secretramblingsofapastorswife

A week from today. A week from today we should know something. SOMETHING!!  at least more than what we know now. A week from today Wren has her eye appointment with her ophthalmologist. A week from today I'm hoping to stop constantly wondering. A week from today I am hoping to stop doing my own "what can she see" tests. A week from today we might rejoice and high five. or A week from today we might mourn . Its scary how a day can have the potential to change your life and the life of your children. (I say children because it affects all of them.) We've been here before. We've sat waiting for an appointment. For news. For something. For more than we know now. And we've mourned. This time is different though because we are holding Wren. When we found out about Tobys Spina Bifida he was only in my tummy for 20 weeks. We still had 20 weeks to adjust, to mourn and to let life stop a little. I wish life could just stop right now. I wish I ha...

We are a desperate bunch. Us Christian Moms. We try so hard to do it all and be it all. At least I am. Join me in the description or not but good grief I know there are times when I reach the point of pure desperation. Most of the time I'm desperate for fixes or something that will make me feel not so alone in my struggle.  How to fix this? How to help this kid do? How to help be a better wife? How can I be a better mother? How can I stop yelling? How can I be more grace filled? How can I home school better? How can I point my kids to the true meaning of Christmas? How can I be a fun mom? How can I ____________________ fill in your blank. I sit in there in pure desperation and I read and I read. I find blogs, articles, videos and anything I can get my hands on and I read it. How to pray for your husband. How to not yell. How to be a hand-free non cell phone loving mama . (being read on my cell phone and loving it) How to have strength through hard times. How to have...

Two blogs in Two days???  My kids must be really well behaved lately or my house must really be a mess.  Ill let you use your imagination of how I have time for this. Yesterday a dear friend of mine posted an article about breastfeeding.  I'll sum it up for you. Sometimes breast feeding doesn't work out for everyone, sometimes you have reasons for not choosing to nurse. and that's okay. The whole point of the article is that's okay. This sweet friend posted this article with me in mind. And Ill tell you why. Ill share my secret. Ready..... I'm not nursing Wren. After trying and trying and trying for weeks. After her landing in the hospital with jaundice because she wasn't eating and her bilirubin was sky rocketing I decided to give her a bottle. With much sadness I stuck that bottle in her mouth in a gloomy hospital room with a nurse standing over me. It was lonely, sad, devastating, and depressing. I had lactation consultant after lactation consultant...

Its interesting to me that you can say you have the right view of situations and honestly feel like you do but then a moment something passes through your lips you are kind of stopped with what you really think. Sometimes it just slips right out. The other day I was telling a friend that had experience the sadness of multiple miscarriages that I had considered offering to be a surrogate mother for her before but then knew she probably wouldn't want me to considering I make "Broken Babies " We laughed about it and at the time it truly wasn't a big deal but I kept thinking about that term. "Broken Babies" And that was how I was describing two of my children. Broken. Was that how I viewed them? Was that how I saw what God had allowed? Brokenness. Not quite right. Not whole. The definition exactly is Broken adjective: broken having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order. synonyms: smashed, ...

Tomorrow has come and gone. Im thankful I took the time to write beforehand because now we are here. Yes, we got the amazing news of no tumor. The urine came back with no elevated levels which means there is no tumor anywhere in her body. I do not think this is a light or little thing. I absolutely praise God for this. He is a good God who is allowing my child be spared surgeries, chemo and all kinds of other things that only a mommy that has a child with cancer knows about. But will you give me the grace to say something.... To be 100% honest without judging or thinking me ungrateful? Its complicated. It is. Without a tumor we know that we are dealing with an eye issue. We know we have the potential to be dealing with a significant vision impairment. And you know what? That's hard. That stinks. And its straight up scary. We still have a baby with the same symptoms. Yesterday I praised God for no tumor but I also mourned possibilities. I am a big believer of crying no tea...

Its 10:30pm and I should be either sleeping or getting the diaper bag ready for tomorrow but I wanted to post before tomorrow. Tomorrow I am hopeful to walk away with some answers. Possibly tentative answers, but still much more than I have now. So I wanted to write before tomorrow happened. If you aren't friends with me on facebook then you have no idea what I'm talking about...the long and short of it. Wren (baby girl 2 months old) started having shaky eye movements on Friday afternoon. By Friday evening she was barely focusing on us at all. By Saturay afternoon she couldn't stop her eyes from moving at all. It was like she couldn't control them and she couldn't see us. After 5 nights in the hospital, multiples tests (with one test still pending) we went home. The problem is what she is doing can mean some really serious things, specifically a tumor or some smaller things like a problem she will outgrow by age 3. The issue is they have to test for every seriou...

