Our Family is Growing!

This year will surely hold many new experiences for our family, and we hope that one of them will be adding to our family through adoption! We are planning to adopt through the Delaware Foster Care System. We have a lot to learn, so you can be praying for us as we go through this new and uncharted territory.

A few details:

-We still need to decide on an adoption agency - our goal is to finalize this so we can move forward by the end of January.

-We would like to have a child younger than Will, but would be willing to consider a child older than him as long as they were younger than Emma.

-Also, we do not want to be "foster parents" at this point in our lives - that is, we know we will have to be approved as foster parents, but want to be in a situation where any child that comes into our stays as part of our forever family.

The cost of a foster care adoption is usually minimal, but there will certainly be other things to consider like probably upgrading from our Accord to add room for another car seat. We'll be sure to post about any fundraising we do! In the mean time, do you shop on Amazon? If you click through any of the Amazon
links on this blog or Thrifty Living and make a purchase, we will earn a small commission. I've also added a banner on the sidebar. We are putting aside any money earned this way for future adoption expenses.

It's exciting to see how God is working in all of our lives right now. Emma asks us every day to pray for "another brother and another sister"!

Update: Will

Thursday morning I took Will up to AI DuPont Children's hospital for his appointment with the GI specialist. Everything went well; he is going on a new medication (prilosec) that will take another week or so to start working, so he is continuing to take the Zantac until then. We also had some blood work done and are going to have an upper GI scan done to determine if there is anything wrong with his plumbing (like a small stomach) that could be making things worse. And I am supposed to cut cow's milk protein out of my diet, which is probably going to be one of the hardest things because I love milk, cheese, etc so much! Hopefully when the new medication kicks in I will be able to go back to milk. The doctor also commented that he sounded a little wheezy and I should probably give our pediatrician a call.

I got an appointment to have Will seen around 3pm. Everything got a little crazy at that point. The nurse practitioner who saw Will left the room after just a quick look at him and brought a nurse and a heart rate/oxygen monitor. They hooked Will up and said that his breathing was accelerated and his wheezing concerning and that they wanted me to take him to the ER right after having a nebulizer treatment. Will responded to the treatment well, but was still having some labored breathing, and then they told me they wanted to transport him to the ER via ambulance. They told me not to worry, that he was responding well to everything, but because he is so young, they needed to address it quickly. The whole time at the doctor's office, Will smiled and cooed at everyone!

The paramedics arrived while I was getting Will dressed, so all I had to do was get him in the carseat and they took him out to the ambulance and strapped him to the stretcher. About this time Martin called me from work, and I tried to tell him everything that was going on, but it didn't come out completely clearly. I ended up calling him back while we drove north to give him all the details. My mom had come to watch Emma for Will's GI appointment, so she was able to stay and keep Emma, so we didn't have to worry about finding someone last minute, which was great.

Will slept the whole way up to the hospital, and his vitals remained good, though he was given oxygen just to be safe. The paramedics were great, and continued to reassure me that Will would be fine. Martin met us at the ER and we were able to walk in together. I am so glad we were able to take the ambulance up. Not only did I not have to drive, but we were taken right in since they already knew we were coming.

In the ER Will remained pretty much as pleasant as ever. He smiled at all the doctors and nurses. He was diagnosed with bronchiolitis caused by RSV. We were told that there is a 1 week version of the virus and a 3 week version of the virus, so we are hoping that this is the one week! They used a vacuum to suction the mucus out of his nose, which he hated. But while they were holding his arms down to get ready for the suction, he started giggling as a nurse tickled his armpits...what a sweatheart! Will had another nebulizer treatment in the ER and we were sent home with one also. We ended up being discharged around 7:30, so only about 3 hours in the ER!

Will did not sleep great that night, but he was doing better when we went back to the pediatrician in the morning for his follow-up appointment. He slept most of Friday afternoon, and seemed to be doing much better. Saturday was a little more rough. He did not seem to respond to the nebulizer treatments as well in the morning, but by the afternoon was doing better. He slept about 5 hours straight through last night, and today seems almost completely back to normal! The doctor in the ER said there would be good days and bad days, and we have seen both in the last two days.

We really appreciate the many prayers for Will and for us! Here are some specific things that you can pray for:

• That Will continues to recover and respond well to the treatment
• For Emma as she struggles at times with the extra attention that Will needs. She is doing much better with this and is very sweet. She says "poor Will" and "sick Will" and likes to watch the nebulizer.
• That both Martin and I would stay healthy! We both feel a little under the weather and are hoping that is just from lack of sleep.
• For Will's reflux medication to bring relief.
• That we would continue to trust God through these trials, and then even more once things are back to normal!

