Great Loss

My grandmother had a pulmonary embolism last Thursday or Friday (I honestly can't remember) and was diagnosed with pneumonia and quickly hospitalized. Granddaddy stopped eating and drinking and was rushed to the hospital yesterday afternoon and died peacefully with my grandmother and her family beside him.

My grandmother is still in the hospital with very high blood pressure and is not doing well.

I am absolutely devastated. I know of no other way to tell everyone of our loss and to ask for prayers than to post it this horribly impersonal way.

The funeral is on Friday in Nashville.

HCM Yard Sale

**UPDATED** Some of the items have been stricken from the list.

Our local online group, High Country Mommies, is doing a big yard sale on May 2 from 8am to 1pm in front of the Coyote Kitchen by Wal Mart. I'm going to participate in it, because I've had a lot of folks tell me they will happily donate some things for me to sell. I've got a few things myself too.

All the money I raise during this sale will go towards adoption costs.

I know a lot of you have been wondering if we've heard any updates on Carolina. The truth is, we won't hear anything until we pick her up. Our agency has already contacted the orphanage and they have said they won't let us send any pictures, clothes, toys, etc or give any more information until we pick her up.

So, we are just praying for her and waiting. Six more weeks!

People have also asked what we need. Currently, she is 15.4lbs (as of 3/25/09) and 26 inches tall. Our best guess is that she will be in 6-9 month clothes for a few weeks at least. We have clothes for that size, but nothing for the next sizes up.

Here is our list:

• Socks (6-12 months)
• Shoes (Her feet are currently 11cm long, but will likely grow fast)
• Toddler bed
• A replacement mattress for our pack-n-play or a new pack-n-play ($21)
  
• Clothes (9-18 months): late Summer to Fall (tops, bottoms, pjs, socks, shoes, no onsies)
  
• 4-6 more cloth diapers (locals can check Suddenly Showing and Casey will tell you what I need)
• Wipes
  
• Disposable diapers (for the trip over)
• Sit-n-Stand stroller (follow link for an example of one)
  
• *want* Double jogger stroller
  

As you can see, we don't need too much to start with. We're excited to have a little girl on our hands. We're going to re-use a lot of Sam's stuff for her and once we get her home we'll have a better idea of sizing. For now, that's our list.

Thanks for checking in!

Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend when Bill's mother came up for a couple days. We took her over to Grandfather Mountain, since, hey, it's only a dollar, and went trout fishing afterwards. We even went to eat Thai after church on Sunday. It's always nice to have family come visit us...so we can plan some really exciting activities.

The first activity was Bill installing a new toilet downstairs. There's nothing like having someone stay with you to motivate you to put a toilet on a big stinky hole in your basement. Bill found the toilet at Lowes for $20!! It was a $150 toilet too - but the tank was cracked. He just used one of the extra tanks we have and, voila, we had a new toilet!


Grandfather Mountain was great because we got to go with Sam's best friend Trathan. The boys had a great time together...Sam wanted to show Trathan all of the animals in the habitat (plus feed the bears!) and visit the swinging bridge too.

If you look closely, you can see me and Sam in the middle of the bridge.

Several people wrote me and asked about the picture of the bear I posted in my last Grandfather post. Yes, that was a picture I took. And...


Here's another one (Bill took). Just to prove to you that we WERE that close to the bears.

Tentatively, I am planning on leaving June 6th for China. Bill will meet me over there, as he will be traveling already. We'll pick up Carolina on the 8th and do lots of paperwork, passports, visas, etc and start traveling home on June 18th. I think we can probably make it back home by late June 19th. We're just waiting for the travel documents and then I'll purchase our tickets. There is still a lot to do before we leave. Time is already flying by quickly!

Yard Sale

As the adoption comes to a head, we are thinking of ways we can raise a little money to help us out. One of our ideas is to have a business where we sell a monthly e-zine that will include a devotion, meal plans, recipes and how-to's. The e-zine is still in its production-phase, but it is coming along nicely. It's amazing how many friends I have who are helping with the process. It makes it all so much easier.

I recently saw that our local High Country Mommies group is going to have a big yard sale on May 2nd. I would love to sell some of Sam's old clothes and toys, but realize that I don't have enough to really make it worth my while.

So, my request to any of you who are reading this is, do you have any old clothes/toys that you want to donate to our cause? I can sell them at the yard sale and make some money to go towards the adoption. If you do, post a comment with your email address and I'll send you my mailing address to mail it (or if you're local, just bring it on by). I won't post your email address publicly though.

Maybe I can at least make enough money from the yard sale to pay for some of our food over there.