There has been so much going on in our home that Im not even sure what thing to blog about. But I think Im going to stick to the most recent instead of the obvious thing that people think I will be blogging about. : ) I will definitely be going back to that one though. We've had an interesting year to say the least and the person who has gone through the most has hands down been Toby. Tethered cord surgery is no joke people. Its crazy. Insane. One of the hardest things Ive seen Toby go through. Not to scare all the moms of SB babies out there. But it doesn't get easier. Its hard. Its hard to explain to a child whats going on. Its hard to tell them its worth it. Its hard for them to understand and be consumed with fear and pain and yet for part of them to totally not get it. Shoooo I hardly understood all of it and the whys behind it. Then the derotation osteotomy is no joke either. It was almost harder than the TC surgery. Casts and weeks and weeks and weeks of casts. not be...

COME ON! You knew it was coming didn't you?? I couldn't do a week like this past one with out a blog post! That would be practically sinful! The problem is there is no starting point. Not really. Its kind of all mushed together in a series of events. But with the Summer being what it has been, like I said, It feels like there is no beginning to start the story. Most of you know from Facebook posts, and The pray for Toby page all the fun...so Ill spare you the long of it. Between Toby's surgery, Nate leaving for Guatemala, Air conditioners breaking, wheelchair delivered unusable, Cell phones getting lost and found in a busy parking lot and miraculously not smashed, a very discouraged Toby, major contractions with a call to the doctor, and the normal life of having 4 kids and being pregnant. ...its been a few days. Ill admit to some Whys coming into my mind. Why one more thing? Why this? Why now? Why why why why why??? Don't you think we've all learned enough L...

So I've been reading a book, "When life is hard." And Ive been talking a lot about trials and other things. And I'm sure from the outside most would assume they know all my trials, they assume I'm talking about Toby and things going on with the house. The thing is there are trials that people go through that I'm reminded are "secret trials." The things that are too big, too personal, too private to put out there on a blog, facebook or prayer sheet even. Its been a reminder to me that there are hurting people everywhere. That there are things going on in homes and hearts of people we consider friends that we might never know about or understand. We might should be more understanding towards people For me as a Pastors wife I take a kind of pride in sharing my trials. To open up and be honest when things get hard because I think there is such beauty and healing in that. But in this past month Ive come to realize that can not always be the case. I hav...

So today has been a doozy. And Im sitting down to type only during rest time. There is much more day left What must the rest of the day hold!?? Today started with a trip to the skate park as we try to find ways to get outside with Toby’s wheelchair. It’s challenging to find something for 3 very active kids and 1 kid who wants to be active but cant right now. I’m starting this process of getting out more with lots of fear. Well, off to the park where Grace chips her tooth in the first 5 minutes of being there. Not just any tooth. The front permanent one. Oh JOY! Then a promise to the library. The library is closed till 12. Uh oh. Then off to Walmart with the process of a new awesome craft staring me in the face just waiting to be made with the write crafting products. That’s when it hit me. The sharp, double over, make you want to die, not sure what end its going to be. Right at the check out line. I literally ran for it. Shamefully ran the bathroom down with 3 kids in a bu...

Its been long past time to do this. For a while this blog was called, "Raising Toby." I loved it. It was all about raising Toby. It was my spot to spill out hardships, victories, fears and joys. However, I stopped writing for a while. One reason being there wasnt much to write. We were at a stand still. We were just in cruise control with Toby. And it felt really weird to be writing only about one child when I have four children and another on the way. There was so much more to our life then Spina Bifida and Toby's special needs. So why now? Well, honestly there has been so much on my mind and my heart. So many things I want to say, to respond to, to just straight up talk about. And sometimes there's no time and sometimes there just isnt an ear right there to be available. And well my poor husbands ears could probably use a break. So this post is purely introduction. Purely hey here I am, but it might look a little different, sound a little different and be a litt...