Still No Baby

I know some of you get a little worried when I don't post, so I wanted to give a short and sweet update:

Still No Baby.

We are all really excited for Abigail to join us, but she hasn't decided to come yet. We went to the doctor this morning and she said Heather's body has started to get ready for it all to happen. In other words: ANYTIME NOW!!!

I will try to keep you all more updated so you're not in limbo.

Oh, I just thought about this. We did tell Colton the other night and it went "ok." I don't think he quite gets it yet, but at least we were able to break the ice with him. He told us, after looking at some of the pictures, that it "kind of scared him." We asked why and he said, "it scares me because it looks like it will hurt her." We then explained to thim that it doesn't hurt her. I think he is just worried about her because of his HUGE heart.

The Time is Near and We Need Some Advice

To all the mom's and dad's that have kids with a cleft we need some of your advise. Even people without kids with a cleft or without kids at all, feel free to leave some advise.

We have yet to tell our 6 year old son, Colton, about Abigail's cleft. We have chosen to shelter him from this news because we did not want him to worry or get freaked out about it. But, since the time for Abigail to join us is getting really close, we are wondering what other parents have done to tell their other children? Did you wait until the baby was here? Did you tell them before hand? What did you tell them?

Our current thoughts are to tell him in the next few weeks before Abigail is actually here so he doesn't get a big surprise when she doesn't have a complete lip. We thought we would just explain it as an "ouey" on her lip that will need to be fixed in the months to come. We would like to know what you did and how your other children took it?

Thanks to you all, you are Awesome!

Response to Jeanne

YOU ARE RIGHT. I could have eaten my own words with my last post. Jeanne wrote:

"But, also -- don't let yourself think "20 weeks" or "5 months." You can only take one day at a time."

To live like you were dying doesn't mean worry or even think about 20 weeks ahead, or even 1 minute ahead. As gloomy as it might sound, who really knows how many more years, months, days, hours, minutes, down to even seconds we have left? Thank you Jeanne for your comment.

"Living Like You were Dying"

I don't know where this blog is going to go but I just wanted to vent, encourage, throw up some words, etc. At church we have started a series called, "Living Like You were Dying." It is inspired by the Tim McGraw song, "Live Like You Were Dying." If you haven't heard it, Click Here and you can read the lyrics. Yesterday in the sermon I couldn't help but continue to think about Abigail and all of her Cleft buddies that we have met through these blogs. Today I have also been thinking about them all day. As I sat here and read some of the blogs it seems as though there have been a lot of struggles lately, us included. As the time gets closer to Abigail joining us on the outside of Heather's beautifully made pregnant body, we continue to get more anxious. I couple of weeks ago we went to see a child dentist to discuss what Abigail "could" go through, and what procedures, retainers, nam's, Abby "could" have. I came out of that more worried than I have ever been during this entire process. Even though I didn't have time to think about it because my sisiter-in-law was going to the hospital to have her baby, it sat in the back of my mind and simmered.
5 month's with a nam? How are we going to afford this? Are we going to have to sell our house? One of our cars? My quad? What is going to happen? What are we going to do?
All of these questions screamed through my head. Heather and I talked about the different possibilities, and then we talked about, "Why are we worrying about this?" We don't know exactly what is going on. We don't know anything. This goes right along with Matthew 6:25-34:

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Again I want to repeat verse 27: "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"
This really makes worrying seem so worthless when Jesus calls us out like that, but again we are humans and we do worry about each other. And back to living like I was dying; would I want my last words to be something of worry? If I were really going to die tomorrow, would I be able to die happy? This question frequently runs through my head and reminds me to be thankful for what I have and reminds me to tell my family how much I love them and how proud I am of them. This is a little glummy becasuse I am talking about dying, but I am just being honest. It's not that I am planning on dying tomorrow, but who of us know when God is going to call us Home?

Verse 34 says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, so why are we worried about it? Let's deal with today and when tomorrow comes, we will deal with it then. Third Day has a song on their Come Together album called "It's Alright." In this song it talks about "It" being alright; not worrying about tomorrow. Click Here to read the lyrics.

Thanks for listening to this ramble and hopefully it can encourage others. I know everyone is going to worry about one thing or another, but try and remember this question when you find yourself dwelling over it:

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

Nash Jacob Adams IS HERE!!!!!!

