Live to Die another Day ...

 Some days being a parent feels a lot like living in a zoo!  Only the kind of zoo where they allow all the animals to roam free and destroy things and you have NO actual formal training as to how to run a zoo, or keep everyone from killing each other!  

Because of the lack of formal training, we are left at times to simply make it up as we go along.  The problem I have found with making it up as you go along, is that sometimes you get yourself into a situation where the animals turn on you, and then our natural fight or flight mode in our bodies is forced to take over.

I have a dear friend, who is a wonderful counselor, and she often asks me when venting about things: "Is this the hill you want to die on?"  

So, it's something I have come to start asking myself a lot!  

For example when the kids turned 4, one day I had the brilliant idea to go get extender bars for their closets, so now all of their clothes hang at their eye level and they can put them away (in theory) and take them down on their own.  

 The thing is that 4 year-olds have little concern for paying attention to things like outfits, or matching, or appropriate clothing for the current weather.  So daily it is a struggle for me to bite my tongue and not force them to go re-dress, after they come out of their rooms.   

What I have come to realize is that the issue is not their ability (or lack-there-of) to create a sensible, matching outfit for the day, but my own selfish need to present not only myself, but them, to the world in a certain way.   

After months (and I’m not exaggerating) of being SO annoyed each time they dressed themselves, I have decided daily to remind myself this: Their self-esteem and their self-confidence matters WAY more than if their clothes match!!! 

A brown shirt, with navy pants and black shoes, tells the world, and more importantly them, that they have a Mommy who believes in them, no matter if we look “put-together” or not.  

 Really when I think about it, it’s probably better this way. Because there are very, VERY few days when we are put together AT ALL, so having our outsides, match are our insides is probably a much better way of being in the world ... much more honest anyway.   

Secretly, I am still trying to find ways to help them learn HOW to match, so that maybe one day they will at least have the ability to do it, if they so choose to try! 

For now though, I have decided that "Matching Clothes" is just is not the hill I want to die on.

~

However, it its place Brian and I found another equally annoying hill I like to call: "Putting Away Your Toys". 

We promptly marched ourselves up to the top of it, planted our flag and prepared for battle! 

Here is the battle I daily have in front of me ...

For those of you without kids, my guess is you are wondering 2 things: do kids really make that big of a mess and how long does it take for them to do that? 

The answer is EVERYDAY and it only takes about 1 afternoon of good solid playtime to accomplish this level of destruction!

I have tried the: "You can only take 1 toy out at a time" rule, which does work ... if you have time to watch them like a hawk!  

Heaven forbid you try to accomplish something in your day, like a load of laundry, or unloading the dishwasher or going to the bathroom by yourself  .......  TA DA ... CHAOS!

The problem is that even though we knowingly climbed up this hill for the battle, now we are dying!  I mean really DYYYYIIIINNNNGGG! 


It's a slow, horrible, painful battle every day to get them to clean up their mess!  The battle usually takes on some version of this:

Me: Go clean up the mess you made in the loft.

Child 1: (with attitude, to Child 2) You have to clean up YOUR toys and I will clean up MINE! 

 Child 2: (already angry) I ALREADY KNOW THAT!

Me: Both of you just worry about yourselves and go clean up.

... a few minutes pass...

 ... someone starts screaming ...

Child 2: (crying) Moooooom! She hit me!

Me: Why?

 Child 2: Because I wasn't cleaning up the toys. (At least they are honest!)

Child 1: (yelling from upstairs) He's not cleaning up, he's playing and it's not fair! I am doing it all myself!!!

Me: Have a seat in time out, you are not allowed to hurt each other, even if you're angry.

... time out for 5 minutes ...

Me: Please just be responsible for YOURSELF and go pick up your toys. I am setting the timer for 15 minutes, at the end whatever is left I am going to put into time out.

Both of them run to put away their toys...

... a few minutes pass...

... someone starts crying ....


... and ON and ON and ONNNN it goes ...

See what I mean ... DYYYIIINNNGGG!!!!!!!

So, today I talked with Brian when he came home and we decided to wave our white flag in surrender!  They have us cornered and today we are choosing flight rather than fight and are climbing down off the hill.  Because truthfully I don't want to die on this hill and their is a real possibility I might, if I have to fight for even one more day.

We sat them down to let them know that from now on the loft an their rooms are theirs to use as they like. Their toys are THEIR responsibility. This revelation was met with enormous smiles by both of them!  I'm not sure yet if that should make us feel relieved or REALLY scared.

It is, at it's core, a grand experiment in reverse -psychology and we are going to PRAY that one day the mess they make will annoy them enough that they will decide to pick it up all on their own ...

