My Sunshine

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are grey. You never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away. 

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping.  I dreamt I held you in my arms. When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken. So I hung my head, and I cried

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away. 

Jealous of Jesus

I'm jealous of Jesus. He is holding our precious baby as we speak and I'm oh so jealous! We never got to hold our baby, give them a big smooch or tell them all about their big bother Ryder who is so brave and strong! 

We found out our 8 week old baby, while in utero, went to be with Jesus a few days ago. We had already planned so many exciting things for baby Stocking #2. Possible nursery themes, potential names, how excited Ryder Jeremiah would be to have a baby sibling. Our hearts are overwhelmed with sadness, our eyes with tears as we figure out how to grieve a child we never had the honor of meeting. In those short 8 weeks of life our hearts doubled in size as we fell in love the instant we saw the words "pregnant" on the morning of April 10th. And our love only continued to multiply as we saw our baby's precious heartbeat just a couple of weeks ago. 

We look forward to the day we get to hold our baby in heaven! We have hope and a sense of peace knowing that he or she is in the arms of Jesus. Apart from our arms, there's no other place we'd have our baby be. 

As we wait for my body to naturally miscarry, we call out to God for comfort and a peace that passes all understanding. We know He's walking this journey with us as we can't seem to carry the weight of our own grief and sadness, so we ask Him to carry us every step of the way. This is a time where only one set of footprints is seen. 

Forever in our hearts, we love you baby Stocking! 

Counting Our Blessings....

Counting our blessings - sometimes it's a difficult thing to do amidst all of the tears, heartbreak and sadness but sometimes that the BEST time to start counting them.  

Many days I list all of the things that have gone "wrong". I analyze what I thought should have been "the perfect life - marriage, baby and a baby carriage". Well sometimes it doesn't necessarily work out that "perfect" but God is still at work. Each and every step of our journey is being used to write our own personal testimony and it's those hardest steps that often times teach us the most important lessons. It's those long, difficult, painful steps that encourage us to count our blessings even when they may be difficult to see. I choose to see these blessings and I choose to count them over and over again as I walk in the trenches of my journey....my testimony. 

James 1:2-4

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Ears - Oh my!

We are asking for extra prayers for Ryder Jeremiah. He's been having some ear issues for the past couple of months. Ear infections have become quite the norm lately and with those infections come sleepless nights, crying and eventually bloody ears. Yep! Bloody ears. 

The first time it happened I freaked out but sadly, bloody ears are becoming "routine" around here. Ryder's always struggled with excess fluid draining through his open palate which effects his ears by causing major pressure. That pressure builds up so much so that blood vessels, near Ryder's ear drum, start to pop. When the blood vessels pop, blood begins to drain from Ryder's ears. The good news is that we know what to do when his ears start to bleed and within a week or so his infection starts to clear. Thankfully his ear tubes are still in place and he won't have to undergo another ear surgery (as of yet) but eventually they'll need to be replaced. 

Pray for a strong heart for mama. My heart always breaks to see Ryder cry and be so uncomfortable! It's a constant guessing game with Ryder and since he can't communicate the pain it becomes a game of process of elmination . It's hard to tell when Ryder has an ear infection because he doesn't show "loud and clear" ear infection symptoms like other babies might show. More specifically, I hardly see Ryder's nose run. All of that mucus build up from his nose falls directly through the cleft palate in his mouth, causing more drainage in his throat....eventually causing an ear infection. Here's what we see when Ryder's ears start to bleed....

After a few days we start to see smiles....

And eventually he's back to his normal, joyful self with a full night's sleep for ALL! 

May 12th

We meet with Ryder's plastic surgeon on Monday, May 12th to discuss Ryder's next surgery and schedule a surgery date. This next surgery is to close his cleft palate (the roof of his mouth that has two openings that start from his gumline and go all the way to the back of his mouth). From what we've heard the recovery time for this surgery is a bit longer than his lip surgery. We'll probably be in the hospital for 2-3 nights and recovery usually takes 6-12 weeks. Good news is that less food will come out of Ryder's nose - post surgery - and eating solid foods will be much easier for him. Yay! We're asking for prayers as we continue to walk this journey. We stand firm as we know that we're not walking this journey alone - God is before us, behind us, beside us and sometimes carrying us, every step of the way! Jeremiah 1:5.