10 AM tomorrow...

I'm gonna try to keep this short and sweet.

hardy har har.

I know.

But I've got a big day tomorrow and I am just hoping that my new niece wants to stay in warm,beautiful, momma belly through the night.

Any time after noon tomorrow should work just fine little lady.

But if not,I may have very little sleep and a timing issue on my hands.

But why am I complaining?

It's not like I have to push a baby out into the world.

But this marvelous woman will very,very soon.

And I have to admit I have kind of hated the timing of all of this.

I wish my gorgeous sister didn't have to share the arrival of her daughter with the hospitalization of her nephew.

She has been so gracious, loving on me and my boys while she is due any day.

She is beautiful, in so many ways.

If I were Queen of the world and could plan these things, I would say, I am SO SORRY,sis.

But I know that you know that,

I am not.

And we shall trust God's timing on this thing together, shall we?

Anyway.

There have been a number of times since arriving at the Emergency room on Saturday that we have wondered why exactly we were still being kept at the hospital.

But this morning I got word that we were going home!

So I wearily but hopefully drove into Chapel Hill to bring my family home.

Noah and I had switched off duties the day before(Noah in the hospital,me at home with the older boys)

I decided that what we needed was a picnic.

My poor albino child has not seen the light of these GORGEOUS Fall days!

(He's not really albino. I jokingly said that then thought..it is Shepherd)

He can't even leave his room and walk around.

He just has to play games with the blinds, pulling them up and down and watching the constructions crews down below.

So a picnic it was.

Soon after I arrived, one of the ENT doctors came by to inform us that he highly recommended we NOT go home but instead stay on and get tubes in Shep's ears tomorrow.

This whole tubes in ears thing has really thrown us.

It's the kid's first ear infection for heaven's sake.

But after a LOT of questions and much bullying on our part, we feel confident this is the best thing for Shep.

Though we went into the hospital because of Respiratory distress(that can now officially be blamed on the adno virus)

He has stayed on, because of that incident 2 weeks ago(where Shep lost his balance from an ear infection)

Apparently, even after sending us home last time, the airway team has continued to talk about their concern for Shepherd and his loss of balance and infection of the "mastoid."

I now know that the mastoid is a honeycomb shaped bone that is part of the skull and near the ear.

They were planning on calling us to check on him at home, but well, we came to them:)

And upon our arrival,it was confirmed that this "mastoid infection" still remained.

AND upon another 4 days of IV antibiotics this hospital trip,

it still remains!

SO

We can send him home and hope it goes away on it's own,risking things like the spreading of infection to the brain and loss of hearing...

Or he can get tubes put in tomorrow and it will drain the puss from his ears and also give us the option of directly putting antibiotic drops that are 10,000x stronger than oral antibiotics into his ears.

So we chose that option.

But I'll admit, not easily.

I HATE SURGERIES.

NOAH HATES SURGERIES.

NO MATTER HOW MINOR.

Our experience,especially with Shep, is that nothing is simple.

Nothing is cut and dry and he is always in the minority.

So,

true story?

I'm hating this.

And really quite afraid for tomorrow.

NO matter how minimal it may be.

Will you pray with us for tomorrow?

**Shepherd has this virus which is causing him lots of coughing.

This will put him at greater risk during the anesthesia process for having bronchiospasms.

Please pray for protection from this.

**Please pray that we will have peace during the surgery. We've waited through too many surgeries with Shepherd, not knowing if we would have him on the other side. That even small surgeries take us to uncomfortable places.

***Please pray there will not be any complications.period.

If this doesn't work to clear this problem up, there are other, less pleasing options ahead.

He's on the books for 10am tomorrow. It should take 10-15 minutes once he's under anesthesia. We will then stay overnight and prayerfully go home by Thursday.

Sigh.

We're stinkin' tired.

I'm not gonna lie.

I'm ready to push the "easy" button.

But I am also very grateful for the care and protection of God through the hands of skilled doctors and an all too familiar hospital.

And my little guy?

He's downright amazing.

He has endured so much pain and pokes and prods and intermuscular injections....I lost you,didn't I?

The point is he has the most remarkable personality and

basically just rocks our world, along with his courageous brothers,

who bear being away from mommy and daddy and just keep giving,just keep loving,keep laughing...I can't believe I get these people as friends, as children.

So, when I went up to the hospital today,

I brought Shepherd up some necessities.

Things like suction catheters,underwear, pajamas, and dragon suits.

Just the basics.

You know.

Must haves.

Don't you agree?

Completely necessary.

Oh, and if you've never seen a mute child roar like a dragon,

you've not lived.

Thank you for praying with us...

I am going to bed and maybe I'll sleep through the night.

Maybe I will spend the night coaching my sister through the birthing process.

Always an adventure...

Welcoming Seasons

First things first.

I'll give you two guesses as to where I am typing this from.

No! Not the spa!

No! Not shopping my heart out!

No! Not relaxing at a coffee shop while I write!

My next favorite place...

Yup! The hospital! With Shepherd...