That's Will in his little hospital gown. You can't even tell from this picture that we were in the ER!

What a week, what a week

This was probably one of the crazier weeks we've ever had...and most of the craziness managed to pack itself into the weekend and Monday...

Saturday morning I was hosting a surprised baby shower at 11. It was around 9:30 when Martin and I were cleaning up breakfast and I decided to wipe down the counters in the kitchen. I thought I could smell natural gas, which was a little odd because we had not cooked anything on the stove that morning. But I've had a more acute sense of smell being pregnant, so I was not too worried. Martin came over and sniffed and thought I might be smelling the (recently cleaned) cast iron skillet that cooked out fish tacos the night before. We determined that was it and moved on.

Martin went outside for something, and when he came back in the house told me that it smelled like gas as soon as he came in. I tested it too and agreed. Crap. And so the whirlwind began...

We ended up calling the gas emergency number, and they were able to have someone at our house within half an hour. Meanwhile, Martin had me and Emma stay in the front yard and out of the house, while I tried to figure out what I was going to do about the shower. We ended up moving it to our friends' house just a few houses down, which was huge. Martin called the husband of the new mommy to tell him to head to their house because of our gas leak, which covered the surprise part well. And my other neighbor offered me her oven to bake my cinnamon rolls for the shower.

The guy from the gas company said it seemed like our stove was leaking even when it was off, which would mean contacting the appliance company directly, but that we needed to have a high pressure test done first to rule out a pipe leak. Our friend's father is a heating and air conditioning guy, and he told us he could come and look at it Monday morning. That just meant no cooking on the stove or hot water for the rest of the weekend, which really was not too terrible. I planned 'no oven meals' for the whole week, and we took a shower at a neighbor's house.

Monday morning we had the pressure test done and got the bad news...the pressure was not holding, which meant there was a leak somewhere. Meanwhile....Martin stayed worked from home Monday and the guy he was carpooling with drove our car. We got a call when he was halfway to Wilmington that the car would not shift to 4th, which probably meant a transmission issue. Martin had noticed it driving a little funny Sunday on the way home from church too. We were able to drop the car off in town on Monday, hoping they could just verify if it was transmission (which they did; it shifted from 1st to 3rd for them, totally skipping 2nd). But when Martin drove it home from the shop it seemed completely normal again. Tricky, nasty hobbitses car.

So that brings us to Tuesday morning. They found the leak in less than 30 minutes. A pipe in our maintenance room was not screwed on tightly, and had probably been like that since we moved in! We are so thankful that it has never been something more serious! The pressure test held this time, so our gas was turned back on Tuesday afternoon.

Our plan for the weekend is to sell Martin's car. We've been talking about it for months now, so it makes the decision a little easier. Martin will carpool (I guess its more carmooch if you don't have a car to share) somedays, and take the bus somedays. Its a little bit of a walk for the bus, but since its summer, that is not really a problem. Now we just need to hope that we'll actually get something for a 1993 car that probably needs a new transmission...at least its a Honda!

And to top all of that off, Emma came down with a bit of a cold. Really, that isn't hardly worth mentioning, except that she had no voice on Monday, which made her sound completely pitiful. Actually her cold has been a bit of a blessing, because she's been sleeping a lot more, including sleeping in until 9 some mornings!

We're hoping for a much more relaxing weekend over the next few days!

Where did we go?

I know it has been a while since we've updated - I'm sorry!

Last week ended up being really packed. The worst part was that I got a nasty head cold that knocked me out until. Yesterday was the first day that I felt back to normal, and even then I've still been getting worn out quickly. We were dog and house sitting for our friends for several days last week while they were in the hospital having a baby! Emma enjoyed playing with their dogs, and we made the trip down to Dover to visit them Thursday evening and meet little Kellen!

Friday night we drove to Baltimore very late because Martin was leading our small group meeting for church. We arrived in Ellicott City a little before midnight! My birthday was Saturday and I started it off by getting a hair cut with Chrissy, who has been cutting my hair for a good 15 years or so. Martin surprised me by getting together with my parents to have extra family come to celebrate my birthday and have lunch. Oma, Martin's mom, my cousin Jen and her husband Joel and my aunt and uncle all were able to come. And Sarah and Becca called to say hi too!

Our snow is starting to disappear, thanks to a ton of rain yesterday and today. Spring may just be on its way!