I will keep you posted, if that day EVER comes ...

If not, at least we will live to die another day!

FOR LOVE!

I have been meaning to write for a while now but ... life has been a bit chaotic around here. 

For the most part we are keeping our heads above the water and I finally found a few free movements, so ....

Many people have been asking and checking in about Brian, so I feel like I should let you know how he is doing first.  He finished his first 4 treatments just before Micah was born, which was wonderful timing for all of us! Thank you Jesus for that!

  The antibody drug they are using to treat the cancer has NO side effects, so other than going and sitting in a chair with an IV for 6 hours and waiting for it to all get into his body, it really has felt like a non-event.  

I don't say that lightly, because we know that this drug is a gift and a miracle, that if it works can keep his cancer suppressed in his body for years and give us time; but compared to the other life events going on at the moment, it really has been in the background of our everyday life.  

 He went in for another treatment a few weeks ago.  In a month or so they will do another scan to determine how effective the drug is on the size of his lymph nodes and determine if this is "working" or not.  The good thing is, the nodes he was able to feel in his neck (which made him go into the Dr. this time to get checked) he can't feel anymore!  So we are hopeful that means ALL of the lymph nodes are shrinking and the cancer is being suppressed for the time being. 

Thank you for all of your prayer and support, it has been amazing to feel the hand of God reach out to us, through the people who love Him! I will write and update about the results of his scan once he gets them back.

The bigger event is the new little life we welcomed into our home in March!  For those of you who have never done it, adjusting to a newborn for the first few weeks, is a little like daily flipping your whole life upside down, and then frantically trying to put it back together.  All while severely sleep deprived, incredibly sore, and trying to come down off of the hormone high you have been on for the last nine months! ... Fun!

I think in my head I thought that because we had done it before, and because we had twins, this would be "No big deal" and we would adjust right back into our routine.  

That was a silly thought!

Sleep deprivation with one, or two or ten is just plain brutal, and unlike last time where they stayed in the NICU for seven weeks while I recovered ... this time we came home with a very sweet, but very needy baby who I actually pushed out of my body only days before.  The thought of that may be a little much for some of you, but I am still a little in awe of what I did, because it literally was THE single hardest thing I have ever done in my life! 

I heave heard this comment made a lot when it comes to childbirth: "There are no awards or metals handed out to the person who does it the best."  The idea behind the statement is that there is no right or wrong way to have a baby, which I completely agree with!  The truth is, there is no award ceremony and you don't receive a metal or a trophy upon leaving the hospital, for courage or valor or bravery ... but YOU SHOULD!  

I have been thinking about this a lot lately and I have decided this:

I think that being pregnant, growing a life inside of you, carrying out the process for a full 40 weeks (or less as sometimes the case may be), planned or unplanned, means willingly giving up your body... for LOVE.  

It means, because I already loved my child more than myself, I allowed my body to stretch and to grow.  All my internal organs were compressed into whatever area of my body they could fit into.  I spent weeks feeling breathless as Micah's body took over the space where my lungs once operated without hindrance.  My bladder was compressed by my growing uterus until the point I think I could only tolerate about one sip of water at a time.  My body retained water, which meant my hands and face, my ankles and feet and legs were puffy and swollen and painfully uncomfortable.  

For nine months, my body was not mine, it didn't belong to me.  It belonged to Micah!  It was HIS, to use whatever resources needed for him to grow and thrive and ultimately have life!  

For a short time, we were one, and he was every bit as much a part of me as the heart that beats in my chest and kept us both alive.

 

And then after weeks of contractions ... it was time for him to come!

I labored by myself for hours until I couldn't stand the pain.  I fought my own fear down, as I breathed through what felt like 10 contractions, until they had my epidural in place.   I smiled and laughed with excitement with my Mom and Brian and Corrie, until the pitocin kicked in and hard labor took over.  I pushed for almost 2 hours with an epidural that didn't work, until I was pretty sure I was either going to die, or I wanted to.  And then they laid this PERFECT, beautiful baby up on my chest and I realized what every mom, everywhere, realizes:

IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!  

A few months before I had Micah, I had the wonderful privilege to stand at the door of a hospital delivery room when my nephew was born.  By allowing all of us to listen in, my sister-in-law gave us the gift of hearing both the last terrifying movements of her labor of love (without any drugs - YIKES!) and his first stunningly beautiful squeaky little cries!   

The gift of hearing his cries speaks for itself, but I say listening to her labor was a gift for this reason: After all was said and done; baby was born, she was all put back together (as much as you can be right after having a baby), the Doctor came out of the room and this was his one comment: 

"She is a very brave woman."  