Whoa, where did he come from. Abigail's cousin is here in full fashion. Nash Jacob Adams came to us April 3rd, 2008 at 7:09 PM. He was 6lbs. 4oz. and 19 inches long. YAY!!! Everyone is healthy and happy so praise the Lord for another miracle. Once I get a postable picture I will share with you all.

What a Weekend!?!

I will just tell the story, starting from last Wednesday. Actually, before Wednesday even occurred, about two months ago, Heather and I went into the hospital because she was having back pain so bad that it was bringing her to tears. So, we went to the OB screening room, they monitored the baby and Heather for about an hour and a half, told us everything looked perfect and sent us on our way. Well, this past Wednesday the pain started to come back. It was tolerable even to the point that Heather went with Colton and I to Winter Park on Thursday. Of course she didn't ski, but she was able to sit in the lodge and work on her own stuff while Colton and I skied. Thursday went by and Heather said it was just really uncomfortable, but the pain was tolerable. She was able to fall asleep on me Thursday night, but come early Friday morning she was awakened by the pain at about 4 AM. At this time she just moved down to the couch to prop herself up to try and alieve this pain. Colton and I woke up at about 7:30. Heather told me that the pain was only getting worse. We called the doctors office at 8:00, talked to the nurse, she referred us the OB nurse, the OB nurse referred us to the overall hospital nurse, and she told us to try to relax and alternate cold with heat (which we had been doing). Later that day, Heather thought that getting out and moving might get the blood moving and make it better so we went and ran a couple of errands. She dropped me off to get one our cars an oil change. As soon as I got back she came walking outside in excruciating pain saying, we need to go in. So we packed up and headed to the hospital. The thing that really started to worry us was her shortness of breath. Thankfully, our Awesome Aunt Sue was able to meet us at the hospital and take care of Colton for the night, Thanks Sue! We again went to the OB screening room where they started to monitor Abigail and Heather. Abigail's heart rate was in the 180's to 190's, which is fairly high. The nurse practitioner in the OB clinic told that she is going to send us to the ER because if something is wrong they will have the tools there to take care of it. So they got her a room in the ER and wheeled her down there. A little side note, if you ever think your life sucks, go and hang out in Denver Health's ER for a Friday night and you quickly realize that it could be worse. So, we waited in the room for about 5 minutes before being bombarded with 10 people and a thousand questions. Heather at this point was still in, if not worse than before, excruciating pain. So the doctor immediately ordered 4 mg of morphine, which immediately freaked me out. Was this safe for Abigail? Is this going to have any side effects? Well, all the answers were no. Abigail being 34 weeks along helped her out, because she is pretty much fully formed with all of her organs. At this point they said all she needs to do is fatten up for the outside world. They said the morphine will affect Abigail just as it will Heather; it will make her sleepy. So they gave her the pain medication and just continued to monitor her. About an hour later Heather was still in extreme pain, so they ordered another 4 mg of morphine. The same questions came fumbling out my mouth, but again they assured me that it was safe for both Abigail and Heather. Then came what they needed to do in order to find out what was going on; a CAT scan. Heather obviously knows more than me, but being raised by a nurse and then marrying one, I know my fair share and right away we starting worrying, not only about the radiation, but the dye they inject into you. Just the word "risks" and "side-effects" don't sit well when there is a baby on board. They needed to do this because they were afraid of Heather having a pulmonary embolism which is a clot in the, or leading to, the lungs. Women are at a higher risk of these during pregnancy due to the increase of blood in their bodies. Ever had to sign a specific release form for your unborn child because there are "risks" and unknowns to your baby; NOT FUN. The radiologist "assured" us that he didn't "think" our baby was going to be affected; again NOT FUN. The doctors and company felt very strongly that the risks of Heather having a PE outweighed the risks of the radiation and the dye. We had an OB nurse at bedside that also told us that they saw and took care of lots of women that had to get a CAT scan and nothing went wrong. About an hour after the scan the ER doctor came in and told they were able to rule out All of the major stuff. No collapsed lung, no clot, no ... Now we were thinking great we have done all of this and found nothing? We still didn't know what was causing this pain? Now don't get me wrong, THANK GOD nothing major was happening, but it was frustrating still not knowing. So, finally the ER told us that we needed to move up to the OB floor because they needed to fill the ER bed with another drunk; and that night there were plenty of drunks in that ER. Before we moved to the OB floor the OB doctor came and checked out Heather. She was able to rule out the pre-term labor and tell that she felt everything was OK with Abigail and Heather, but to make sure they aren't missing anything, they wanted to monitor her for a while. From the ER to our own private OB suite was literally night and day. The OB nursing and doctor staff at Denver Health was great. They gave us the option to be discharged around midnight or stay the night, and since we had already paid for our stay, we stayed the night. At least we were able to have a more in depth "dry run." Ha-ha, not really funny because of what we had to go through. So the conclusion to all of this:
The only thing they were able to make sense of was a muscular pull or strain. Now, how could that happen. Well, at work Heather has to push and pull these carts around that they say weigh 195 pounds. Are you kidding me? I don't even know if I could that all night, and I'm not even pregnant. The doctors have now wrote her a note saying she cannot push or pull those. Beyond that, Heather's manager, who's NOT a fan of those carts, told her to take the week off. Yay! but Boo because this week is going to cut into her PTO for after Abigail comes. Last night Heather was able to get a descent nights sleep, but the pain came back a little this morning (Mon, March 31). This afternoon we are going to go back to the hospital to file a claim for workman's comp. I talked with one of the charge nurse's on Heather unit and he told me Heather is not the first one to be injured by one of these carts. Me being the enginerd is going to do some calculations for the amount of force it takes to start and stop those carts. I will let you all know the outcome.
As for right now, we are doing alright and we appreciate the thoughts and prayers that have come our way. Hopefully this will pass this week and we can get back to the anticipation of Abby!

