Slugger!

All went well with the MRI today at DUKE. Duke is like the equivalent of checking into the CLUB MED hospital (very fun). He was met by all of these very smart and beautiful ...nurses who have toys and games and items to explain what they are doing. So he is escorted by these women and then they ask him what movie he wants to watch and they all rub his arm etc. They gave Andrew a funny drug called versed (sp?) that made him think there were 4 eyes on a picture of a cat on the curtain. He was talking and then sleeping and then tried to stand up with jello legs...They gave it to him because he was so nervous about the needles. But he is amazing. The test went well and Andrew has no issues with his pituitary with the exception of the fact that it is slightly small. He will go on human growth hormone but now he is thinking positive. When he left they gave him a baseball that measures your pitching speed. It was one of the gifts he wanted for christmas but didn't get. He told them that....and was really happy (but that's also because they call versed 'happy juice')Then he said ""I can't take the human growth hormone it is illegal in baseball (he loves baseball and wants to be a player when he grows up)" I said "I think it is okay when it is just little league. Plus it might make you hit further." He said: "really?" I said "Really..you'll just have to stop before you go pro."..I just hope they don't do random testing here with the Cary Parks and recreation....HA!

Pray for MRI!

Tomorrow Andrew has to have an MRI for his pituitary gland. He is deficient with human growth hormone so the doctor is checking it out. Pray that all goes well. The doctor isn't worried about anything really serious but he may need to be given shots which he is not happy about.....

Andrew's Human Growth Hormone Test!

Andrew and I spent the day at the hospital. He had to have an all day test adiministered to truly determine if he is deficient of the human growth hormone. He is very small for an 11 year ol

Memorial! Finding Grief!

So, yesterday I had the memorial service for Aubrey. This was basically the graduation portion of the post abortion bible study I had gone to. It had been 27 years. A memorial originally seemed odd to me...plus I didn't feel I had the right to stand in a place of honor as the mother of a child that I aborted..>Still, it was part of the study and i complied. When asked 12 weeks prior what I had wanted from the class i said closure and a way to experience grief. So, I knew I had cried many tears in the years...tears of regret, tears from anger, tears from guilt and loss..but yesterday I truly grieved the loss of the child that could have been. I was surprised when I looked down at the 16 kleenex i had gone through. Mark played the music and there was a minister there along with the teacher of the study and 2 other post abortive women. We read scripture, had communion, memorialized our children, lit candles and blew them out. And i feel so much more at ease now. It is as if a 2 ton weight has been lifted. I was comforted when through prayer I imagined my little one scooped up by my Grandma Conner and Grandma Jones. I imagined her dancing and singing with the children from our family who were there before her (our brother Denny). I know it may all seem strange but it truly was cathartic and I feel totally blessed and at peace...The sweetest part of the day though was when Mark said he likes to hope that Aubrey knows that she is one of his children too and a part of this family even though he wasn't the biological father...so sweet....Praise God!

Clean Underwear!

So the other night I was giving Jared a bath. Mark is usually in charge of jared's showers and bath. So I called Jared in ...and I told him to bring clean underwear....He just walked in the bathroom with the same underwear that he wearing. I said "Jared is that clean underwear?" He said "Yes mom ...it's from Christmas"....But of course it was January 6th LOL!!! and even though Santa had given him some underwear..I sure was hoping that it wasn't the same pair of underwear he put on Christmas...Mark said it wasn't but when he said "It's from Christmas." It made me a bit nervous considering the fact that it had been 2 weeks since Santa had visited us.

I don't want that...

So, I had to go to the supermarket today and took Ella with me. We went down the aisle with the feminine hygiene products. She grabs a box of tampons and says " What is this mom?" Ella is only 7 but is prepubescent so the doctors have recommended that we have the conversation etc. So i tell her in age appropriate language what happens once a month...she looks at me and says "mom, i don't want that."

How do you spell Fairies???"

Happy New Year everyone!! My Ethiopian children are doing some studying on the computer. So Grace (age 10 ) shouts down to me in her broken English "Mom..how you spell fairies???" I proceed to spell and then Mark shouts down "Deanna you better be careful with that one....she might go to an inappropriate site." So I scream upstairs...Grace...give me the computer..Imagining she has made her way to San Francisco nightlife ('not that there's anything wrong with that' Seinfeld) on the computer....She had wanted to go to the Disney site to play a Tinkerbell game but didn't know how to ask me for it...WHEW! Mark bookmarked the page and she still doesn't know how to spell fairies....