To be witness to that kind of bravery in life is rare. To see (or hear) someone literally lay their own life on the line for another, for love ... it was a gift that I will cherish my whole life. And then a few short months later I did it again myself, and I am so very proud of myself and so humbly thankful to God  for getting me through it!

Motherhood, in whatever shape and form it comes is an act of bravery and courage and sacrifice: ALL for for LOVE!  Some Mom's will carry and grow a baby in their body for nine months, while others wait and pray unceasingly over adoption paperwork. Some moms labor for hours or days, some with drugs, some without.  Each pulling from every bit of strength they have to push for minutes or hours, or fight their own fears down as they trust a Doctor to use a vacuum, or forceps, or preform a major surgery while they are AWAKE! There are some Mom's who do all of that, knowing full well that the baby they are sacrificing for will never come home with them, either because their precious life will be cut short, or because they made the difficult choice to let their baby go into the arms of another mom; who is silently laboring in prayer for a child they already desperately love.

 As I thought about it this year, I realized that Mother's Day might just be the single most important day of the year (at least for me).  Beacuse, it IS the award ceremony for first GIVING them life and then for yet another year of KEEPING them alive!  

My first year as a Mom, my sweet husband gave me a set of pearls for Mother's Day and whenever I wear them I feel like I am wearing my purple heart for the day!  Not because I am in love with jewelry, (if you know me at all you know I rarely wear it), but because they were given to me on Mother's Day, they feel like a badge of honor for my bravery and courage to daily take on the hardest job I have ever done. They are my reminder that although I will never again look good in a bikini because my body will never, ever be the same; my heart never will be either.

That makes every sleepless night, every poopy diaper, every snotty attitude and rolled eye worth it.  Because when I look at the three little miracles that God allowed me to bring into this world,  I realize that they are a gift! A gift sent by God to teach me that life isn't actually about looking good in a bikini ... it's about what Christ showed us on the cross, when he willingly gave up His body and sacrificed everything for LOVE!



I want to say a HUGE Thank You to my dear friend Corrie who gave us the precious gift of capturing this process in such a deeply beautiful way!  You are a wonderful photographer and an even better friend, thank you for sharing this with me!!! You all need to check her out, she is amazing!
http://www.clb-photography.com/

Backstory (for those of who didn't get to experience it first hand)

May 16, 2004

   I have been trying to figure out, how to adequately put words to a miracle I still stand in awe of.  I have been thinking about and reading through the miracles of Jesus for a while, trying to understand.  How did the blind man explain to people the change in him, how did the woman who had been bleeding for years get anyone to really understand what she had been through, what Jesus had really healed her from?   I don’t know if there is a way to really get someone to understand … here is my best attempt to be transparent with my life and tell how Great and Good God really is!

            In May of 2004, Brian and I got married right out of college.  In July of 2004, he was diagnosed with stage 4, Hodgkins and Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  Before starting chemo our Oncologist made us aware that a likely side effect of the drugs is sterility. He suggested if we ever wanted to have kids, that we bank sperm.

             “If we ever want to have kids? Of course we want to have kids!  All I have ever wanted to be is a Mom!  …. What if we never get to have kids?” all raced through my thoughts!  With one day before he had to start chemo treatments, we entered the wonderfully uncomfortable world of fertility clinics and banked sperm!

1st of 6 rounds of Chemotherapy

ICU after his Bone Marrow Transplant

Recieving his Stem Cells back after High Dose Chemo. "Transplant!"

            With that taken care of (for another worry on another day), Brian started his first of what would be six rounds of chemotherapy, taken every 3 weeks, to get him into remission.  Then at the recommendation of a board of oncologists who looked at his case, in January of 2005, he underwent a bone marrow transplant.  Or first year of marriage was consumed with questions to God: wondering why him, why us, trying to make sense of something that in our reality, just didn’t!  It took almost a full year, to finally realize that God didn’t actually owe us anything! Brian, and I for that matter, had ALREADY been saved!  He gave HIS Son up, so WE could have life! If he chose to save Bri from the disease that was killing his body, then it was for His Glory alone! If he chose to take Brian, then we would grieve with The Father who loves him more than we could possibly understand. Looking back now, where really we finally came, was to the place of surrender.  Surrender to God’s perfect will for our lives, and for those of us who understand it: the odd place where we LOOSE our life … so we can GAIN it!

            Brian did amazing with the treatment!  God used some amazing doctors, nurses and medical advances, to both save him and minister to our hearts.  We began the process of wrapping our hearts and minds around what God had really done. Even knowing what He had done for Brian, in the back of my mind was the nagging, sometimes paralyzing question: “What if we can never have kids?”

