Seasons (of life)

Have you ever wondered why you are in the season of life you are in? What could God possibly have to teach me through this?

No? 
Just me? 

Well, that is the season I am in now. The season of "Why do I have to go through this season".

Those that know me know that I am a people person. I love having people into my home, I love meeting people places, I love going to church with my church family, I love just getting out and doing stuff with my boys.

Cold and flu season with an already sick baby changes life. 

I have never been a germ-a-phobe. Having a baby that could be hospitalized because of a cold has kind of changed me a little on that.

I have always loved working with kids. Ever since I was young I enjoyed working with those younger than me. I can't do that now. I don't get to do something that I love to do because I love my son more. 

I hate having to tell my older two that they can't play with their little brother because they have runny noses.

I guess what I'm getting at is why? Why does someone like me, a people person, have to go through this? Having a baby go through what our youngest has gone through was easy for me to trust God. This season? This time of having to stay home and not see people and keep people away from the baby is HARD! 
What does God need to teach me by keeping me cooped up in my home with my three crazy boys (and a husband who works from home). 

It's amazing how it is so easy to trust God with the big things and so hard to trust him with the little things. 

I know that I need to just be thankful. And I am! I am so thankful that I have 3 boys to raise to be great men. I am thankful that my husband can work from home and help me out during the day. I am thankful for our third-born and all he's been through and that God has seen him through his rough start to life. I am thankful for our home. I am thankful for my Bible study (so I can get out of the house!). 

I know that it is going to be a long winter if I just complain the whole time. 

I will choose to be thankful. 
I will choose to be joyful.
I will choose to love God first then my husband then my boys.
I will choose to enjoy this season of life. 
I will choose to praise and not to pout.

HOME

Home.
Such a small four-letter word, but meaning oh so much more at this stage in my life.

I never called Wisconsin my home. I was born and raised in Minnesota, so a Minnesota girl I was always going to be. If I had to live in Wisconsin I'd do it with part of my heart one state away.

And then there was that moment when my home was taken away.
Oh, the building was still standing and the yard was still in tact. The rooms were waiting to be occupied.
When we had to say bye to our home 5 months ago we didn't know how long we would be gone. We assumed a month, thought it may be more. But never dreamed that it would be 5 months away.
I came home one time in those 5 months just for a short weekend (to change out my winter clothes that I had in my suitcase for summer ones). That weekend I got a taste of just what I was missing.
I sat in my backyard by the fire and watched my boys play. I listened to the quite. I looked out on the rolling fields that surround our home. It was wonderful, peaceful.
Yet there was something missing. Someone missing. Our baby was still in the hospital, so I couldn't fully commit to being home. I couldn't enjoy it fully.
We went back to Milwaukee and lived our lives there. Always knowing that we'd be home someday, but never dreaming about our life when we did. Fear made it so that I wouldn't think too much on home. I was scared of caring for our new baby who just endured life-altering surgeries. Scared that the older boys would hold this time against us. Scared that I just wouldn't be able to do it. Scared that home wouldn't be the same and wouldn't be what I dared to dream that it could be.
That last fear came true.
Home has changed.
We are now a family of five. We have been so blessed to welcome Aaron into our home. It is like he has always been here.
Home is so much sweeter. The little things become so much more important. Like playing with my boys on the swing set instead of just having them go out by themselves. Like reading that book one more time. Like meal planning and cooking those meals.
I cannot even recall a time when Aaron wasn't part of our family. He just fits. And it's truly been amazing being home.
I never knew how much I would miss it until it was gone. I never knew how sweet it could be until I couldn't have it anymore.

Contentment, I have found, is not something that you can buy. It is found when you are truly thankful for what you have.

Home will never be the same. And I am so thankful for that.

Last Sunday my pastor asked if there was ever a time that you missed home. And of course, it being our first Sunday back I started crying. He then got to share all about Heaven. Our eternal home. I pray that now I will not become too focused on my earthly home that I get my focus off our Heavenly home. If this was so much sweeter to come home to, I cannot imagine what our eternal home is going to be. How sweet it will be there. How much it will just feel like we were always supposed to be there all together.