Grandfather Mountain

We hit Grandfather Mountain again today, for their Dollar Days. Anybody who's local can get a whole car load in for one buck per person. Normally it's $15 per person, so we are trying to go as often as possible this month.



The greatest part of our trip today was meeting up with some of our East Asia buddies. We've had a great reunion this week with three different couples (well, one couple was missing her husband). It always amazes me at how many friends from overseas we've seen since we've lived here. The woman whose husband wasn't with us this week (not pictured) and her family were matched with their little girl the same day we were. We'll be traveling to China together!


Sam and I climbed all the way to the end of the rocks across Mile High Bridge. I was surprised that he could hike it all himself (with me gripping onto his hand for dear life the whole way).

See what a heart patient can do with a little hard work, determination and a Mommy to hold his hand? I'm so proud of him!

Our Little Girl

Happy Easter!

I have been so busy trying to get things together around here that I've been (obviously) neglecting this blog. But, don't fear, I am still around and am going to keep you apart of our journey overseas.

We've had a crazy time lately at home. Our community well (five of us share it) broke on Saturday, while we were in Nashville, and was finally fixed on Monday morning. We still didn't have water until late Monday night though, because our house filter and all of the aerators in the house were filled with mud/clay. Bill finally got everything working again around midnight that night.

The "Underwood" lip - the two of them both do it
when they pout, along with my mother.

My grandfather is doing well, so thanks to everyone who has lifted him up. He is going to see the doctor today and will find out if he needs to have surgery. He has a 70% blockage in his carotid artery. But, he is doing better every day, as far as his recovery from falling. Oh, and it turned out he was taking his blood pressure medicine incorrectly too. He was cutting it into thirds so he could swallow it better, but it was time-released, so it was releasing all at once. Needless to say, there were a few reasons why he was falling so much last week.

We survived the tornadoes as well. We were at my grandfather's apartment, on the 15th floor, when an announcement came over the loudspeaker that told us to get into the stairwells or go down to the cafeteria. My grandfather refused to leave the apartment, so Bill moved his lazy boy into the tiny kitchen and we all huddled in there for protection. Granddaddy was smart though, he did say he wanted to be at the top of the pile of rubble, not at the bottom. So, no going down to the first floor. No tornadoes hit our area though, but my aunt lives in Mufreesboro and she drove right through one by accident.

Easter Morning

Since everyone wants to know about our little girl, Carolina, I'll share some information that we translated while in Nashville. She is a tiny little peanut, weighing only 15.4 lbs (7 kg) at 18 months old. She's also extremely short. She's a bit malnourished, as she has low iron, but is not anemic. She is relatively healthy otherwise. They said, as of December last year, that she is tiny but spirited. Her eyes are bright/clever and she is content in any circumstance. They also said she shows likes and dislikes of objects and people. She is determined as well, and even if a toy is far away, she will try to reach it. She was crawling as of December, 2008 as well. She could be walking by now for all we know.

We will travel to get her around June 7th. It will be an exciting time for all of us. I can't believe it's already happening.

We need to raise some support though, as this will be an expensive trip. The orphanage fee alone has been raised to $5000. If you'd like to donate to our adoption, click on the DONATE button to the left. Or, you can donate directly to us.

But, what we need most is prayer. Pray for Carolina, that she will receive nourishment in her current circumstance, and that she will adjust quickly to us and her new home. Pray also that the paperwork would go through without any hitches.

Matched!

I can't post her pictures, but we've been matched with a little girl in China. She was born October 11, 2007 - almost one year exactly younger than Sam.

Yipeee!!!

Sump Pump

We have been having one crisis after another here at our house. Some of them have made me laugh so hard I've cried and others are just plain sad.

The funniest thing that has happened occurred on Bill's birthday. We were just getting ready for his party when the toilet exploded from between the base of it and the floor. Bill spent two thirds of the party in the basement mopping up raw sewage and trying to get it to stop. By the time he came upstairs again, he was drenched in grossness and had to take a shower. We didn't eat our Chinese meal until about 8:30pm, and Bill acted like it was a surprise party, even though we had all been making tons of noise and had even interacted with him some while he was downstairs.

The next day, we called our neighbors across the street, because he has a septic pumping truck and he was the only one I could think to call who would be honest with us. He came over immediately and they finally determined that the problem was a blown-out motor in the sump pump. Bill decided to take it upon himself to take apart said motor and see if he could fix it.