Profile of Ayla (front) and Ashton (back)

            In January of 2007, we started the very long, very painful, very uncomfortable, VERY EXPENSIVE process of In Vitro Fertilization.   The details of which could be a whole different testimony, but to keep it short: by day 5, we had only 2 healthy embryos that were still growing, which they implanted … and we waited.  I wish I could say it was in faith and trust that God would take care of it.  In reality, in the deepest part of my heart I was terrified of the idea that it may not work.  I was almost paralyzed in fear at the idea that I may never get to be a Mom!  At our first ultrasound, we got to hear 2 perfect, strong little heartbeats! Again, I am almost embarrassed to admit, that faith was not where I was dwelling.  Instead I set up a little camp right in-between fear and worry, making myself miserable and sick, over the “responsibility” I felt I had, to “make sure” they were OK. (As if that really had anything to do with me.)

1st Day of Preschool. I should have taken this from the back!

            Then one night, in one of the most significant miracles I had yet to experience, God gave me, a perfectly timed gift! One I neither had earned nor deserved.  I had a dream of a little blond boy and girl, wearing backpacks, holding hands, walking up a hill to their first day of school.  It was from behind, and at the time I had no idea, but at 12 weeks pregnant, before we even knew if we were having a boy or a girl, I dreamt in perfect detail about Ashton and Ayla.  For the first time, in 3 years I started to allow God in, to break my hard heart of control and get to really EXPERIENCE what I had “known” Him to be, my whole life. 

Ayla Joy

Ashton Tru

           

On August 2, 2007, at only 29 weeks, Ashton and Ayla made their early debut into the world at a whopping 2 lbs, 12 oz. and 3 lbs. 4 oz! Gripped by crushing guilt over them being so premature and drowning in sheer desperation, I clung to the God who saves, with everything I had.  I knew then, the same thing I knew when Brian was sick:  God didn’t owe us anything!  They were His and His alone! If he had wanted them, he could have taken them home. And yet, in the midst of one of the scariest times of our life, God again showed us who He really is: He is a God of hope, of healing and of mercy!  More than that, He is a Father who loved us and showed us HIS love for OUR kids, when we were desperate for a miracle!  They just turned 4 years old this month, with not a single complication from being 11 weeks premature! Every time I look at them, I am in awe of how amazing God really is! (Well, almost every time … Let’s just be honest, 4 year olds can be really trying sometimes!)

Ayla at 1 week old

            After all of that, we still are not to the miracle that has me standing in total awe of how amazing God really is …

             I don’t know exactly when I started wanting another baby.  Long before I said it out-loud to anyone, my heart started longing for a child I feel like was missing from our family.  This is such a hard thing to describe to anyone who has not experienced it, but I would look at pictures of the 4 of us, and have this deep, nagging feeling that someone was missing. With the first IVF cycle we had spend every bit of money we could and worked really hard trying to pay it all off.  In February of 2011, we went in to talk to the fertility Dr. about other options.  Turns out, there are NO OTHER OPTIONS.  We could spend $20,000 out of pocket (well really out of thin air – because let’s face it, between raising twins and real life, we don’t have that much in any pocket, ever!) to “try” IVF again, or we could look into adoption. 

            We started looking into adopting an infant; and tried to wrap our heads around the fact that it is even more expensive than IVF. I also realized quickly when we looked deeper into adoption, that I had to first find a way to grieve the loss of not having another child of our own, before we could try to move forward. To be honest, I had NO idea how to even begin to do that.  How do you grieve something you don’t have, that you will never have? My heart and my mind were sad beyond belief.  With every announcement by someone we know who was pregnant or every well-meaning person who reminded us: “You should just be thankful for the kids you do have!”, my despair and grief grew.           

            I spent way more time that I would like to admit, racking my brain to come up with some solution, some way to MAKE the miraculous happen.  All the while we were telling people: “If we want another child, our only options are to try IVF again, or adopt.” And then we would add: “Or God could just do a miracle and heal Brian.”  The last part said in much the same way you would say: “Or God could just let us win the lottery!”  And it’s because of THAT attitude right there, more than anything else, I am blown away by the mercy and the grace of what God has done!

            Not long after we started looking into IVF and adoption, trying to figure out which way to go, where God was leading us, I had another dream.  I was in a delivery room standing next to a woman helping coach her as she pushed.  Right before the baby was born I realized I was actually the one in labor and pushing, and they laid this perfect baby up on my chest.  The next scene I remember from the dream, Brian and I were standing in the hall of the hospital.  I was holding a baby boy, wrapped in a blue blanket and I kept saying, “I can’t believe he is ours.”  I woke up and remember thinking it was really un-clear if the baby was ours biologically, or if we had adopted him. 

