The One With the Year of Lessons

Well today marks the year point! I can't even believe it! I don't think I have ever had a year where so much has happened . . . and that includes the time I met a guy, got married, and had a baby all within on year . . . and that was some craziness in and of itself I tell you.

Last year TODAY, April 4th, we were in the hospital with a very cold, popsicle, named Preslie. It marked the beginning of what could have been the end, but what turned into one of the greatest learning experiences of my life - if not the greatest. Talk about a faith building, testimony strengthening, figure out that I actually can SOB experience.

I was never a crier . . . like ever. Even on the rare occassions that I would get the single glistening tear rolling down my cheek, I didn't sob. I didn't really know that I had it in me. And then I had children. . . .and it ALL changed. Not everyone knows this, mostly because it is pre-blog era, but when Parker was 14 months-old we almost lost him too, he had a seizure and stopped breathing, turned blue - long story short it ended up with an ambulance ride to the hospital, hours and hours in the emergency room and a diagnosis of Febrile Seizure Disorder. There's nothing like performing rescue breathing on your own child while your husband is on the phone with 911 who can't find our house because it was in a new part of a subdivision to get the sobs coming. Preslie wasn't much older when the idea was first presented to us that we might lose her too.

Eric and I have had several discussions on what we would think to be the harder way to lose a child. Is it harder to have them there one second, and gone the next, or is it harder to have to watch them wither away under a mess of hospital tubes? Thankfully, at least for now, we aren't having to experience either, and for thatm I am eternally grateful.

In the last year, Preslie spent three days in the hospital, met with a dozen doctors and specialists, had five tests that conclusively proved she had myelodysplasia that had progressed to juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, we found out I was pregnant, dealt with the idea of losing a child, became reconciled to the idea that if God really needed our daughter we would see her again, submitted to numerous tests as a family, witnessed a miracle, had a little one on a miraculous day, and somehow are still here - battered and bruised sure, but intact, strengthened, and ready to attack the world as a family unit.

What a difference a year can make!!!! I am beyond blessed and humbled to be a mother to a child who obviously has so much to give to this world, and I will be grateful for every second we get to have with her and our boys.

The details of the hospital are in April of 2011's blogs. I can't link it up I guess, dang computer illiteracy.