Wow, it's been awhile!

I can't believe how long it's been since I updated last. I just have not felt up to sharing my heart and struggles the past couple of weeks. It's been a difficult month for me. I've been so busy and then the whole spiritual struggle going on has just made it a difficult and challenging time for me.

Well, we have a new night nurse to cover our Sun, Mon, and Wed. nights. She's worked twice so far but I really like her so far. Our fav nurse is back on Saturday nights so we can do church which has been a HUGE blessing even if I have to get up at 5am to release her. :) Friday nights are still open and hopefully after the holidays we can see about finding a nurse to cover them so the kids and I can start getting out those evenings. ;)

I'm still waiting on Autumn's sleep study results. The report came back on Monday but waiting for the doctor to look over them and give us our new vent settings. Autumn is still doing great and I've even become brave enough to have her off her pulse ox during the day which is good since it keeps messing up on us anyways. We are still working on the vomiting issues. I think we are making progress finally since vomiting is not EVERY day but maybe every other...still trying new things until I figure this one out.

Okay, so I guess it's time to share the calling God has laid on my heart and the struggle I've had in walking in obedience to the calling. We are going to start the adoption process! This has been a calling on my heart since I was in the 6th grade (although I never realized it was a calling until recently). It's always been my passion and desire to adopt a little boy from Africa and James and I have discussed this since before we were married. Before we had Autumn we questioned to have a third child or adopt a third and we decided to have one more before we adopted. Well, after learning of Autumn's disability and then all the complications that came along my heart felt that I'd never be able to adopt and it saddened me. After though taking care of Autumn for 2 years now, the desire of adoption kind of just went away because I have so much going on with her that I did not have a desire to have any more kids to take care of. Well, God has different plans I guess. One evening after church I was laying in bed and God just spoke to my heart. He just showed me how blessed He's made us and told me that the extra bunk bed in Gage's room is just waiting for a little boy to sleep in. I texted James about it and he said, "Um,no" I asked him to just pray about it and then we would talk later. The next morning I asked him what he thought and he said that he knows I want to adopt from Africa and his concerns about the financial side of it. I told him that I feel God's calling us to adopt from the Texas Child Protective Services. We discussed our concerns about adopting an older child and agreed a boy between 3-5 years would fit best in our family. We also discussed not wanting to take on a child with lots of special needs but a child who just needs a family who can love him and show him Jesus. James was actually onboard and immediately I was overcome with fear and doubts. Satan bombarded my mind with ALL kinds of thoughts, questions, concerns, doubts, fears, and insecurities. My life started getting very busy and I was feeling VERY overwhelmed! I tried convincing myself that God would not ask this of us right now would He? I was having issues with all 3 of my kids in different ways and I was feeling the stress of all of the responsibilities I have in my life. Everynight though when I go to God's word all I kept reading about was obedience, God's calling, and living a sacrificial life for Him. I'm not ready for this though. I want to be selffish and don't want to take on more. I've been having this debate with God over and over but He keeps showing me that it's not my strength but His, not my will but His, not my life anymore but I belong to Him and I have to be willing to step out in faith and trust Him in ALL things. So, with that we will trust Him in this new calling and see where it leads us. Our first step is to attend a meeting and get more information on the entire process. This probably will not happen until after the holidays but we will keep you all posted through it all.

Last couple of weeks

Okay, the last couple of weeks have been a little stressful and exhausting for me. We are still without night nursing so I've been staying up a little later waiting for Autumn to go to sleep so can do her nebs and then I get up a couple of times during the night to empty her water trap to her vent and then up in the mornings to do her feeds and get the other kids ready for school. James gives me a break on Tues,Wed,Thurs night so I can go to bed earlier and not have to wake up in the middle of the night but my body still thinks it should be waking up so I'm still not sleeping well on those nights. Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever had a full night of uninterruppted sleep in the past 6 or so years. ;)

The nursing agency did send out one nurse but she was TERRIFIED of our dog and so I sent her home after 20 mins. I am not going to lock up Layla everytime she works and I could not get anything done since Layla kept wanting to go visit the new nurse and say hi. We have a new nurse coming out Sunday afternoon to orient so hopefully she will work out and love big dogs. Also, our fav nurse was available tonight so she's coming in to do a shift...so excited to see her again and to be able to sleep in until 8am. ;)

We had a good Halloween. We usually take the kids to some festival or something but this year everything was just happening so fast and we kept missing them all. I did take Madison, a friend, and Gage to the Harbor for a free event they have. It was crazy packed! They had games and jumpers but there was so many people that we could barely get through the crowds and the lines were so long. We played 3 games and then decided to get ice cream instead and go home. I am so glad we left Autumn at home with daddy. Halloween night we took the kids around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Madison though is at that age where she would rather go with friends but we saw her in passing. ;) It was fun to meet lots of our neighbors and see there were more kinders living in the area for Gage to play with. One of the boys he talks about all the time at school is actually the son of another police officer so now we've been able to have his new friend over to play. Here's a couple of pictures I took of the kids in their costumes...my camera has been taking blurry pics and we were in a rush to get going to they are not very good. Madison was a candy corn witch, Autumn was a candy corn princess, and Gage was a skeleton.

Autumn had her first dentist appt. the other day. It was POURING down rain (and she usually gets really junky when it rains) but we still managed to make it. She did pretty well. Her back teeth get yellow and so the dentist scraped them and made them all white again. It's a struggle to brush her teeth. Also, the med she is on makes her gums grow up higher than her teeth so the back teeth look like they are tiny. The dentist said they all look fine for now and we can bring her in every 3-6 months to scrape them as needed. They even sent her a postcard and wrote to her about how well she did. It was so sweet! I was going to take Madison and Gage the next day for their cleaning but there was no record that we had dental insurance so I had to cancel until the HR dept. can get us enrolled (someone forgot to do it).

That same day (when it rained for over 24 hours) Autumn had a sleep study that evening. It ended up being a really stressful day for me...Madison had some issues at school and then was trying to finish up a science project about 15 mins before we were walking out of the door. My SIL came over to watch the kids and get them to bed while we were gone. We got to the study at 7:30pm and was getting Autumn all set up and situated while the entire time Madison kept texting me about her project. I was so frustrated with her that we were dealing with this at the last minute (I hate procrastination). So, the entire time I'm trying to take care of Autumn, I'm stressing about what to do with Madison and her project. Around 9:oopm I left Autumn and daddy to head back home and release my SIL. Got home, took a shower, and got into bed. Woke up at 4:30am to head back to the hospital to pick up Autumn and James. (still pouring down rain). Autumn was a rockstar for her study. They put her on a CPAP machine and turned her pressure support and pressure control down (not sure the exact numbers) and put her on a breathrate of 10 (she's normally at 20). She NEVER desatted and slept through the entire study. Whoo Hoo!!! I'm still waiting for the drs. to call and tell us what they want us to do and what settings to change her to. Anyways, we got back home around 6:00am and then it was time to get ready for the day and figure out about Madison's dang science project! It all worked out in the end but I hate doing last minute preparations and warned her we would never do it again!

A lot has been going on and I feel like I've just been running in all sorts of directions just trying to keep up. I hate feeling out of control and having no organization in my life. I feel Satan has really been working on putting doubts, fears, and lies into my head so that I will not follow the calling God has placed on my heart. How can I do what God is asking if I can not keep up with all the responsibilities I have now? That is what Satan wants me to think and believe. I have to admit, he's been doing a good job lately of me ignoring God's voice because of all the other "stuff" filling my life right now. I know it's going to be a difficult few weeks for me until I decide on what to do about this spiritual battle going on in my heart. Just please be in prayer for our family.