            What was really clear though, was that just like the dream of Ashton and Ayla: God had given me a promise.  If we wanted to adopt, He would bless that! If we wanted to have a baby of our own, He would bless that as well. This sounds dumb saying, but the problem was: even with a promise from God, neither Brian nor I still had any idea how we could afford either one.

            After being in Castle Rock for not quite a year, we decided it was probably time to pick a church somewhere near our home. In 2011 started attending a church we have come to really enjoy.  As we attended, we started hearing the talk of healing services and how much this church stands on the belief that God both IS a healer and WANTS to heal.  The idea of it was not a foreign concept to us, since we had grown up in the church, hearing the miracles of Jesus and knowing He “can” heal.  Not only did we know it, we had experienced it, when He healed Brian from cancer, and then healed our babies perfectly in the NICU! You would think we would have learned something by now!?

            The problem was we had spent a long time in a church that was on fire for Jesus and bringing people into relationship with Him, but spent very little time talking about the supernatural part of who God is.  Going to a healing service just felt weird to me! With kind of an attitude, I think I even said to Brian one day, “Why do we have to go to a healing service to pray? If God hears our every prayer, every thought; if He wants to heal, and we are seeking Him, asking for healing, why can’t he answer our prayers from here? Why only if we go there?”  To which my wise and much more levelheaded husband answered: “Maybe so other people can see and experience His Glory too.” 

            I figured that was probably right, and even though I fully believed God COULD heal, I was still not ready to open up my heart and believe that he WOULD heal Brian.  The problem that I had was this: if I let myself believe with everything I am, that God WILL heal Brian and we can have a baby on our own without IVF or Dr.s or drugs or adoption, and He chooses not to, then I will be devastated!  The paralyzing fear I felt way back before I had the twins, I hadn’t let go, I just buried it.  As clearly as I have maybe ever “heard” something from God, I felt Him say, “Can you trust me enough to take care of you, if you are devastated?”  While I was working on my little plan to not fall completely apart, if we never got to hold the child I so strongly felt is supposed to be in our family, God was trying to teach me that He alone is actually Big enough to handle the hard parts of life!  We serve a God who is compassionate and comforting, who will grieve with us in our sorrow and lift us up, if only I would be willing to let Him in to do it.

            It was the Saturday before this perfectly timed sermon on Hope vs. Wishing, I finally admitted to myself and then out-loud to Brian. “For years I think I have been praying that God would heal you, so we can have a baby, but really I have only been “wishing” God would do it.” I know the dream was a promise that God gave me and yet I was living like it was nothing.  For the first time since we got married and started this long, crazy road, I was ready to be like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s robe.  In my desperate need, in my deepest desire, I finally let what I have always “known” about God seep into my heart, and started praying in Hope for God to heal Brian and allow us to have a baby on our own.  We decided we would go to the next healing service at Jubilee, (even if it still felt weird) and talked about how after we got home from our vacation at the end of July we would start “trying” to have a baby, the way everyone else “tries”.

We got back from vacation on Saturday, July 30th. I told Brian I thought I should take a pregnancy test. To which he responded: “we are not spending money on that, you’re not pregnant.”  To be fair, his response was warranted, as quite often I tend to overreact to ANY slight symptom that may even vaguely be related to pregnancy and insist I need to take a test.  After 6 years of him being medically sterile and me insisting on buying ridiculously expensive tests (for something that you pee on), he shook his head, put his foot down and moved on.  I however, was still feeling like our whole house was on rockers and decided to text my neighbor to see if she had any extra tests (as I knew she was pregnant herself, not because I assume people just keep them on hand).   

 2 Min. later I was sitting on the bathroom floor, looking at 2 strong blue lines and waffling back and froth between elation and utter confusion.  I came out to tell Brian and with a very suspicious look, he insisted the test must be wrong.  I then texted my neighbor and we had another little pow-wow over the back fence, this time to compare our positive pee sticks, at which point she said, “Did you ever think when we moved in here we would be comparing pee sticks over the fence.” Nope, can’t say I ever thought this would happen!  But, for the record, mine looked just like hers, so clearly jumping up and down and screaming with our pee sticks was the right thing to do!   

