Family Day in Pigeon Forge

We were going stir crazy staying at home so we decided to get up one day and go to the Smoky Mountains. We got as far as Pigeon Forge. We stopped and ate lunch, then took Christian to do some Gem Mining. He had a good time mining for gems and enjoyed finding "rare" stones in his bucket. While he was gem mining, I decided to pass the time by chasing a local turkey around in the parking lot. It was quite entertaining. Afterwards, we decided to hit a miniature golf place. After doing a round of golf (Christian won), we were tired and decided to go home. We stopped by an A&W drive in and got some root beer floats then headed back home.

PREGNANT

Well, I am finally making my big announcement today. I am 17 wks pregnant and having a baby girl. My official due date is August 24. This is like a dream come true and I can't be any happier than I was this morning when the genetics counselor called with the great news. I found out that I was pregnant back in December but decided not to tell anyone until I got my amnio results back confirming that everything was okay. For those of you who don't know my story, here it is.

I have had a very difficult time trying to have a family. My husband and I have been married for almost 7 years when we finally got pregnant with our first son, Christian. We had been waiting for a baby via adoption and had finally decided to go and try IVF. I had my first appointment set up when I found out that I was pregnant. I went to my ob/gyn and got an ultrasound done and found out I was already 10wks pregnant with Christian. Christian was only 7 months old when I found out that I was pregnant again. Steve and I were ecstatic to think that we could be having another so soon. But when I was about 14 wks along they found some abnormalities. They had thought that maybe he had a syndrome that had to do with the chromosomes, but when the results of the amnio came back, it was okay. He was diagnosed with renal failure (They had used some other medical term but I can't remember what it was called) and they had no idea how long he would last. The baby made it all the way to about 34 wks and passed away before I could deliver him. We named him Samuel E. Yoder and he was born on June 21, 2001. Fast forward 6 years to January 2007 and there I was pregnant again. Things were going well until about 12 weeks when they saw some excess fluid in his head (called Cystic Hygroma) and they said that it was a sign of Down Syndrome. So, again I had an amniocentesis done and confirmed that we were having a Downs child. It took us a little bit to come to terms with this news. By this time, things were going okay. A heart speciailist from John Hopkins had come down and did a thorough heart exam when I was 24 weeks and everything was looking good. But, when I went in for an ultrasound at 29 weeks, they again saw signs of something wrong and decided that they needed to test his blood. So, I went to the hospital where they did a procedure called "Cordocentesis". It is almost like an amnio, but instead of the fluid they get, they have to poke the umbilical cord and get the blood sample from it. It took the doctor 5 times (Yes, 5 big needle pokes in my stomach) to obtain this blood sample and I had to stay overnight in the hospital. When the results came back, it was not good. The baby's WBC (I think) was eighty something thousands when it should only have been in the five thousand range. This was a sing of a huge infection, like Leukemia. There was nothing that they could do about this. They did tell us that Down's children have a higher risk of leukemia than normal children but my doctors had not experience this in the womb and did not know how to proceed from there. They decided to see me 3 times a week and keep a close eye on him. At 29 weeks, the baby started slowing down and on July 19 I went into the hospital to be induced. I wanted to try to deliver him alive but he did not make it. He passed away that very morning and I delivered him stillborn on July 20 at 2am.

So, as you can read, this raising a family has not been easy for us and we have been through some very tough road bumps. Steve and I are both very happy about this 4th pregnancy and I can't be any happier because it is a girl (Christian, of course, wanted it to be a boy and is not as excited as he anymore). I, on the other hand, can't wait to see her. I just hope that everything will go smoothly and we will be welcoming our healthy baby girl in August. Here are some pictures of my ultrasounds that I have had.

Monster Truck Rally

Well, you know you are definitely in the south when you have an opportunity to attend the "Monster Truck Rally". Steve saw an advertisement for it coming to Knoxville and decided to take Christian one saturday. Unfortunately, it was my weekend to work so I could not attend with them (Thank God!). But they seem to have had a really good time and took lots of pictures of the trucks but when it came to all the action the battery died in the camera. So, all we have are the pictures of the trucks. Christian's favorite truck was the "Destroyer". They even had a "Lawnmower Race". What fun!!!!

