We got to meet my new OBGYN today, Dr. Ivey, and we LOVE him! I have been so impressed with all of the TCH staff thus far. He is, however, a UT fan, but you know what? We all make bad choices from time to time ;)

I was very happy with his gameplan. We are planning (and we all know plans can change) a vaginal birth, induced at 39 weeks. That means we have a date! Sunley will be here, Lord willing, on April 25th, as long as she doesn’t come early (like Ruger did). We do NOT want her coming early, because a bigger baby is a stronger baby and Sunley needs to be STRONG for her first surgery! I’m very happy that, so far, there is no need for a C-Section. I’ll do whatever I need to in order to get her here safely, but a vaginal birth is the very last “normal” thing I have left of this pregnancy, and I do hope it works out that way. She’s already head-down (good girl) and I’m carrying very low like I did with Haddie Mae, so all that is great. We don’t know yet if/when I’ll get to hold her, but the staff so far seems to really understand the importance of Mommy/baby time, so that’s encouraging. If she is stable when she’s born I should get to hold her before she is wheeled to the NICU or CVICU. That would be awesome. Even though the doctors anticipate her needing a feeding tube, they want me to try to breastfeed her when she’s born, which is also great. Most of the time, hypoplast babies are too tired to breastfeed, but we are praying Sunley will do ok with it.

If you’re like me, it’s difficult to know what exactly to pray for. There are SO many routes that Sunley’s condition could possibly take us down and SO SO SO many unknowns still, so I’ve found it difficult to be specific in my prayers. A lot of my praying lately has just boiled down to “Lord PLEASE.” I want to pray for complete healing, I want to pray that she doesn’t have any other abnormalities (especially chromosomal), no blood clots, no brain damage during surgery, as little bypass as possible…I want to somehow cover every single scenario, but it’s endless. So I just say PLEASE. We do have our next Echo (heart exam) this Thursday afternoon, so specific prayers for that to go well are appreciated.

We sent the kids to Midland this past weekend to stay with my parents until April 6th. It was VERY hard. Today alone solidified that we had made the right decision (we are both VERY busy with appointments almost every day), but it’s still tough to be separated from them, especially when it’s not really by choice. We are, though, really enjoying the one-on-one time together, which would not be happening without such circumstances. Silver lining :) We can actually have a FULL conversation without getting interrupted! On Sunday night, we decided to take advantage of no kids and go out to a nice restaurant for dinner. Yall, I don’t want to brag, but we were out until 8.30 AT NIGHT. It was wild.

Tomorrow, I plan to do some grocery shopping, lunch with a former-client-now-friend, two Dr. appointments, take a nap (this is becoming a daily thing), and then I get to have a photoshoot!! A very VERY sweet friend here in Houston has offered to do a maternity shoot for me. I did a “self-portrait” maternity shoot in Galveston when I was pregnant with Hadelyn, but I haven’t done an official session with another photographer since my wedding, so I’m looking forward to it!

We are still getting cards and very sweet gifts from people in the mail every week. It’s AMAZING to me how far and wide our church support spreads—Amazing, but not in the least bit surprising. That’s exactly what the church is designed to do. People I barely know have sent incredibly encouraging notes, and it seriously is SO uplifting. I hear that Sunley’s name gets mentioned in sermons all across the country, and I really can’t express how much that means to me. Our church family is the bomb, just as God intended…Although I doubt He would use the term “bomb.” He might say “pillar of stone?” But I prefer “bomb.” I digress.

What’s amazing about all of that is how completely normal it is, and I wish people who aren’t Christians could experience what it’s like to receive that kind of unconditional love and support, because I think that’s how you really experience the freedom that Christianity provides.

Derek and I have been through really REALLY hard things now, and honestly, it’s only just beginning. We are separated from our kids, from our friends and home, from literally everything that we’ve built in our life together. And yet, we both still feel like we have a GOOD life, because our faith has freed us from worry. It’s a daily battle to not worry (hence my last blog post), but overall, we are freed from it. We have no control, but we know who does.

I’m definitely starting to ramble, but I hope my point got across. I’ll try to pray for some specific things tonight:

1. Sunley makes it to the induction date.

2. Sunley is able to breastfeed.

3. Thursday’s echo shows nothing worse…maybe even some improvement? Mustard seed faith over here.

4. More happy days than hard ones...Like days from the photo below. That was a really happy, simple day, when my biggest was not so big :)