This is what I found when I looked off the back deck:

We had a friend here who had just river boarded down the Watauga Gorge and was just visiting for the night. Bill called us to the edge of the deck and pulled the object that had been lodged in the motor out for us to see. It was a rubber dinosaur! Not just any rubber dinosaur, but one of those animals that starts as an egg and when you put it in water, it expands to its full size. It was much larger than when it started out! I can't tell you how hard we laughed.

I put it down the toilet! It was me!

My mother gave it to Sam when she was here last year, just after we bought the house. Sam promptly threw it in my mop bucket and I poured the mop water down the toilet. I saw it going - I tried to grab it, but it was too late. I thought maybe it was stuck in the septic somewhere. But, no. It was in the sump pump, swirling around, until a couple days ago when it got sucked into the motor.

I called my mother to tell her about it and she laughed so hard - I haven't heard her laugh that hard in years. She said she's going to bring three more home with her this summer.

Once he removed it, the pump worked great. So, there you have it. A low-cost solution to a potentially bad problem. Of course, Bill spent hours working on it and we have no toilet in the bathroom now. But, maybe that will be fixed over the course of the next few weeks.

On a more sad note, my grandfather is in the hospital today. He fell down a couple times and ended up shaking after his last fall. They have done all kinds of scans and tests but do not have an answer to why he's been falling. I just spoke with him on the phone and he sounds so much better than he did yesterday. I think they are thinking he had a mini-stroke. The brain scan from this morning will show more information.

Please pray for him. And for us, as we will need to go down to Nashville tomorrow to see them. Bill is coming with me - so we'll be spending Easter there.


I'll update you more as I know more. Here we are in 2007, just after we arrived back from China. All my current photos are on my laptop, which is dead and in Thailand.

Locks of Love

Sam has been doing pretty well this morning. His fever is slowly creeping back up, so about an hour ago we gave him some Tylenol. It's back down now. He was acting a bit lethargic yesterday and didn't eat much, but today he's back to eating a ton (odd that he's still so tiny) and has all his energy back. Thanks again for praying for him, those of you who did. We know it is only prayer that has helped him.

On another note, I got my haircut today. I got 12 inches taken off and I'm donating it to Locks of Love.

Bill took this before picture earlier in the day.

This one was right after I came home.

I feel ten pounds lighter!

Oh, and I meant to say, Happy Birthday to my love, Bill! He's 34 today. We're having a great Chinese meal tonight - I'm cooking it all from scratch. It's nothing you can get at any restaurant in town - it's all Yunnan-style. Bill is pumped about having some real Chinese food again. You should have seen the look on the butcher's face when I asked him to chop up the ribs into tiny pieces! To each his own...

99.9!!!

Whoever doesn't believe in the power of prayer needs to follow Sam's story a little more closely.

We posted this on here and asked our church to start their prayer chain and here we are one and a half hours later and his temp is down to 99.9F.

We sat with him, read books, stripped him down to nothing and waited. We prayed and waited. It went up to 102.9 about 45 minutes after the Tylenol and then we gave him some Motrin too. We left his room when it went down to 101.8F, the magic number for Sam. In the past, he's had VTAC at 101.8F, so we felt like it was probably okay to let him sleep. When I went in to check on him just now, his forehead was cool, but when I pulled back the covers he was sopping wet in sweat. He broke that fever!! Yipee!!

We'll keep a close eye on him overnight. I'll see how he feels in the morning to decide if we need to take him to the doctor. Who knows why this came on so suddenly? I certainly don't.

Keep praying for Sam! Thanks.



For those of you who haven't been following Sam's story, the long and short of it is that Sam's heart cannot tolerate fever. He has a history of going into an arrhythmia called VTAC, or ventricular tachycardia, where his heart beats over 250 bpm. If it is sustained for longer than 40/60 beats, his defibrillator (that he's had since he was 11 months old) will shock his heart into a normal rhythm. Click on his picture on the left to read more about his story.

Fever

Just a quick post to say Sam's got 102.5F as of ten minutes ago. Please pray for his temp to come down quickly.

Also, I didn't post this before, but now I feel the need to. At his last cardiology visit, we learned that one of his leads isn't reading properly. If his heart goes into VTAC and it's not reading properly tonight, it could potentially miss it and Sam will be in VTAC without the help of his defibrillator. Obviously, we would hope his body will come out of the VTAC by itself, but in general he needs the defibrillator to help him. Therefore, we are praying right now that the lead is reading properly and that his heart does not go into VTAC.

I'm obviously not writing down the logic of what would happen if his heart went into VTAC and didn't come out on his own without the defibrillator's help. You can come to that conclusion on your own.

Pray with us.