A little announcement

Okay... it's been forever.

I'm going to start with this tonight and then tomorrow do the update because I have a little something I have to get out.

Mister W has something that he wants to announce.

He's going to be a...



He's so excited he's dancing!





He isn't the only one who is excited though. Miss L is used to being the big sister. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's the BEST big sister there is, so obviously she's excited too!





In fact, we're all pretty excited.



It's hard to believe that just about four years ago a doctor told me I'd never get pregnant with my own eggs. Honestly, that was a blessing to us. Without that news we never would have adopted miss L and our lives just wouldn't be what they are. Please don't misunderstand me. Miss L is a HUGE blessing to us, but we don't believe that God creates the suffering of the loss of infertility or adoption, but rather through the aspects of loss in those places creates something good.

Brad and I had talked about having more children. Obviously Ben leaves a hole in our hearts that cannot be filled by having a hundred more children, but it seemed that our family here on earth would easily fit three children. We have always talked about adopting again (and still do!) and that seemed to be the option that made the most sense. Our genetic issues are dicey and we definitely don't want to have another child that has to suffer through a heart defect. Plus, it's not like having biological children was exactly natural for us, either. No matter... we had plenty of time!

You know that phrase that goes something like, when we make plans, God laughs? :o)

Just around the time of mister W and Ben's first birthday I discovered I was pregnant. It was sort of a shock. We'd always joked about it happening and I think we'd always hoped that it might, even if that were a remote hope. We knew the timing was interesting too. It was our own little miracle delivered near Ben's birthday and I'm entering my second trimester right around the anniversary of his death.

How can we not be overjoyed? How can we not see this as an amazing gift? We are relishing the wonderful surprise in all of this. What an amazing God we have and we are so thankful for this blessing.

We are a bit nervous, of course. We'll have our first fetal echo in a couple of weeks. Hopefully everything will be fine. Ben's defect was part of a family of defects called left ventricular outflow tract defects. They range from defects that you may not even know you had to Ben's defect, Hypoplastic Left Heart. The chances of our having another child with a defect in that family according to the cardiologist is around 10%. According to the geneticist we saw in the hospital... 10% to 35%. (of course when I had both those conversations I thought... don't need this information cause that's not going to happen! ;o) We're just praying and praying that nothing is wrong. I'm not sure how we'd survive all of that again, but I know that it is what it is and we'll deal with whatever we need to. Obviously we'll keep everyone posted.

I have about a thousand photos to share. I know I've been gone too long, but it's late and I'm TIRED! :o) See you tomorrow!