Big Update

Since the last update was just a little one, I will make this a big one. There actually has been a lot going on and a lot to come. I will start by just saying congratulations to my Cousins in Minnesota for having their second little girl just yesterday (March 12th). Many of you that read this blog probably don't know that Heather's sister is also pregnant and she is due about 2 weeks before our little Abigail. She is having a boy and they are naming him Nash. This past weekend there was a baby shower for little 'ol Nash. Below is a picture of Nash and Abigail having a little chit-chat (or maybe it was more of a boxing match)

Abigail and Heather's baby shower is this weekend where Nash and Abby can go for round 2! I am already in the process of getting used the pink, but all I have heard about this weekend is how much pink there will be, so thank goodness the boys are doing something else. There are actually a couple of Easter egg hunts that I am going to take Colton to. The house is "almost" there. Of course, there will always be something, but we really are close to being done with the big projects. As I promised before, here is where Abigail will lie her sweet little head:

I think my kids have really made out on their rooms. I know there won't be a lack of space in Abby's room. Heather is so good at decorating that she has really made our entire house so wonderful to live in. I am not one to care initially about the decor, but she has done such a good job with it, that it really just makes everything feel like home. For more pictures of the house (actually only the basement) go to heatpete.blogspot.com.

I saved the most important news for last. We had our final ultrasound this morning. I say this is the most important, but I don't have a whole lot to say, which is good. Of course, Abigail had her hands up in her face and in her mouth, so we were unable to get a good look at her cleft. It is what is, so all we can do at this point is pray that God makes it as easy on everyone, especially Abigail, as He can. With that said, everything else was great. They said she weighed 4 pounds 2 ounces. How they know how much she weighs is beyond me, but they said she looked like a very healthy and happy baby. Nothing makes me more happy and proud than to here that my little one looks happy.

I also promised before some pictures of Abigail's current home. I have to warn you all that the second picture below is not for everyone. The least I can say is that Heather now has a bigger belly than me, even when I am trying to be big. Obviously there is a reason for her big belly, so I hope I don't in too much trouble for saying so. But to help alleviate some of slapping when I get home, I do have to say that she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I could not imagine God picking out a better fit for me. I will let you see for yourself:

Is she not the most beautiful woman ever? She really make me happy.

Warning again for the below picture (it's not that bad). She WINS!!! I am at the disadvantage; 2 vs.1...

I will keep you all posted for anything else to come, but as far as I can see right now, we are only into the count down. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts, it really means a lot to us.