Brian at this point was still insistent that there was something wrong with the test and then insisted that I go buy a “good one” from the store (which I find ironic, given the proceeding part of the story.)  5 positive pregnancy tests later, we did what any normal people would do, I lined them up and took a picture, then started an internet search on what exactly can cause a false positive on a pregnancy test.  That proved not to be the greatest idea we have ever had, as the answer involves things like tumors and cancer. Since we have already been there and done that in our short marriage, we weren’t so excited to start down that road again and decided to wait until we talked to a Doctor before we officially freaked out. We are just weeks from welcoming a new life into our family and we are still standing in total disbelief of the biggest miracle I think I have ever experienced (which I feel like is saying a lot, given the story of our life.) 

            More than anything though I am humbled and broken and so unbelievably grateful that God works and moves, despite my feeble attempts at faith.  God both can and DOES heal, and not just when we have perfect steadfast faith!  He has mercy on those who struggle, He gives hope to those who stumble and fall, over and over again! He renews His promises to us even in our desperation, and I am so thankful!

            To top it all off, we went to church to hear the pastor talk about the year of Jubilee.  In Biblical times, the year of Jubilee was every 7 years, a time to rest and celebrate and reap the harvest God had given.  It didn’t really sink in until we were worshiping at the end and I turned to Brian and said: “It can’t really be a coincidence that this was our 7th year wedding anniversary!”  Then after going to the Dr. and trying to figure out how far along we are, we realized that (although we can’t know for sure) this baby was conceived exactly 7 years to the month and possibly to the very day, from the day Brian was diagnosed in 2004!

Coming soon: Micah Rain Cowdrey

            So, maybe you already love the Lord, maybe you are on the fence, or maybe you want nothing to do with a God that may seem big and scary and mean.  I can’t reconcile for anyone the really hard, really legitimate, questions about God.  

All I can say is this: 

Where there was only sadness and grief and loss before, now there is life!  

I have literally NO explanation for that, other than we love and serve a God who is Big and who is really Good! Soon we will welcome our new baby BOY into our family …

 for His Glory alone!

Calm down Rain Man and Just say THANK YOU!

Both Brian and I have been struggling a little bit recently with sharing our story, not because we mind anyone knowing or hearing.  Some of you who have heard the whole story, know we probably error on the side of TOO MUCH information sometimes!

We are struggling a little, because we never want to seem like we are seeking attention, or taking advantage of anyone.  There has been such a HUGE outpouring of love and support, people offering up prayers and meals, and asking if they can share with other people who don't know us. (The answer is yes, please do share it with anyone you feel led to!) To be honest we are a little overwhelmed by it.  Blessed and humbled, but overwhelmed. 

Each time someone asks to drop off a meal, the exausted, overwhelmed, pregnant part of me screams: "HALLELUJAH,  one less thing to juggle today!" The OCD part of me, that somehow still holds stubbornly onto the idea that being super-mom IS possible whispers: "You know you COULD make dinner yourself!" 

I am logically aware that being "super-mom" is in-fact impossible, but still these conversations do play out in my head at times, along with other equally silly conversations like: "It's perfectly fine to eat the entire jar of Nutella, you are pregnant, plus it's made out of nuts, so it's good for you!" That conversation I have a lot with myself actually, and I have a feeling I'm going to be paying for it after this pregnancy is over!

We had this discussion after we came home from the oncologist the other day about whether accepting meals was even ok, since Brian isn't going to be having chemo.  It feels a little like when you go to the doctor and they ask you to rate your pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Sometimes I feel like accepting help, and especially asking for it, requires rating our need on a scale from 1 to 10. 

Where the disconnect comes in is here: In my head, it feels like asking for help or accepting help is only OK on days where our need is a 10.  On days when I feel like we are at a 10, it's easy to talk myself down to like an 8 or a 9 and even then, I could think of 50 people more deserving or in need than we are.  What people are showing us through this time is that sometimes it's OK to accept help when we are at a 6 or a 7, or maybe even some days a 4.  

Maybe, the point is not if we are in the deepest need of our life. Maybe the point is that regardless of what we walk through 1 or 10, God knows and sees.  Because he loves us, He places these amazing people in our life who could care less what our number is, they are just happy drop a meal off at our front door.  

I realized, that the first time we went through this cancer journey we largely did so without being involved in the body of Christ.  We had our family and people who loved us and took care of us as much as we would allow (which I will admit was VERY little!), but we missed out on what it means to do life with other people.  

What we are learning now, is that doing life with other people is messy and it's humbling.  It's forcing us to lean into God.  To trust that maybe part the good He will bring out of this is to change us, to teach us how to accept help, with gratitude and thankfulness and NO guilt!

