Promise to God

I have been reflecting back on my time in the hospital before my sweet Thomas was born. I spent what felt like a very long nine days and nights in the ICU. I remember praying and crying and begging and pleading with God to please let my son live. Please Lord God let him live and I promise to be a better Christian,  I promise to be a better leader and teacher for my family just please let him live and I promise to do all these things for you. I was bargaining , begging and pleading with all my heart crying out to God. Well , God did let him live. He was my baby here for 20 hours.  I didn't have nearly enough time with him but I cherish every second he was here.  My Thomas now lives with his heavenly father. He LIVES so I will praise God and be thankful even though my heart is broken and my soul is aching.  I know God will see me through this season of hurt.  I pray that I can live up to my end of the bargain and be a better leader and a better teacher for my family. I pray we will all praise you and worship you and grow closer and deeper in love with you every day.

Savannah

We just received some very bad news two days ago. Our beloved doggy Savannah is terminally ill. She has been staying with Josh's mom since I have been home from the hospital. Josh's Mom unexpectedly lost her dog while I was in the hospital. She ended up taking Savannah to stay with her while Josh was doing a lot of back and fourth to the hospital to see me. When I came home from the hospital I was physically weak and overwhelmed, so Josh and I decided to have Savannah stay with his mom for awhile. After a few weeks of her being there his mom noticed she was having bloody diarrhea. She took her to the vet and the tested for parasites and sent her home with antibiotics to kill whatever might be causing the bloody poops and they put her on a strict diet. After about two weeks of the new diet  and after antibiotics ran their course she still had bloody stools, so she took her back to the vet. This time they did an ultrasound and found 4 significant sized tumors in her colon and a few other places. The were able to take a small sample with a very thin needle and they are being biopsied right now, however the doctor is not very hopeful and is 99% certain it is cancer. We are all very devastated. The doctor said given how fast this has come on and progressed she believes Savannah's illness will continue to progress rapidly and she wont be with us much longer. We were told Chemotherapy was an option but it would cost 10K and is very hard on the dog and would likely only give her an extra 6 months. We have decided that it would not be fair to put her through the torture of chemotherapy. The Vet instructed us to just enjoy our time with her, to take her on lots of walks, the dog park, beach anywhere we want while we can...she said to just make her life as enjoyable as possible. So as you can imagine we are devastated, we just lost our son and haven't even been able to lay him to rest yet and now we are loosing our 1st "baby" our sweet Savannah. Please pray for our little Savannah to have as much time with us as possible and for her not to feel pain. We appreciate everyone's continued prayers for our family as we are still very much mourning the loss our Son and are starting to plan his memorial.

One month ago...

One month ago today our angel was born. I have been thinking about Thomas all day missing him more than ever today. Josh and I even talked about getting semi matching tattoos in his memory.

While Ben was napping the mortuary called to tell us they had Thomas' death certificate.  I broke down. I am still in some sort of state of shock and feeling so robbed of what could have been for our family.  ...

 

Here is the good part of my day ; Ben wakes up from his nap and as I have him on the changing table I sing him twinkle twinkle little star. Then I ask him if we should sing brother Thomas a song he gives me his famous mmm hmm. I ask him what song we should sing,  he immediately says happy birthday.  I fought through more tears and we sang Thomas happy birthday.  It was a precious moment that I will remember forever.

 

Then of course he had to have his afternoon popsicle.

 

Saying goodbye at 24 weeks

I haven't been very active on here but I feel at a place where I want to share this with our friends and family. Josh and I recently went through the biggest heartbreak of our life. Our sweet son was born prematurely at 24 weeks, he lived on this earth for only 20 hours. Our hearts ache every single day. Our angel Thomas James was born via emergency c-section on june 17th at 3:55am. I had been hospitalized for bleeding due to a diagnosis of complete placenta previa. prior to being hospitalized I was on bedrest at home for 2 weeks. I had on going bleeding that wouldnt stop for over a month. I received 2 blood transfusions and an iron transfusion but it wasnt enough , my bleeding became too dangerous and my little one becamed distressed in utero. This led to an emergancy c-section at just 24 weeks. the docotors told me survial for our baby was only 50%, but we had so much hope for him. I was given steroids to help his little lungs develop more. I lost a lot of blood during surgery and had to have two more blood transfusions before I could see my baby. I had to wait 12 long hours to see him. When I finally got to see him, he was so tiny and hooked up to so many machines to help him breath. Dispite all of that he was doing ok...his stats where as good as they could be givien his prematurity.Then, within an hour of meeting my baby boy for the first time his health started to rapidly decline. His breathing and oxygen levels became very low and the doctors tried everything to get him oxygen but in the end he went for too long without getting enough oxygen. The doctors didn't expect him to live through the night and they told us if by some miracle he did he would be basically brain dead. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to remove  him for the breathing machines and let him pass peacefully. I held his precious little body as he went to be with the Lord. The most painful half hour of my life . He was just too little and not ready for this world. I don't think it has fully sunk in yet, it has only been 23 days...I feel numb. I keep asking why this happened to me, why this happend to us. We are good people, we dont lie or steal or cheat. We pay it forward, we are good christians...this isn't supposed to happen to us. but I guess all the doesn't matter. I know God has a plan and that this was part of it. I will never really understand . I cant wait until i get see his perfect face again in heaven where he will be waiting for me pain free and perfect.

17 weeks

17 weeks with #2. Feeling good and ready to show off my bump in the DR.

Little flutters

I just started feeling the baby move.  Little flutters in my tummy make my heart smile. I absolutely love the feeling of my little man dancing around.  I  now feel another level of bonding and closeness to my second son. Can't wait to snuggle him.

14 weeks

My 14 week bump coming along. Definitely showing earlier and more

 with baby #2!