessed my family in so many ways, Jimmy (our cousin with Muscular Dystrophy) went home to be with Jesus 9 years and 3 days after he took his last step (that’s another WONDERFUL blog), he lived many years longer than the Dr.’s anticipated and Jay, Walter, Jay’s daughter Sydney and I are living proof that you can survive a CRATER in the center of your heart.

Ok.... next blog, our Adoption Journey and then after that I'll blog how we got T (pray that by then we'll have a Court date for our Adoption). By the way, this IS the short version.

AL

ONE DAY LATE - Do you know what yesterday was?

You're probably saying, "NO, what was yesterday?" WELL I'M GLAD YOU ASKED --- Yesterday was T's 6 month anniversary with us..... YIPEE..... Ok now you may be asking, "what specifically is the significance of T's 6 month anniversary with us?"

As you all know we live in the GREAT State of TEXAS which requires that in an Domestic Adoption a child live with the family for 6 months before an adoption can be finalized. T's ADOPTION CAN BE OFFICIAL ANY DAY. Can you hear/see me jump for joy?????? My baby is almost officially and truly MINE, ALL MINE (ok Mine and A's and OUR ENTIRE FAMILY'S).

Please pray for us as we wind down this "waiting period." The birth father stated in March that he wanted to fight us for custody, however, no one (no attorney, CPS worker, Judge, NO ONE) has heard from him or his Legal Aid Attorney since May.

We are so blessed to have this precious angel in our lives, please continue to pray for us.

Love to all - AL

Survival of the kiddo kind...... and adults too

The Week of Firsts is FINALLY over....... T and Mommy survived his first week of day care. He did great except naps, he sat in his bed and looked around, such an inquisitive child (I love it). Mommy however, is still a little emotional about Day Care, surprisingly Daddy is doing better with it (ok not better, he stays away from day care as much as possible). A and I muddled through crazy work weeks and a meeting with our Attorney (hopefully T's ADOPTION will be final in August or September). August 23rd or September 6th would be awesome as my Birthday is August 23rd and T's 1st Birthday is September 6th. There is no way that T's Adoption could be final on A's Birthday as it is JULY 4th..... that's right a day of celebration for the entire U.S. Oh yes and T is the KING of his room, it's birth to 18 months, he's one of five with two teachers. However, he's not just one of five kids, he's the ONLY BOY. Four little girls, 6 months, 7 months, 10 months and 12 months. T will be 10 months on the 6th.

For those of you who don't know, T has a favorite video, Praise Baby, it's 30 minutes long and someone had given us the video version. When we retained custody of T it was obvious that he was allowed to watch WAY to much TV as an infant (he would stare at the TV at 4 months old, so we kept the Entertainment Center CLOSED until he went to bed). About 6 weeks ago we started letting him watch this video every morning while we finished getting ready and then we sampled some other videos, nothing compares to it, HE LOVES IT and it helps to increase his already great mood. Well somedays he was able to watch the video more than once and so the video started acting up so LIFEWAY came to the rescue, they ordered the DVD set of 3 for us and it came in this week. He's already seen all three and LOVES all of them.

My brother's daughters survived.... the oldest her first week of Camp without DADDY and the youngest her first week of VBS at a different church without her big sister.

A's Dad survived his 1st week after hip surgery, we talked specifically about this on Friday night and he said that over all it was a good week, a few bumps in the road for he and A's mom as she had to in his words DO EVERYTHING....... On the negative side A's dad loves to do the grocery shopping and he was not up to that (OBVIOUSLY) so his A's mom had to go which kind of upset A's dad as that's "HIS THING."

D & H survived their wedding..... Poor H what a trooper, she hurt her foot pretty bad last week and somehow managed to keep VERY HIGH HEEL SHOES ON not only through the wedding but through the reception and all of the dancing. I think some serious foot soaking was in her future.

Well I hope you all survived the week, A and T are so pooped out they are taking a morning nap along with our fur balls (Faith the cat is 9 and Jose the dog is 18 months) and they are all SNORING.

Love to all - AL

Prayer Requests:
1. Our Adoption
2. Allendale Baptist Church – the road (F.M. 1314) next to our church is being widened
3. Andy’s cousin Reg – Pregnancy due January 2007
4. Karen – she’s going to school and working several jobs and her twin nephews have Cerebal Palsy, one has been fighting Mono
5. Ben, Allison & Nathan – they are pregnant with #2 and are re-locating back to Texas; Allison and Nathan will be alone in Colorado through the end of August
6. The Wells Family – birth of quintuplets, death of son (one of the quintuplets) and the growth of the four daughters; also their older daughter Reagan as mommy and daddy are gone, see their website for specific needs www.savethewells.net.

The Continuation of Posting Number One

Hi again --- I'm still working out the how to's and what to say for my blog...... I'll start by saying MOMMY survived his 1st day of Day Care, T did wonderful, Mommy's nerves were another story.

Posting One

Today was a special day in our family and in our extended family. Our precious 9 month old son started his first day of DAY CARE.... My brother JD and his wife celebrated their 13th Anniversary and their oldest daughter left for her 1st week long CAMP experience without DAD. This is her 2nd year of camp, however, my brother, her wonderful daddy, went as a Counselor last year. My hubby's dad recently fell and had hip replacement surgery and was released from the Hospital today. I know you can say it, we all have "OUCH."

Wow - what a day to start my blog. The point of my blog is going to be to keep you (our extended family and those we consider a joy to call friends) updated on the trials, tribulations and JOYS of our little family of 5 (well 3 humans and 2 fur balls, a cat and a dog).