I love to watch extreme makeover home edition, but EVERY time I watch my thought is the very same: How do you ever say Thank You enough for something like that?  My good friend Vicki who is a wonderfully talented counselor, will have to help me work through this one later:  but it actually makes me feel really anxious just watching the people on TV try to say thank you.  It just doesn't feel like enough! 

So, if you have offered, or brought us a meal, or plan on bringing us one in the future and you show up and our door and I start taking to you about why my day was not a 10, but at lunch it was an 8 and now we are only at a 3, and I start trying to apologize for having you come all they way over, you can know I'm not crazy. In my own feeble way, what I'm trying to say is: Thank You!  

We feel humbled and a little undeserving of the outpouring of support and love.  We are still working through the overwhelming-ness of getting to experience first hand, what happens when people who love Jesus take seriously what he said and love their neighbors!

 For I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your right hand, and says to you: 

Do not fear, I will help you.  Isaiah 41:13

Over and over as a Mom I find myself reaching out for my child's hand.  Usually it's the times when the kids are trying something new, like going to school, or trying to make a new friend.  They hang back, they get quiet, they hesitate, and because I'm Mom, I notice they are having a hard time.  I bend down, hold out my hand and say, "It's OK, I'll help help you"!  Because they know I love them and they trust me, they put their little hand in my big one, and together we face the giant for the day.  There is something comforting about that thought: that the God who created the universe, is also the same God, who reaches down, holds out his big hand and says: "Don't fear, I will help you." 

So today I woke up and slipped my little hand into His big one and together we faced the giant of what Brian's treatment would look like.

The thing I continually forget, is that God is full of surprises.  We met with Brian's oncologist this afternoon and left with a mixture of relief and confusion.  The good news is that Brian will not be starting chemo anytime soon.  The bad news is, the medical community doesn't really know how to explain what Brian has, which makes treating it a little tricky.

She used a lot more technical terms to explain all of this to us, but I am not a doctor and my brain has partly fallen out with this pregnancy, so I will do my best to explain what I can.  The pathology from Brian's lymph nodes shows Hodgkins Lymphoma.  However, Hodgkins is typically a very aggressive disease which they have to treat very aggressively with chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.  If the treatment is successful, they consider someone "cured".  There are however a very small percentage of people who go through the treatment and then later relapse.  

Oh joy! You would laugh along with us at this fact, if you knew how many times we have been told this over the years.  I don't know if I can count the times we have heard from doctors: "We don't see that happen very often!"

 Brian has a specific type of Hodgkins that isn't acting like typical lymphoma, it is operating in his body much more like a chronic blood cancer.  For now, they are going to try to treat it as such.  They have an antibody drug called Rituxan that targets a specific molecule on cells affected by lymphoma.  He will go to the oncologist for a 6 hour infusion of Rituxan once a week for the next 4 weeks, then once a month for the next 2 years.  They will watch him closely and if the lymphoma starts to become resistant to the antibody, or starts acting aggressivly, then they will treat it with chemotherapy and another transplant.  

So ... first relief and a HUGE thank you to all of you who are praying!  God heard our prayers and has for the short-term provided a way through this. The antibody drug has few major side effects, and other than the day out of work for the infusion, it won't disrupt life all that much.  Which means all my stress about how we were going to deal with having a new baby and Brian being sick from chemotherapy was totally unnecessary.  For now, life will continue to operate around here, with the minor intrusion of added visits to the oncologist and eventually the welcome intrusion of a new little life into our midst.

Long term, we are still trying to process what this means.  The type of Hodgkins he has, for now seems like it will effect our lives like a chronic illness.  They will do their best to keep it suppressed with the drugs they have available for as many years as they can, and hope that the research being done now will eventually catch up with us.

For now, we will take a huge breath & thank God for His perfect provision.  We will continue to pray in faith that the cord blood from Micah will match Brian, so if he eventually needs a transplant, he will have a perfect match waiting for him. We will slip our little hands into the big hand of our Father and trust the same promise we have each time we have faced a time like this in our short marriage:

That He has a plan for us, a plan to prosper us and not harm us, a plan to give us hope and a future!

Jeremiah 29:11

Coming down off the ledge

Well here we are again at the start of a journey , we all hoped we would never be on again.  I decided it would be easier to start a blog to try to keep everyone informed and updated as we journey along.  Not that I don't love connecting and talking with all of you, but after a while I forget who I have told what information to, and I start to feel like I'm going a little crazy.   Plus, soon we will have a baby and between Brian being sick, keeping up with the twins and the sleep deprivation courtesy of a newborn, there is NO way I will ever be able to keep it strait.

