Rest In Peace

My aunt lost her battle with stage 4 Ovarian Cancer on Monday, July 25, 2011 at 3:50 p.m.  Before taking her last breath one tear fell from her eye, no one really knows how this scientifically happened as her heart hadn't been beating for almost 2 hours, but it did...She left this world with her family by her side and now she lives on in all of our hearts.  I know she isn't in pain anymore and is up in heaven watching all of us and telling us to be happy and cherish the times we did have together. 

It is extremely hard for myself and my entire family to find peace or even a sliver of happiness through all of this, but knowing she isn't in pain needs to be enough for us.  I keep telling myself it is too selfish of us to desire to keep her on this Earth when she was in so much pain and the chemo just wasn't working.  She was a fighter, she faught til the end, but God had other plans, which we all don't seem to understand at the moment.

I ask that everyone please keep her two sons in their prayers as they learn to live life without the physical presence of their mom. 

Rest in peace Aunt Cin, we love you so very much and we will meet again some day :)



Aunt Cin and me May 2010





 



Aunt Cin, Joe, Me, and Baby M -- July 24, 2011



Things Are Coming Together

Things are coming together around here! We have the tall dresser in the baby room, my parents have the crib and they just ordered the dresser/changing table combo to be delivered in about 2 weeks! It is so exciting to go in the "spare room" and see baby furniture in there.  I now realize I had myself convinced I would never get to experience this!

We have been keeping busy around the house, clearing out closets and reorganizing things around the house to declutter before we reclutter with baby stuff. The baby stuff is more than welcome, don't get me wrong, but I am loving the cleaness lately!

Today I was just shutting down my computer at work packing up to head home and I was resting my left elbow on my left knee, kind of crunched over and I felt something weird...I was feeling the baby for the first time! I felt a little flutter and it was longer than I had prepared myself.  I know the baby is only 4 inches or a little more, but it was like he/she was saying, hey stop squishing me! I was so excited, I texted Joe, who was elated, and yelled at two of my bosses that I just felt the baby.  We talked for a few minutes about it and they were so excited! I am feeling so blessed to be able to feel our little creation now instead of just hoping and praying everything is fine, I can fell the little bean in there now, so reassuring!

Lastly, I would please ask anyone that is reading this to stop and pray for strength and healing for my family as we navigate through some very tough times.  My aunt hasn't been given a very good prognosis with her stage 4 Ovarian cancer and was just admitted to the ER today for having fluid in her lungs. At this point, chemo isn't working, so all we have is prayer.  This is up to God, modern medicine isn't working, so we need the strength and healing from up above, not that we haven't been praying for strength and healing this entire time, but at this point, this is all we have.  I know it is selfish, I just don't think we are ready to lose her yet, but that is easy to say when we aren't experiencing her pain.  I just hope when the time comes that she is called to heaven, the rest of the family can see the good in all of this and know that her pain is gone.  But no negative thoughts for now, though reality is hard to escape, only prayers for strength and healing.  Thank you.

           ***We love you Aunt Cin***
Ovarian Cancer...It Whispers...so LISTEN

What A Weekend!

Whew, what a great weekend! The 4th of July weekend was a blast for us! Friday Joe and I went downtown with Lauren and Olivia to the Springfield Art Walk to see some art that Jeff (Lauren's husband) did and to walk around and see other art.  Jeff is truly blessed with an amazing talent, check out these photos below. A short description of what you are looking at is these are photos of normal everyday things, like a dollar bill, taken under a microscope, magnified hundreds of times and then colored afterwards.  Seriously amazing work, and by far the best art at the walk!

Saturday we went to Fireworks at the Field, which was a fireworks show being put on by the City of Springfield.  With our admission sticker we got into the Discovery Center for free and then got to go see fireworks on the field at Hammons Field, which is where the Springfield Cardinals play.  It was awesome! Joe saw some of his co-workers there who were reporting and they were able to get us free drinks from the green room so we didn't have to pay.  The show was amazing and we had a ton of fun at the discovery center!



Joe at the Discovery Center. This thing you stand on and when your body weight is exactly centered it makes you spin round and round, needless to say he only did this for a few seconds for me to get a picture, because it was slinging him around!



Joe and me sitting on the field waiting for fireworks!



Saturday was so much fun, but we were dead tired! Sunday we went to Lauren and Jeff's to bbq and had an awesome dinner with them and sat outside for a few hours, it was surprisingly nice out! We went home at a half way decent time so Joe could sleep because he had to work that night.  He came home Monday morning and needed to sleep so I did laundry and cleaned up the house. 

At about 2:30 I got a call from Lauren saying they weren't staying at the aquatic center because Olivia fell and had a huge bump on her head, so their plans were to be at home.  I got Joe up around 3:30 and we went to the store to get some hamburger to bbq with Lauren and Jeff and O and we got some fireworks to shoot off. 

We swam with the Rawson's in their pool and bbq'd and shot off fireworks, and just chilled enjoying each others company.  It is so great having them here, it was like we never skipped a beat. I can't imagine life without them, they are truly amazing friends and baby O isn't such a baby anymore...she is a grown toddler with the attitude bigger than her mommy! Here are some pics of our fantastic 4th of July! We are truly blessed!

So that was the weekend...yesterday was another doctor's appointment.  It was just your standard monthly appointment to make sure everything is going as it should.  It's hard at this stage of pregnancy to know if everything is ok since you can't feel a kick or anything, so you just hope for the best.  We went in and got to hear the heartbeat...156 this time! Doctor says that is very strong! We scheduled our next appointment for the first week of August. 

My family is coming in town the last weekend of July/first week in August.  We have an ultrasound scheduled with Ultrasona on August 1st to get a 3D done and determine gender.   We are super excited to find out what Baby M is and I can't wait to start feeling these little flutters I read about!