This is my home. It will never grace the pages of a magazine, or even be fancy enough to take pictures of the inside. It will never be as clean as it should be. It will never have every single thing in its place. But, it will be home. It will be a safe place. It will always have its doors open to company. It will always have love inside.

Northern Wisconsin will be my resting place. It's beautiful here, you really should come see it. (Seriously, any time. I love visitors! - Just maybe give me a 10 min warning so I'm not still in my pajamas. Hey, I've got three boys, what do you expect?!)

Missing the Mundane

Mundane: lacking interest or excitement, dull

A while ago I was part of a Bible study where we read a book all about living through all the mundane things in life and doing it for God's glory. That even being "just a mom" can be done to glorify God. I believed it and I tried to practice it. But the mundane life, by definition, is just dull. The world wants us to think that we need more. More than where God has us, more than what God has given us.

Having lived in a hospital the last 4 months has made me really miss those mundane moments of just being mom.

I really cannot wait to...

  go grocery shopping
  send my boys outside to play
  do a sink full of dishes
  clean up toys that my boys have played with
  sit in my backyard
  feed a baby (without having to tell someone how much he ate)
  show off my new (not so new) baby boy
  make a meal
  do a house project
  sleep in my own bed
  have a campfire

My list could go on.

I know that God has a purpose and plan for these last few months, and I know that I may never know what that purpose was. But if I will have a big take-a-way from this time it will be to enjoy the mundane. Not just get through it, but really enjoy it. Because you never know when it will go away. You never know what will happen tomorrow or in a week or a year and you'll be begging for those mundane moments al over again. I know I am.

Now, once we get home and I actually have 3 boys to chase around and get in order and make food for and do laundry for and help steer them in the direction of being kind to one another, I know that I am going to forget. I will forget this moment right now sitting in a family lounge in the hospital as my baby has another surgery. I will forget this feeling of desperately wanting the mundane. So remind me, when you see me complain or whine, remind me where I was a few months ago.

But for now, I cannot WAIT to go back to my mundane life of being wife and mommy!
    

But God

I am TIRED.
I am WEAK.
I am WORN.


All day those words have been going through my head. I am told often how strong of a mom I am, but that's just not true. I am so beaten down it hurts. Living the last 3 (almost 4) months between a Ronald McDonald House and a hospital has officially taken its toll on me.

I know that my little heart baby needs all the diuretics that he is getting, but they make him need other supplements, and those supplements make him not want to eat, and that not eating makes us stay in the hospital. It's a horrible cycle that I am so ready to be done with.

Just yesterday I was preaching to a friend about this very thing...I told her all the right things: that God has a plan, that there is a reason that we are here, that this doesn't surprise him...

And yet, when I got to our hospital room this morning that all flew out of my mind. And the fears entered in. The fear of not having a "normal" life ever again. The fear that maybe down the road I will loose a son. The fear that my older two boys are going to come out of this ordeal scarred. The fear that I will not be able to handle three boys at home.

BUT GOD
(although it's hard, those words are so precious)

He is REST

  "He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable
   He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength."
        Isaiah 40:28b-29

He is STRENGTH

  "The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts and I am helped."
        Psalm 28:7a

He is NEW

  "And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness"
        Ephesians 4:24

This journey has been so up and down. There are most days where I am just content to be in this situation, then there are days like today when I feel like I can't go on. I know there will be an end some day. I hope when that day comes I can say that I am more like Christ. That I have been changed into His likeness. That I am a stronger christian, wife, mom, friend, daughter, sister, woman.

I am a new person in Him and as His daughter I can claim all the rest and strength that He has for me each day.

Ending my day thinking on those things.
       

The way things are supposed to be...

I have a newly formed dislike for the word "supposed".

What they said would happen:

The Norwood is SUPPOSED to be a very hard surgery. 
After the Norwood your baby is SUPPOSED to have a long recovery.
Your baby is SUPPOSED to be able to go home between the Norwood and Glenn
The Glenn is SUPPOSED to be a very easy surgery.
After the Glenn your baby is SUPPOSED to have such an easy recovery.
Your baby is SUPPOSED to be so much better after the Glenn.