Alright so when I say "favorite" I mean

Geeeeeshhh! Enough with the dramatics!!!

Enough with the hospital already!

I hate drama.

I bet you don't believe me.

But it's no joke.

It's why I didn't like junior high..or high school for that matter...or having friends that were girls.

That was then.

I clearly feel differently about the issue now. My best friends are ALL girls.

Well,except that one hot guy I live with.

Anyway.

I am here with unkept,unwashed______________ fill in the blank with hair,clothes,teeth,etc.

And Shep is here in his bed charming the nurses and doctors,while simultaneously trying to take their jobs.

He is trying to suction himself, using the buttons on his bed to pump himself up and down, figuring out how to plug and unplug all of his equipment independently and putting his blood pressure cuff on and off on demand.

He is a riot.

No lie.

Last time we were here, a nurses aid offered to try and find him Thomas the train videos in passing.

He then proceeded to ring the nurse call button on the remote unceasingly while signing"train".

Poor gal.

With him being so self sufficient in the medical realm, they have decided to keep him here to train all the young ones on the 5 Children's floor. With budget cuts and all, if all kids can take their own vitals, they could save some serious dough.

Or so I've heard.

THAT, and the fact that the pulmonary team has decided that Shepherd's history with infection(specifically his numbers in the bronch that was done in August) seem to show that he may have a bunch of nasty bacteria that's been hanging out doing damage for some time.

When they did his bronch they saw what looked like infection and treated him with oral antibiotics.

The head Doc came by this morning and said that the amount of bacteria that the August culture showed would usually slam any kid in the hospital and make him very sick.

Shepherd had no symptoms and no fever at all.

But they chose to give him oral antibiotics at the time.

She feels confident that oral antibiotics would not deal with this strong an infection.

This probably has something to do with the whole ear infection that landed him in the hospital a couple of weeks ago being so brutal,too.

SO, though he's feeling much better, they want to leave him here for a couple of days at least and get him a bunch of IV antibiotics in him, in hopes that he will finally kick these bugs for good.

Sigh.

So glad that we know this now.

Not so glad that my sister is due any day now with my niece and I am her unofficial duola.

And this timing seems,um,less than ideal.

But anything else would be too free of drama, don't you think?

Anyway, sitting here in the hospital makes me think of all of the things I wish I was home doing.

I LOVE the Fall. I LOVE this time of year. I love life lived slow,gracious,sweet,

savoring moments.

This has not been life recently and I am seeking God on ways to change this.

But some things can not be changed.

Like being in the hospital instead of outside having a picnic.

Yet,

Thank you God for having a hospital available.

Thanking you for using this place and these people to make my son well.

EVEN if, they don't let me sleep at night.

Thank You,Lord.

I'll spend these days grateful.

And planning on things like

making this Whiskey BBQ Chicken from Pioneer Woman,

when I get home.

I know,right?

I'm thinking I'll whip up some Pumpkin Spice Latte action.

Maybe use a recipe like this one.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

compliments of THIS blog

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
1 cup very strong coffee (4 tablespoons coffee grounds to 1 cup of hot water) I,Stephanie, use my espresso machine for espresso and steaming the milk

2 tablespoons vanilla

4 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or cinnamon spice
2 heaping spoonfuls of pumpkin

Directions:

Pour all of the ingredients into a pot and heat over medium-high heat until the coffee is steaming hot, whisking with a wire whisk until the ingredients are incorporated and a little frothy. Pour into mugs and top with fresh whipped cream & cinnamon. Enjoy!

Note- If you are not a fan of the cinnamon texture, I am seeing in the comments and through Facebook that adding a cinnamon stick to the coffee mixture while heating it can be a great remedy to the cinnamon texture. This way you get all of the cinnamon taste, but none of the grit! This is just a base recipe that can be played with to your own tastes and preferences. It is meant to be personalized depending on how you like your latte! Thank you all for trying and sharing this recipe! The response has been overwhelming on this one!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Serving Size: 2

And I am thinking of taking up knitting again this fall.

I've never been really great at it but I do enjoy it in its most basic form.

I'm sure with a little focus, I could work up a dish rag or something.

Here's some inspiration

Found at THIS blog

So here we are and shall be for at least a couple of days.

Perhaps, I can make the time pass easier by this type of day dreaming.

And a trip by daddy and brothers to come hang out later today.

Until then,Mimi and I will continue to enjoy lovin' on our boy...without Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

We're Hoooooome!

Thank you all so much for praying for Shepherd over the past few days.

We are now happily at home.

And so grateful for it.

They ran blood work on Shep and did an MRI and both showed up looking totally fine.The MRI did shoe built op fluid and what looked like infection deep,beyond the ear.

On top of that, by the second day in the hospital, after receiving antibiotics through IV, he was quickly regaining his balance.

With all of this being said, everyone, including us, feels confident that this had something to do with his ear infection or possibly a post viral symptom or perhaps both.

Either way, considering he has no history of anything neurologically or in his ears, everyone considers this a freak incident.

