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.

Cream-Filled Egg

Believe it...I really did make it myself.
What's more: it only took minutes to create.

This is just a piece of what's going to be finally published around the middle of April - a new e-zine that my partner and I are producing. I'm so excited about all that we're going to be able to share with you recipe-wise. But, there's more than that too...

Just another reason I haven't been blogging as much. All my time and effort has been put into our e-zine.

Oh, and this great big hive I've got on my body. All the small hives have come together to form the largest hive in the history of the world. It's taking all my energy to scratch it now.

March Madness

I don't really know what all this "March Madness" is about, but at our house is just means things have gone plain crazy.

We got some bad news today that the Shaohannah's Hope adoption grant we applied for was denied. Too many applicants not enough money. And two days ago, we found out that the timing belt in Bill's car is gone, so it will cost more money than his car is worth to fix it. Ahh, and the dreaded rash that sent me to the expensive ER on Sunday has come back with a fury today (it's really angry!) so I need to go back to the doctor this afternoon. Thank God for insurance.

With all the financial strains on everybody right now, obviously not just us, I just want to remind myself and you that God is with us. My favorite verses that have been our life verses since Sam was created in my womb have been:

Isaiah 43:4 -7

This is what the Lord, our Creator, says to his people:

"Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honored,
And I have loved you;
Therefore I will give men for you,
And people for your life.
Fear not, for I am with you;
I will bring your descendants from the east,
And gather you from the west;
I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
And to the south, 'Do not keep them back!'
Bring My sons from afar,
And My daughters from the ends of the earth--
Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I have created for My glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him."

I don't know what any of our futures hold, but these words have spoken to my heart time and time again. Today, they are reminding me of the calling God put in my life to adopt a little girl from China. My descendants will come from the east, my daughters from the ends of the earth...And, most importantly of all, I shouldn't fear because He is with me.

No matter what the financial blow your family has been dealt, God will see you through this time. Somehow He will create families despite the difficulties and carry us through.

Here is my descendant from the east, my son from afar, the one who God created for His glory and whom God formed...All greased up after eating one of our favorite dishes, dry-glass potatoes. Don't mind the bad haircut. He doesn't.

Jump Rope for Heart

Our ten year-old nephew, Nicholas, is raising support for the American Heart Association by jump roping. Here's what he said about it:

Hi! I am participating in the Jump Rope for Heart event at my school. I will begin jumping rope next week and will continue until the end of the month. Will you please donate to help me with my goals and the goals of the American Heart Association?

Your donation to the American Heart Association is tax deductible. If you make an online donation, you will receive a confirmation email for your tax deduction.

I have to turn in all of my donations by Tuesday, March 31, 2009.

Thank you for supporting The American Heart Association's Jump Rope for Heart program.

I am jumping in memory of my great-grandfather, Vic McDonald. He had heart disease his entire life and recently passed away because of it and I am jumping in honor of my cousin Sam who has a heart condition. I want to try to help as many people as I can by doing my part in finding cures for heart disease.

Click here to see his website. (That's not his picture on the site.)

This is obviously a subject close to our hearts and we are thrilled that he is jumping in memory of Bill's grandfather and in honor of our little Sam. AMA does a lot of great work towards researching heart disease. While much of it is for adult heart issues, there is a small portion that goes towards congenital heart defects. If you have some money to spare, please donate to a good cause. Also, if you want to donate less than $25, post a comment (I won't publish it) with your email address so I can let you know where to send the check (made out to AHA).

Blessings.

Baby Stellan

You've probably seen these posts all over the internet, but I'd like to post it here too.

There's a baby boy named Stellan who needs our prayers. He's in tachycardia and has been for almost 24 hours. He comes in and out of it with irregular rhythms and blood pressure fluctuations. Please visit their blog to get more details. http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

Let's pray for him. His story reminds me some of Sam's story.

Whirlind

Well, we've had a whirlwind of a weekend. Bill got back yesterday after being gone just over two weeks in India and Indonesia.

Sam and I drove down to Charlotte to meet him, because, well, we couldn't stand to be apart a moment longer. We went to Ikea and then to Bill's favorite restaurant (Chili's) to celebrate his homecoming and our reunion.

Last week I was diagnosed with a sinus infection, which I think I mentioned here. I was given some antibiotics to take and finished them up about three or four days ago. Yesterday morning I noticed I was scratching myself in my sleep and when I woke up and checked my torso out, I had red splotches all over. The itching and rash grew steadily worse until I finally called the doctor on-call. He said to take some Claritan at 2pm and Zyrtac at bedtime and that it was probably an allergic reaction to the antibiotics.

I kept Bill up all night long with my scratching. I feel terrible about it, especially because he's jet lagging and he didn't need someone scratching themselves incessantly keeping him awake - he needed a nice restful sleep.

The rash and itching was progressively getting worse today and I checked back with the on-call doc who said to take some Benadryl. I took two and all it did was make me drowsy. So I was sleepy AND scratching myself all over.

In the end, the doctor told me to go to the ER. So, we spent about an hour there (surprisingly little time and we saw the doc within minutes of arriving). I am officially allergic to Cephalosporins and they prescribed an epi pen in case something happens in the next few days. All from one little antibiotic, I'm now on Prednisone, Zantac, Zyrtec, another type of antihistamine.

At least it's not Sam who's keeping us hopping. Hey, I want attention too, you know!

Outtake

It took a lot of effort to get that one story just right...

Sam and the Three Little Pigs

The latest news around our house is how the Big Bad Wolf blew the Three Little Pigs houses down. I had to get Sam going a bit in this video, because he was so enthralled with looking at himself, but I think it's a good representation of how he tells the story in general.

Oh, and pay no attention to the haggard lady in the background. She's just really tired these days. (Actually, I just finished a good run, hence the crazy wind-blown hair. I have no excuse for the circles under my eyes though.)

St. Patrick's Day

We watched this yesterday in the car ride home from Gastonia. I loved listening to it, but watching it is fun too. Great story. It's from Veggie Tales.

OUCH!!

We just got back from our trip to see the pediatric urologist. Poor Sam. The doctor was asking a few questions about Brugada Syndrome, but wasn't interested enough in my opinion. I guess it's because he had other things in mind for Sam instead of performing surgery.

He pulled apart the opening with his fingers and no anesthetic or instruments. Man can that kid cry. Apparently, his meatal stenosis wasn't bad enough to warrant surgery, thank God. But, it did warrant a pretty rough visit. So, I have instructions on how to care for him over the next few days and the doctor threw in a few more instructions for good measure. One of which was to not allow Sam to go more than two hours between urinating. So, we'll make sure to take him really often.

Thanks for everyone's prayers! This was an option I didn't even foresee and I really am happy with it. We don't have to go back for any follow-up visits and everything else looks great.