What really happened:

The Norwood was a very uneventful surgery, everything went well.
After the Norwood we were on the road to going home after 3 weeks.
We ended up staying the 3 months in the hospital between the Norwood and Glenn.
The Glenn was very long and so many things went wrong.
After the Glenn his chest was open for 3 days and he is having a harder time recovering. 
He is in so much more pain now than after the Norwood. 

What have I learned? 
Man's ways are NOT God's ways.
We started this journey so excited because God was going to do great things! We were so excited to go home and have our family whole. We had this all planned out. But God, in His great mercy, had other plans for us.

So, has Aaron's life gone the way it was "supposed" to go? 

ABSOLUTELY!

Even as I sit here listening to the beeping of his heart and watching the numbers on his machines, I know that his little life is going the exact way that it is "supposed" to go. He is living the life God planned for him. Doctors and nurses can tell us the way things are supposed to go, but it really doesn't matter. We have stopped asking about timelines, recovery statistics, and feeding patterns. We can get answers to all those things, but their answers don't always line up with God's will. And I was always taught growing up that God's will was the best place to be. Why would I want anything less for my baby? 

I think I say this every blog, but having a head knowledge that God is in control is so much easier than actually trusting your life (or your baby's life) to His control. It is hard to not let circumstances dictate how I feel about God for that day. When Aaron has a bad day, I have a bad day. When Aaron is not doing well, then I usually don't do well. The days that he is better and doing what he is "supposed" to be doing are the easy days. Those are the days I trust God and thank Him for all He is doing. What about bad days makes God any less in control? He is the same. He is loving and caring and protecting my son every day, even the bad ones. 

God has allowed us to do so many things that we would not have been able to do if this was not the way he planned Aaron's life to go. We have gotten to meet so many new friends along the way, we've gotten to learn things that we never expected to learn! (I know so much about the human heart and the way blood flows through your body and lungs...) 

So, we are content. Content to leave Aaron in God's hands. Content to watch his little life go the way that it is supposed to go. And we are thankful that we have a God who cares, who has chosen us to be Aaron's family. Living our lives the way they are supposed to go. 

Chosen

It has been over a month since I have shared a blog post, so I figured I am way past due...

Time has been going so fast and yet so slow while we sit here in the hospital. Aaron is now 45 days old and 39 days past his modified Norwood (that's the name of his first open heart surgery). 

So many emotions these last few weeks. Excitement about going home, disappointment when we didn't get to go home, fear when we learned of yet another thing that is wrong with his heart, sadness over missing our older two boys; and round and round it goes! 

About 2 weeks ago we were completely ready to go home, we had done all our training about how to take care of our heart baby and he had done the things that he needed to do to go home. Then everything came to a halt. So hard to be so ready mentally for something as big as taking a baby home from the hospital and then to be crushed when it doesn't happen. Aaron stopped eating as well as he had been, his oxygen stats were lower, and he was more sleepy. Those are the reasons that we did not go home two weeks ago. All good reasons! All things that gradually happened and went a little unnoticed to us, but thankfully not to the doctors. Because of those things the doctors really wanted us to wait, and it's a good thing we did. A week ago Aaron had to have an emergency blood transfusion. His oxygen got very low as did his heart rate. Praise the Lord we didn't go home! We would have been making an emergency trip back down here. After getting over that disappointment we decided it's best to stay here as long as the doctors think it is necessary. Definitely doesn't make this any easier. 

We found out this past week that Aaron has something called WPW (Wolff Parkinson White). This is just another thing that God is going to be using in my life to grow my trust in Him. It may not display itself at all in Aaron's life, but it could and his heart wouldn't be able to handle it. People who have this have an extra pulse in the heart that can cause the heart to beat way too fast. So, since Aaron only has half a heart, it wouldn't be able to handle all the extra beats. Giving it to God. We have been told that since it hasn't shown up to be a problem so far that we won't have to worry about it. They will take a closer look at it when he comes in for his final surgery when he's around 3. 