Spacewood Derby

This year instead of having a Pinewood Derby in Scouts, our ward decided to do a Spacewood Derby. Needless to say, Steve really got into this and made a very competetive racing rocket. You might be asking yourself how this rocket works. Well, it runs on rubber bands and a propeller in the front. What you do is attach 2 or 3 rubberbands to the inside of the propeller then twist the rubber bands around and around really tight (but not too tight). There is an anchor on the top part of the rocket where you attach it to another anchor that is on a fishing line. When you are ready to race you just let go of the propeller and let it fly. Christian is the one that decided that he wanted a bee and he helped with the painting and naming of the rocket. They named it "Stinger". Steve had a really good time with this creation and the rocket turned out really great. Yet, we were all still very surprised when Christian came in first place at the Derby!YEAH!!!

SNOW DAY #2

So, we were driving back from North Carolina (where we were visiting the Prouses for the Super Bowl weekend) and as we got closer to Knoxville it started snowing. Anyways, as we were driving through downtown knoxville on I-40, Christian looks and says "Wow. There's a blizzard out there. I wish we lived here!". Well, I made his day when I responded with, "Sweetie, this is Knoxville and you do live here!" The snow did not last long but school was out for the day and for the next two days due to the snow and right afterwards we had a bout of extremely cold weather. The wind chill factor got down to the single digits. So, of course Christian had a few days to have fun in the little snow that we got. Steve shoveled some snow into a pile and made a neat little ramp for Christian to slide over. Here are some pictures. Of course, I was MIA due to working 12 hour shifts and needing my beauty sleep.

SNOW DAY!!!

Yeah! It actually snowed in Knoxville. We only got a dusting but it shut down the city for the day. The funny thing was, the kids actually thought it was enough to do some sledding. Although, in my opinion, we can still see grass through the snow, there really isn't much to sled on. But that did not matter to the kids. Snow is snow and they were ready to sled. Christian was the only with a real snow board. The rest of the boys had beach boogie boards. We have a huge hill in the back yard and several boys from the neighborhood came over and decided to slide down our hill with Christian. The only problem was that our house was at the bottom of the hill. So, the boys would slide down and slam right into the back of our house. I was afraid that they would seriously hurt themselves so I came up with a solution. I blew up an old air mattress that was used for camping and set it up so when they came down the hill they would run into the air mattress instead of our home. It worked out great. Of course, the snow was gone before noon due to the fact that the sun was shiny and we only got a dusting of snow. You wouldn't believe how everyone was reacting around us. The roads were all terrible and people were running off into the ditches due to the icy parts. You would have thought we had had a huge blizzard or something. Gosh, these Southerners!!!!

Christmas 2008

I am finally off work and have some free time for myself. I decided to spend sometime updating my blog. I hope everyone's Christmas was great. I can't believe it is already over with. I am still trying to put away all my christmas decorations. Anyways, we had a good Christmas. My brother, Jason, and his wife, Sunshine came down with their 3 year old son, Camden and stayed with us throughout the Christmas holiday. It was nice having family around and we had a lot of fun. Camden is so awesome. I forgot how 3 year olds are. It was quite entertaining to watch him. Of course, Christian wasn't enjoying much of his little cousin being underfoot all the time so he spent most of his holiday week playing with the neighbor's kid, Hayden, and stayed over at his house a lot. Oh well, at least I enjoyed having my little brother and his family around and that's what counts in the end.

Jackson taking a peek at one of Christian's present.

Jackson enjoying his favorite new toy, a squeaky, stretchy elephant.

Christian pulling out his slim jim (one of his favorites)

Camden, opening one his gifts. Isn't he cute!!!

Camden, coming down our stairs for the first time Christmas morning to see what Santa brought him.
Christian's creativity coming out. As you can see the above and below pictures, he has made up two different looking roofs.

Camden's favorite part of making gingerbread houses was being able to eat all the candy.