Life Update: Crazy Days

So, I know it has been a bit since I’ve posted and I do apologize. To say that life has been crazy would be an understatement. We’ve had dentist appointments, another birthday (Ms. Caitlyn turned 13), house drama, and some baby news.

In our last life update post, we had just had Mr. Joey’s birthday and I had been working on getting some freezer meals entered into our Cozi calendar. (Yep, that’s an affiliate link and there may be a couple more scattered in the post as well.) The new meals that I’ve added to our rotation have been a big hit and many of them came from Jamerrill’s Large Family Table.

I have tweaked a couple of them to work for our family but everyone has loved them and I will soon be making them in bulk to put in the freezer. I’ve been holding off on another major Freezer Meals session because we want to get moved in so we wouldn’t be moving so much frozen food back and forth.

As far as the house goes we have had a little bit of progress:

the electrician has been out and finished his work
the electrical inspection passed… YAY!
the finishing crew fixed a few items but left a few to finish which we will tackle this weekend

Now we are waiting on the skirting which is scheduled to happen tomorrow morning and then a final inspection scheduled for Monday. We are still waiting on our steps for the back door as the ones that came were the wrong size. You can see that the post falls in the center of the second door… we plan to replace these with French doors in the future and those steps won’t work!

Once we get the final inspection we should hopefully get the go-ahead to move in by Tuesday… woot-woot! We are so ready but we are dreading the move as well.

This weekend we will be installing the dryer vent which was missing and a couple of lights in the bedroom closets. Mr. Awesome is replacing the pull chain lights with a couple of ‘can lights’ which will be wired to their own light switches… hopefully, this will keep the kids from breaking the lights.

As I’m writing this we just happened to notice that the electric company is over at the house so we should have power soon!

Over the weekend we made a trip to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park. This was our second time visiting the park and the second time we had been blessed with tickets to go. Thank you Ms. Dorothy and Mr. Ron! We all had a great time and the kids have been begging to go again.

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I found this cutie in the gift shop and had to bring it home with me for the baby:

The little trip over the weekend was much needed as Friday was an extremely stressful day… I haven’t really said a lot about any of this to anyone but I’ve decided to share this with everyone as we need all the love and support that we can get! It really does take a village to raise a child and maybe our experience can help someone else on their journey.

Friday was my first appointment with the high-risk clinic and it did not go anything as expected. We were at the office for almost 5 hours! I was already nervous because we had already had a couple of issues earlier. The doctors had already been telling me the risks of having a baby at ‘my age‘ and it seemed that they kept stressing the chances of having a baby with ‘issues’.

The ultrasound had been scheduled first and when the tech went to get the doctor I was pretty certain that she had some concerns… the longer we waited for the doctor the more it weighed on me. After 10-15 minutes I just started crying… poor Mr. Awesome didn’t have a clue and when I told him my fears he just reassured me that everything was going to be OK.

The doctor came in and did the ultrasound again getting even more pictures and measurements from different angles. She ended up telling us that the nuchal fold measured a bit thicker than what is considered normal which indicates an increased risk for chromosomal abnormalities. She also said that the baby seemed to have a ‘small window‘ in the septum of its heart but that this can and often does close up on its own.

She then sent us to talk to a genetic counselor. That was another experience in itself! When I say I was an emotional wreck it may be an understatement. He did his best to comfort us and then to explain the different conditions that they were concerned about… he seemed a bit surprised to find that we already have an adopted child with Down Syndrome and that we were familiar with some of the other conditions like Williams Syndrome.

We went over the risks again and the statistics before being offered some other testing. We have no family history of genetic disorders and the biggest factor is my age. We declined all invasive testing and opted for the NIPT screening which would be back within 5-7 days. It seemed like a long time but the time really did pass by quickly.

Sigh… after all of this I still had to see another doctor who again went over all the risks associated with my age… I’m 42 not 82! I was put on baby aspirin and told to continue my meds for the thyroid issue which reminds me that I need to call them back and get a refill on that! I really can’t recall what else they might have said as everything was pretty much a blur at that time as I was overwhelmed, tired, and hungry!

We went to eat before finding the lab and then got my blood drawn before heading home… we did talk a little bit about it on the way home and we both agree that this baby is staying put until it is ready to meet the world! The blood test results show that we are low risk for Trisomy 13 & 18 but at a higher risk for Down Syndrome… we also found out the gender but I’m not revealing that yet!

As of right now we are still not planning to undergo any further testing, we know that our baby is in GOD’s hands and although we may not know the reason for these trials that we are enduring at the moment we do know that HE has a plan! Does this mean I don’t worry? No. I really felt that I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown but Mr. Awesome has been right beside me and has helped me through this.

This can be really scary because there are so many unknowns. Yes, it seems that the risk for our baby to have a genetic issue is higher than many but we love this little one already. No test or procedure is going to be able to change the outcome and we will love and welcome this little one into our family.

We have to focus on the positive that our baby seems to be very healthy on the scan… it was dancing up a storm! The baby’s growth seems to be on track as well and we did see little fingers and toes… I also thought I caught a glimpse of the gender but the tech said it was too early and she didn’t give me a picture… I was right!

We can’t let the tests and everything else suck the joy out of this wonderful experience. I’ve had to ask GOD for strength on several occasions as no parent wants to think that there may be something wrong with their child. This pregnancy has already played a much larger toll on me than previous pregnancies and I am just completely exhausted most days.

I’ve had to hand this pregnancy over to HIM because it is completely out of our control… there is nothing that can change what is or what isn’t and HE will not desert us. I even told the counselor that those issues wouldn’t be the end of the world… it would just be something a little different than what we expected.

I mean, never in a million years did expect that I would be having a baby right now. It is a blessing to even be carrying this little life inside of me and for that, I am so very thankful. GOD has indeed been so good to us in so many ways and I must TRUST him and HIS plan for this child.

This has been my go-to verse for right now: