December 13, 2011

To Serve Others

If I teach on thing to my kids or my students it is that they are precious and they are valued.  Their thoughts and their beliefs are valued.  Their feelings are valued.  The person they are and will be is valued.  I struggle with the notion that people choose to think less of you because of your "religion," your education,  or your color.  The merciful God that I know will not ask me one day what church I attended or for me to state my religious beliefs to Him.  I think he we will want to know if my heart was good.  If I served others.  If I welcomed those who needed welcomed and hugged those that needed hugged.  Did I treat others with dignity and respect?  Did you do without so that you could help a family in need?  Did you give part of yourself to help save somebody else? Did you hurt somebodies feelings to make yourself feel better? And if I don't live up to this then shame on me. Shame on me for being that kind of person that doesn't think before I speak.( Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry)   I am so fortunate to get to surround myself with people that have such good hearts and I pray for those who hearts are closed. We each have a purpose in life. Big or small.  There's a bigger picture we are all grasping at and too often our prejudices get in the way of what most of us are after and it interferes with our relationship with Jesus.

One day when Heaven was filled with His praises
One day when sin was as black as could be
Jesus came forth to be born of a Virgin
Dwelt among men, my example is He
Word became flesh and the light shined among us
His glory revealed
Living He loved me, dying He saved me
And buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified freely forever
One day He's coming, oh, glorious day, oh, glorious day
One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me
'Cause living He loved me, dying He saved me
And buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified freely forever
One day He's coming, oh, glorious day, oh, glorious day
One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He's ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him
The grave could not keep Him from rising again
Living He loved me, dying He saved me
And buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified freely forever
One day He's coming, oh, glorious day, oh, glorious dayGlorious day
One day the trumpet will sound for His coming
One day the skies with His glories will shine
Wonderful day, my beloved one bringingMy Savior Jesus is mine
Living He loved me, dying He saved me
And buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified freely forever
One day He's coming, oh, glorious day, oh, glorious dayGlorious day, oh, glorious day

May 31, 2011

Fast Forward....

I'm jumping 8 years now.  I have beautiful twins that are each others best friend!  They are everything I prayed for and each year it only gets better.  I feel blessed with who they are and who they will become.  Kurt is funny, talks non stop, and has an imagination like no other.  Allison is kind, artistic, and musical.  She writes poems and songs that I don't think I could produce.  They are growing fast and I know in just a matter of time they will leave home to start on their own.  I hope I can lead them in in the right direction and that they know they always will have a home to come back too.

April 13, 2011

Shoot Me Now

In the prep room the dr and nurses began to argue about putting a mark on my left cheek.  I know...a little mark that is mandatory, so that the surgeon does the procedure on the right side.  Finally, the dr put a tiny little pin mark on my left cheek and then they argue over fetal monitors and pain medicine.  The procedure should take less than 10 minutes the dr is yelling and the nurses are screaming back, but we have to put monitors are her.  Then they tell me I won't be getting any pain medicine.  I keep telling them to just take care of the babies.  We get into the operating room and the oral surgeon sees an old church member from her church, so they decide to catch up on 10 years of Oh, I've missed seeing you and and How are your kids, blah, blah, blah........Finally, the dr puts some sort of device in my mouth to keep it open and she says, are you ready.  I'd been there almost a week and she wondered if I was ready.    She cut into my gums and I thought I was going to pass out.  THEN from the cut and the blood being sucked out she inserted a tube into my gums and stitched it in.  No pain medicine!!!  I was shaking so bad and the monitors were sounding off.  The nurses kept telling the dr to hurry, which only made her angrier and I swear she was taking it out on me.  I kept asking God to please lest me pass out.  Finally, she was done and I am bawling and I think in shock by the pain.  The nurses only make me stay a few minutes in recovery, because I was awake during it.  I get to my room and my mom sees me and she starts crying and has to leave the room.  I keep telling the nurses to please get a sonogram of the babies and they do.  They were are okay.  I leave the next night swollen face and all, but  have a wonderful baby shower the next day.  All of this was caused by an abscessed wisdom tooth.  But, even with that terrible ordeal I would have done it again to be where I am today.

March 24, 2011

OK,OK,OK..it's not OK.

I held it together until we got to the car. I break down thinking, Okay God, I know you are in control and I am trying to figure this out, but why? All I heard was Trisomy 18. During the appointment I felt like I was there, but not really there. Tim was silent until I asked what are we going to do. All he said was pray. I called the dr that night and told him to please tell me everything again. He did and he said  that the cyst could dissolve and everything turn out alright. I was still losing it inside.  I was not about to have the amnio to test it for certain.  The idea of losing the babies because of the test was too high and I loved these babies no matter what.  I was going weekly to him now and they kept checking for the indicators. His sister made every attempt impossible to get good pictures.


I was so scared. I kept telling God I could handle it and that I knew He would help me take care of Kurt. Tim was keeping it together pretty good, but I could tell there was a sadness that their might not be a little cowboy following him around. He never once said it, but I could feel it. I also knew Tim would handle it just like he does all situations, very black and white. Here's the deal, now this is what we do.
I had lots of scares to the hospital. By 6 months we are going to the dr or hospital 3 times a week. Either for a stress test or sonograms. At 28 weeks my jaw starts hurting and our AC goes out in our house. Two great combos!!! I go stay at my parents house and I start popping Tylenol like it’s candy. I keep telling my mom something is really wrong. Finally, at midnight we head to the hospital and they check the babies and say everything is fine. My dr has to come in the middle of the night and looks at the sonogram and says they're fine Go Home and rest. He leaves and comes back right before I am about to leave and by then the side of my mouth is swollen the size of a watermelon. He tells me never mind I have something going on. I am admitted and it ends up being an abscessed wisdom tooth. While I’m there my fetal diagnostician starts calling for oral surgeons to come help with it. No one will even touch me because of the blood thinners. By the end of the week I am panicking (painfully) because my baby show is the coming Sat. Finally, one dr says she will help out.
Thursday afternoon they prep me to fix the problem. I was not ready for what was about to happen.

March 7, 2011

Just GO

I quickly get into the Fetal Diagnostician and I’m given an orange to practice giving shots. I give myself my first lovenox injection in his office. I leave his office with a prescription and a different kind of worry. I’m told that the shots were around $100 a day and I would take them daily throughout the pregnancy. I head home and go straight to my pharmacy. They don’t have the shots. I panic and start calling places in Lubbock . One pharmacy in Lubbock had a month supplies. My mom and I head up there. We are behind a car at the drive through and my heart is pounding. Tim and I had enough saved up to cover a month and a half of the medicine. My parents said they would help us out and I figured I could max out every credit card we had. In all honesty it would not have mattered I would have done just about anything to pay for those shots. We get to the window and I have my check book out ready to write the amount. The girl comes with the package and just hands it to my mom and we sat there. Finally, my mom says how much and she says no charge. She says no how much for the medicine and she said it said no charge. I look at my mom and say GO. Don't ask again!!!!  Just GO!!  I was already told we would have to pay for all of the shots, that our insurance would not pay for it and here in writing on the receipt it said no charge. I have no doubt that God was intervening right then. I know He knew the stress of money was not going to help out in any way. My mom still laughs about how I acted when the girl kept saying no charge.


I told everyone about the pregnancy as soon as we found out. Church secretaries would call and say we were on their prayer list. I believe in the power of prayer and believe our outcome is because of turning it over to God and people praying.


Sixteen days after finding out I’m pregnant I find out on my birthday we are having twins. I am by myself at the dr and the nurse said hope your ready for this. I was never more ready. I called Tim and all he said was are you sure and well all right then. I think he is in shock from the news. I call my mom and she was beyond excited. From the get go my dr says to do next to nothing the first 12 weeks. That is the most critical time for development and not to stand. Well, I teach and that’s kind of impossible, but a wonderful teacher brought me a BIG YELLOW (BIG BIRD) recliner to sit in while I taught. I did! I even had my evaluation done while I sat in that chair.

Morning sickness, Night sickness….I had it all and I loved it. To me it meant my babies were growing. Even though I had let go of my control I was still nervous. I called the nurse constantly. I had her home number and she put up with me. I had a stethoscope and I would try to hear them moving all the time. I became obsessed with that thing.

At 14 weeks I was put on bed rest. I laid on my couch like an incubator letting my babies grow and hoping they would make it to at least 28 weeks. My mom was really good about the whole thing. She cooked one meal a day for us, kept my house clean, and was on call to get me to my dr appointments and few scares we did have.

During my 16 week ultra sound the tech is doing the sonogram and he has an oh, no look on his face. He leaves to get the dr. I am praying furiously and Tim starts pacing the room.

My dr comes in and looks at the screen. He first says congrats it’s a boy and girl. Then he says there’s a concern. There was a cyst in the boy’s brain. Kurt I tell him. His name is Kurt. It can be an indication of Trisomy 18. I keep saying ok, ok, ok. I was tyring to hold it together. He said we could do an amino to be certain. NO, no way. I was going to love this baby no matter what. He said he would just have to check for symptoms. The indicators would be clubbed feet and hands. He couldn’t get a good picture of either because of the girl. I told him her name is Allison.

March 2, 2011

Part VII Almost there.....

I only end up doing three of the 6months of lupron injections. One month in the summer with the shots was torture. I guess if you have ever had the shots or are going through menopause you know how crazy you become. I had a goal though, so I was going to have to go with it.

That August I am sitting in inservice a few days before school is about to start and I feel terrible. I keep thinking the lupron injections are killing me, but I had a plan and I’d deal with it. I set through the team meeting crying hysterically to myself. We finish up and I gather up my stuff. I walk out of the room and standing at my door is one of the Superintendents and the next door teacher. I blast through them and start throwing up and I figured I really had destroyed my insides, or I was about to be fired because I was throwing up 5 feet away from my boss. I try to compose myself and tell another teacher I was headed to the dr. She keeps telling me I don’t need to go alone. She makes some calls to let people know something is going on. I get to the dr office and sit for a few minutes and tell them something is really wrong and they get the dr and he says it’s my gall bladder. He does the xray and it’s not that, so then he thinks my appendix ruptured.

My mom gets there as they are loading me into the ambulance. She jumps in the front and then quickly wanted out, but it was too late.  Once I’m there I start begging the guy to give me a shot of anything. He does and I go out quickly. When I get to the hospital I keep telling the nurses I don’t have time for any of this. It’s not part of the plan. One guy was like well you are on plan b now. Didn’t like him at all!!!!! I have the surgery and in it they can’t find the appendix. It hadn’t ruptured but it was not in the right spot. It was twisted on the other side of my body (my cut all across my stomach in their treasure hunt proves it). He finds it and said it was about to ruptured. He’d found it in time! He tells me I’m out of work for 6 weeks. This really was messing things up. I go back after two weeks…..this was nothing compared to the last year ½.  I have the best class that year. They seemed to really like me, but I think they had Viola Swamp for a sub. It’s the kindest class I could have prayed for. I see those kids now and they mean so much because they were with me when things finally started looking up. Even though they had to deal with me being menopausal for 2 more months! I would stand over our wall a/c unit and tell them to hold on give me a few seconds because I would be freezing in a minute! They were little and just thought I was crazy!

I get through the first semester with lots of dr appointments. Finally, in Dec. my nurses tell me I’d ovulated two eggs. I knew from that moment I was going to have twins. On Christmas morning 2001 I take a pregnancy test. Only one. With the last three pregnancies I took at least a dozen, but I just had a different feeling. It was positive!!!!

With pregnancy 2 and 3 I told only a few people. With this one it was different. That night I was at my Grandma’s and all the family is sitting around. Something in me told me to just announce it. I am very quiet around all of them usually, so this was big for me. I also ask them to please pray for us and the baby. My Grandma said she new this time would be different and I didn’t need to worry.....

March 1, 2011

Happier Days Are Headed Our Way

My story has a few more wrong turns and will share it with you this weekend!!  My happy endings are keeping super busy this week with basketball games and music.