It's a very weird feeling when life keeps going on all around  you and you feel like you haven't gone anywhere. As summer comes it's so hard to not get discouraged sitting in a hospital room. Thankfully we can take Aaron outside! That's a big blessing! We go and sit in the garden and enjoy the warm weather! 

Through this journey I have always said that Aaron was chosen. This is the path God has chosen for him, there is nothing genetic in what happened to his heart. It was how God chose to form it. I was reminded recently that God not only chose Aaron, He chose ME! He chose me to be this little boy's mommy. He thought so highly of me that He gave me Aaron to show his love. To teach me all these things that He is teaching me. I can't even fathom it. I was chosen because God loves me. 

Exceeding Abundantly

   

   Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.                                                                    

                                                                                    Ephesians 3:20-21

    "Above all that we ask or think" 

  

    My dad reminded me of these words this week as Aaron has been going through open heart surgery. 

    On Friday Aaron was taken for his first open heart surgery. The Norwood Procedure it's called. You all know that the days and months before now we have been asking for your prayers as we prepared for that day, but I didn't know just how greatly God was going to answer those prayers. I had an unexplainable peace that I know came directly from our great God. He has been so good through all of this. Aaron came out of surgery great, the surgeon left his chest open because there was some extra bleeding. This is not uncommon and happens frequently with the type of surgery Aaron had. So we went down for a late lunch because we were told it would be an hour or so until we would be able to see him in his room. When we got back to the waiting room our nurse came to find us. There was even more bleeding than they thought. they had to go back in and try to figure out the problem. This took another few hours. Praise the Lord that they had kept his chest open! We finally got to go and see him around 6pm. Oh the difference that day made. Our sweet boy, who had looked completely perfect that morning when I placed him in his bed, now was full of tubes and wires and I could see right into his chest cavity. When they say they keep the chest open, it is OPEN. We actually watched our baby's heart beating inside his chest. And it was incredible. God has created us so intricately. And the fact that our surgeon knew how to deal with such a little heart is amazing. 

   Saturday morning we came in and the surgeon was there waiting for his OR team. They were going to close his chest! Awesome news, because that means they were no longer worried about the bleeding or fluids. And it was one step closer to him healing! A few hours later and our baby looked a little more like our baby. He has a nice big bandaid over his incision now. The next step after getting the chest closed was getting the chest tubes out and getting him off the breathing tubes, too. The breathing tubes can come out once he proves that he can breath on his own. And the chest tubes come out when there is no more bleeding or fluids coming out. Saturday night during rounds the Critical Care Attending wanted to see him breath on his own so he turned the ventilator way down...and he breathed! Talk about exciting! So they turned it back up, but not al the way to where it was and he was taking a few of his own breaths each minute. Well on his way to breathing on his own! After rounds the Attending said just how well Aaron was doing after just having surgery the day before. His nurses keep saying it too.

    Sunday morning we came in and right away I noticed something looked different but I couldn't quite see what it was. Our nurse said, "Well, do you notice anything different?" Chris right away said, "Oh, the chest tubes are out" Yay! Chest tubes are out! Such a big step! We were pretty excited. He has been pretty sleepy still today, and they are wanting him to wake up a little more so that he will breath more on his own and they can see if they can take that ventilator out. Tomorrow would be the earliest. Again all day we were told just how awesome Aaron is doing this soon post surgery. 

    This is where dad reminded me of that verse above. 

    I have such a hard time just rejoicing in all that God has done. God has been so good. One thing after another He has been showing us that He is doing "exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think" And I am sitting here just waiting for something to go wrong. His heart to not work. His breathing to stop. But God is good! He's hearing all the hundreds of prayers that you all are praying for our precious boy. Aaron is completely in God's hands and there is nothing that can change that. He is such an amazing boy and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do with his life. All I know is it will be better than I could ever dream for his life. God has been doing more than we can ask or think. God is good and His faithfulness is never ending!