On July 19th our beautiful Nora Juliet turned two years old! Her birthday will always feel miraculous and holy because it is the day God fulfilled so many promises He made to me when I was at my most broken place. It was the day that I did the “impossible”….I gave birth to a healthy, full term kell positive baby girl. God used her to bring light back into our darkness, to heal gaping wounds, to restore hope, to empower women all over the world not to give up. Nora will always be our reminder that God is indeed good, and He does love us. She is our reminder that God places our deepest desires in our hearts for a reason and we do ourselves an injustice if we ignore them, especially when He is calling us to step out in trust. I know that He has great plans for Nora’s life. Thank you, God, for giving me this daughter I can keep. We love her so much and have loved watching her develop and grow over the past two years. We praise you, for you have done gloriously.

Isaiah 12:5 Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth.

Now, a little bit about Nora (because I still marvel that we get to know her on earth and see her personality develop!) Nora is the darkest of our kids- dark brown eyes, darker skin tone and darker hair. As her hair grows longer and longer it gets curlier and curlier and she now has ringlet curls all over her head. She is super maternal and bossy and sweet. She will boss her brothers, her cousins, adults and animals, and I’m sure her baby brother will get it when he arrives too. She wants to take care of everybody. She is independent and loves to drink out of a normal cup, eat with utensils (ALWAYS) and help me unload the dishwasher. She speaks in full sentences and has an amazing vocabulary. At age two her brothers knew all of their letters and numbers but she only knows A, O, S and X. She’s much more interested in relationships than things like numbers or letters. Nora talks and sings constantly and makes up songs about things she’s thinking about or doing. Her favorite place to be is anywhere with people, especially friends and extended family. I think her favorite person on earth is “Manga” (how she says Grandmama) and they have a very sweet, special bond. I sometimes think this is because “Manga” was the one who came to Houston with me and lived in the Ronald McDonald House with us for months. Nora heard Manga’s voice in utero as much as she heard mine and so I think a special bond was formed. Often, Nora wants to go to Manga instead of me when she has he chance. Nora is our daily delight, making us laugh every few minutes. Seeing her with her Daddy is still one of my greatest joys because I ached for so long to see Josh with his own daughter in his arms. Her brothers adore her and I enjoy having a daughter so much. Thank you, God, for this gift.

Nora with her Manga

First train ride

First trip to the beach

Nora at 22 months, me at 22 weeks pregnant.

Exploring Hurricane Creek

Giving Daddy pats

Baby boy is still doing well but his anemia continues to worsen gradually. His MCA scan this week (27w 2d) was the highest it’s been, at 1.39. Dr. Trevett really thinks next week will be the week that baby needs his first IUT but I’m not so sure. We tentatively scheduled the IUT for Monday but will rescan this Thursday (tomorrow) to see how baby looks. If he’s getting close to the 1.5 cutoff we will plan to have the IUT on Monday. But if baby’s numbers look about the same we will cancel Monday’s IUT. We still can’t believe we’ve made it this far without a transfusion! Baby looked great on ultrasound and is estimated to weigh 2 lbs 11 oz. Here are a few pictures of him from the past couple of weeks:

And here I am at 27 weeks, 4 days pregnant.

We are still struggling to come up with a name for this miracle boy of ours. Most of the names we like are pretty weird (Liam, Asher, Lucy and Nora were all the most “normal” names on our list at the time.) There are a lot of names that we kind of like, but none that we love. Hopefully we will come up with the perfect name soon. We just started getting things ready at home for our boy since we are feeling more confident that we will actually get to bring him home alive. We live in a small, three bedroom house so it is going to be a tight squeeze but we couldn’t be happier to have to fit our FOUR kids into our cozy little house. I never thought we would be able to have four living children! I will do my best to update the blog after my ultrasound (and four hour drive home) tomorrow. Please pray that baby’s numbers aren’t any higher and he gets another week without a transfusion.

I’m now 25 weeks and 3 days pregnant and the baby is still doing well (poor little guy still doesn’t have a name though!) We are so very grateful to have made it this far without needing an IUT. My next appointment is on Monday when I’m 26 weeks and 2 days. At 26 weeks Nora was having her second intrauterine blood transfusion. Here are baby boy’s MCA scan numbers over the past few weeks:

You can see that his numbers have gradually increased over the weeks but he is still staying well under the 1.5 cutoff. Right now he is probably slightly anemic but there are no other signs of trouble on his ultrasounds. His heart looks beautiful. Actually, all of his organs look beautiful (such a blessing) and there is no extra fluid anywhere. He is measuring about two weeks ahead and weighs almost 2 pounds. We are thrilled to see our boy do so well and we give God all the praise for this miracle.

In the past couple of weeks we have finally started explaining to Nora that there is a baby brother in Mommy’s belly and that one day he will come home to stay. This is a huge leap of faith for me because we don’t actually know if he will come home or go to heaven, but lately we’ve been feeling more hopeful than ever that he will survive, so we let the secret out. I’m also HUGE and Nora was starting to wonder what was going on with Mommy’s weird body. I just remember so vividly trying to explain to 2 year old Asher that baby Lucy wasn’t going to come home like we had said and that she had gone to heaven instead. It was terrible and it was so hard for him to wrap his little mind around the concept. I wanted to protect Nora from feeling that loss if her baby brother died so I waited much longer to tell her about the pregnancy than the boys (they knew as soon as I came home with a permacath sticking out of my chest at 10 weeks.) Nora is SO excited about her baby brother and talks about all the things she wants to do with him. In fact, we sat on my bed two nights ago, just Nora and me, having a real heart to heart conversation for the first time. We talked all about the baby and the fun things she would get to do with him once he gets here. It was so special because I felt this sweet connection to my daughter, like we were friends, and it’s something I’ve been looking forward to ever since I found out that I would have a daughter I could keep. Anyway, Nora told me she was going to rock her baby brother, sing to him (she sang me the song she made up for him), put his socks and hat on him, give him milk, give him a bath and when he falls asleep she will shout, “Wake up beebee!” so he can be awake with her (we’ll have to work on that last part.) She also said we should name him “Beebee Callum.” Goodness, she has a lot of ideas and plans for a baby she hasn’t even met yet. With each adorable proclamation of hers my heart trembled and I prayed, “Oh Lord, let it be. Let her hold him and sing her special song to him and even wake him up when hes’ napping, I don’t mind. Please let us experience life with our boy.”

Please continue to pray for our son, that God would strengthen him in this fight for life and protect him from harm. Please pray that Nora will get to be a big sister and meet her baby brother alive one day this fall. I will try to do a better job of updating the blog more frequently. Usually, no news is good news, though!