Our Journey Through Life

2016 was a year of joys, sorrow, heartache, love, strength, emotions, happiness, and tears. A year above all years. It was a special year for us. It was a long but short year for us. It was a hard year, a good year. 2016 has been the best year thus far. I began 2016 at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus with Calvin. I was in the Cardiac ICU  with my new baby, waiting on surgery to get his PA band which would help regulate his heart rhythm & breathing. I was so ecstatic to have Calvin in our family. I was at the hospital everyday, for most of the day. I was learning to juggle a 7 year old big brother who still had to do school, but got to spend time with grandparents, being 2 hours away from home, Justin traveling back & forth so he could work, doctors, nurses, and a little baby with a heart condition. 2016 started out in a whirlwind and continued that way. Looking back it went so fast, those first 7 weeks in the hospital seem like they were only a week. Those ne...

Community, what does it mean to you? For Merriam-Webster it means a unified body of individuals as the people with common interests living in a particular area. Community can be your family, your neighborhood, your church, your town. Community can be anything. Community to me is those who are put in our lives to live life with us. Those who God has given us to love and care for during good and bad times. Community is a body of believers from near and far who pray endlessly for you and your family. Community is a group of people who have been through the same thing you have. I belong to a lot of communities: adoption community, heart momma's community, loss of a child community, a local community of believers, and a community of believers near and far to name a few. Community, it is what has helped me grow in my relationship with Christ while going through the loss of Calvin.  Our community has been the biggest blessing ever, from visiting in the hospital to taking me out for a ...

Waiting and Trusting...those two words have come to be a large part of our lives the last 3 years.  Trusting in Christ is something that has never been easy for us. We want things on our time, not in his perfect timing. Waiting on the Lord isn't easy either, again we want it in our time. The events of the last 3 years have caused us to trust and wait on the Lord in a way that we didn't even know was possible. Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your hearts and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths." That verse came to mind so many times during our waiting period on the adoption journey to Calvin. We knew that in His perfect timing our desires would be fulfilled. Not because they were our desires, but because he gave us those desires & we knew they were his desires for us. Our adoption journey was anything but easy, we had so many times where we had to trust & wait. Teaching us to trust &...

Eight months ago I was so focused on a little boy who stole my heart, his big brown eyes, perfect skin tone, teeny tiny fingers & toes. All these things belonged to a little boy who was in the Cardiac ICU. He was so little, his heart beat so fast, he was using oxygen to help him breath, it didn't seem like he was even mine it happened so fast. A little boy who I fell in love with as soon as I saw him, but yet still seemed like a stranger. I was scared to hold him, scared to cuddle, so many wires and monitors. It was hard to see and watch. I knew God had a plan, I knew God was in control, and I knew God created this little boy for His glory and placed him in our family for a specific reason. Our eight week stay wasn't long by any means and as I think back to that time I feel like it went fast, but I remember how slow that time went. I couldn't wait to take this boy to his new home. I remember being so frustrated when things didn't work out just as I had hoped and w...

I haven't kept this blog up as much as I was hoping while we are in the ICU. It has been pretty uneventful. Calvin has been stable and progressing well. We are still in ICU and hopefully by next week will be out of here. Calvin went into surgery for a PA band on Monday. This was done to slow the blood flow to the lungs. He has extra going in there due to his heart condition and he needed this surgery to slow everything down. The surgery went well & there were no complications. Which is great and we know it is all because God allowed us to have amazing surgeons. I about cried when the surgeon came into tell us everything went well & there were no complications. I was so joyful for what God has been doing it. God has allowed everything so far to be smooth and easy going for Calvin. Post surgery we got to see him for a little while, but went home early because it had been a long day. I was exhausted. He has done well the last 2 days. By the time I got to the hospital Tuesd...