The big question I find everyone asking at the moment is: "How are you doing?" I am glad you have asked!  Some of you have been down this road with us before, and some of you are joining us this time around.  There is this funny process that will take place for EVERYONE involved that I think requires continually asking: "How are you doing?" 

The first time time around, it took me a long time to understand why people were acting so strange.  After watching and listening, and years of processing that difficult time, I have realized that EVERYONE involved in this (and by that I mean: ALL of you who have found your way here and are reading this) has to process and cope and grieve this disease in their OWN way.  

Brian unfortunately gets to be the one who will carry the physical burden of treatment and fighting this STUPID (don't tell the kids I used that word!) disease.  Those of us who love him, to various degrees, are left on the outside to fight in the big and little ways we can. That fight will look different, the question to "How are you doing?", will be answered by each of us differently, over and over again along this journey.  Thank you, for all of you who have taken the time to check in, to ask us "How are you doing?" Make sure to remember to ask yourself the same thing occasionally along the way, it helps us all process and accept and feel, which is important I think!

I will answer for myself and try my best to answer for Brian, the question of how WE are doing with the news:

We got the call from his Oncologist just before dinner with his parents last Wednesday night.  We were out at a restaurant, so we all attempted to choke back tears, as he started using words like Hodgkins and chemo and transplant and donor list.  I would like to say I am actually very proud of all of us for holding it together as much as we did.  We only got a few strange glances from people who surely had to wonder what in the world was wrong with our table.  I'm pretty sure our poor waitress had NO idea what was going on. In hind-site we maybe should have had her sit down with us when Brian filled us in, so she would have had some context as to why table 10 in the corner was turning into a basket case!

We left the restaurant and started making calls to inform everyone of the news, which actually got us laughing hysterically as everyone I called started to cry and Brian goes: "Well we just single-handedly ruined everyone's night!"  For those of you who don't know, Brian often uses humor as a way to cope with things.  After almost 8 years of marriage, I have learned that sometimes it helps ... so we laughed the whole way home.

I did pretty well with the news for a couple of days, leaning into God, believing that He took care of us before, and He would do it again.  Then Friday morning hit and I don't know if it was the pregnancy hormones, the lack of sleep due to my bladder being compressed to the size of a pea, or the stages of grief, but I woke up angry.  Mad at God and mad at the world.  

The problem is that, pregnancy hormones and grief don't lend themselves to rational thought.  Which then led, to a sobbing phone-call to my very good friend Vicki, in which I informed her that: "This is a BAD time to have a baby and I've decided that he just has to stay in until September, when this was all over and we can actually be excited about having a baby, without worrying about cancer!"

  She so kindly and sweetly talked me down off my ledge, by reminding me that Micah is due in April and even if I've "decided", he actually can NOT stay in until September.  She also grieved along with me, that this is not great timing!  Bad timing however doesn't mean that we can't be excited about this new life. She assured me that people would in fact be excited WITH us about this new life, at the same time they were praying for Brian's! 

I tell you that, so that you will understand this: We are doing OK!  Some days we cry, some days we laugh hysterically and some days we go a little crazy and need me to talked down off the ledge of irrationality.  Some days we will be willing to tell you that, and some days we will smile and say we are doing fine, and you will see in our eyes that we're probably not telling you the whole truth.  And then the next day I will post a blog about how I have decided I am going to prolong my pregnancy for another 6 months, "because this is a BAD time!" and you will understand why I wasn't ready to tell you the truth the day before.  

Brian is holding up a little better than I am.  I would like to blame the pregnancy hormones, but the truth is that He usually does.  He is our rock and even though he daily tells me he's "not going to do the chemo", I know he will fight with everything he has in him!  For me and for our 3 beautiful kids and for a lifetime of memories that we have yet to have.  And the silver lining, is that we will all get to be changed, and humbled by the power of God working in our lives.

  We all get to be witness to what LOVE looks like: 

The Father fighting for His son, as he fights for his family!

I want to thank all of you who have written and texted and called and offered to go on the donor list.  ( I will have more info. about that process on here soon.) Your outpouring of love and support and prayer is humbling and life giving!  I have no idea what this journey will look like this time around, but we will do our best to keep you updated and informed as we go along.   

We WILL need help along the way, and I am going to do my best to ask for help, to accept your offers when you give them. If  we don't accept, or you can see in our eyes that we're not telling you whole truth, try not to take it personally, we all have our own process and even though we have done it before, we are learning and growing along with all of you.  

We will do our best to allow you to come along this journey with us, so together we can rejoice when we see the GOOD that God brings out of this STUPID disease!

Where we started ...