And we all feel great about sending him home.

It was crazy, though,folks.

Aint no lie.

When that little munchkin woke up on Thursday morning and we stood him up, he literally just tipped over.

Even in the ER, he couldn't sit up straight on his own,unsupported, much less ask him to turn his head and he'd go falling over.

SO unnerving.

But he is feeling SO much better and has almost all of his balance back.

Only we would notice that he's a little "out of alignment" when he goes careening down the hall.

THANK YOU for supporting us with your prayers.

There were many moments that I needed,WE needed, great faith that we don't have and it was provided.

In large,because of you, so thank you.

Thank you.

Now I am going to go back to snuggling with 3 little boys under a blanket and reading books,while Fall breezes whistle in through the windows.

Thank You, Lord, for your kindness and mercy.

Thank you, to his people for showing this to us.

ooh,oooh, pick me!!!

So, after waiting all day with a little boy who was feeling so much better and perhaps even trying to devise plans for escape... Oh wait. Was that him or us?

Anyway.

He could be found waiting in the lobby,

looking for Daddy to pull around in our Suburban...

And it's possible that he expressed his feelings over being hospitalized with the face below...

Who knows?

What is sure is this.

With every day that goes by, I am more and more convinced that I have been given the honor of a lifetime.

It is to my utter delight that I have the opportunity to be a mother to these three beautiful boys. I feel uniquely honored with the gift of each child I've been given. They each bring into our family their own personhood and contribution. Each time I have been blessed with a child, I have waited with great anticipation to see what new and remarkable person God is going to bring into my life. I don't have particular preferences to what it all looks like.

I don't care if they grow up to be doctors or plumbers.

I don't particularly care if they are shy or outgoing, aggressive or passive, social or private, athletic or brainy...or none...or all...of the above.

That's not up to me.

I know that the shaping of an eternal soul into their intended selves is far too massive a job for this ant of a woman.

So I leave that up to God.

He's actually quite good at it.

Ok, so he's perfect at it.

Ok, so he never makes a mistake.

Ever.

Yet not everyone would agree.

Some children come "broken."

Not as we would have hoped.

It's true.

But look at him.

Really, look at him.

I would not change a thing about the remarkable creature you see in the picture above.

I'm not just trying to make myself feel better when I say

that being Shepherd Jeremiah Joyner's mom has been the honor of a lifetime.

In the early days of his diagnoses, as his health declined rapidly, I wept with disappointment.

Envy towards the unbroken filled my heart.

And I begged God to change this story.

That was almost two years ago, now.

And it's not that I have grown to enjoy what brokeness for my son means. I don't look forward to illnesses or eagerly anticipate future surgeries.

It's not that.

I still fear, I still long to see him grow and gain strength.

But I feel strongly that God has been teaching me about a beautiful, hidden, secret, kept from most on this earth.

Something many poeple will, sadly, live their whole lives ignorant of.

I'll give you a picture.

Recently I watched a documentary called "My Flesh and Blood" which takes you along for a day in the life of a single-mom from California, who has 13 children, 11 of which are children with special needs which she has chosen to adopt.

Yikes.

Wow.

Yeah, it is.

Amazing.

One scene, in particular, was so poignant.

It was this.

Mom bends down to gently pick up her 19 year old son out of his weelchair. He weighs 40 pounds. He has a terrible disease that is fatal. From birth, it causes the skin inside and outside the body to blister uncontrollably, leaving pussing,oozing sores at all times. He also has cancer. His sister died of the same disease last year.

And she gently bathes him. She does this 4 times a week. It takes 3 hours.

She tenderly carries him to the tub, then cradles his weak body,while she pours fresh water over his angry sores.

She bends over him, hovering like love itself. And she says,

"Imagine being drug behind a car, then taking a bath and having bleach water pored over you."

"This is what it's like for him every time, but we have to keep the infection away."

He peers up under heavy eyelids screaming with pain, his naked body scrunched meekly, while mom loves.

And the gratefulness found there is divine.

She labors.

He accepts.

Knowing she is his gift, given to him to live and be loved.

His need is great.

And her love is greater.

I watched this unfold and felt as thought I had been allowed to sneak backstage, peering at a divine scene.

There I was, naked and bloody and with so much pain,

and nothing I could do about it.

And there He was, naked and bloody,

cause he chose it.

On a cross.

It was the only way to heal me from this disease forever.

This soul-sick brokenness I was born with.

And he left perfection, where all was right, to come bath me in bleach water, then bandage up my brokeness.

And it is messy.

But my King is a humble King, full of compassion and servanthood.

So he didn't just wave the magic wand of Heaven over my life.

He left beauty for despair.

To join me here and carry me, day in and day out. To cry when I cry, catching each of my tears in a bottle, collecting them like the most valuable baseball card that has ever been.

And he holds me and carries me through this life,

and when it's all said and done, he gets nothing.

No purple heart, no reward. He does find pleasure, and it pleases him eternally to be my rescuer. It is his perfect plan.

But what have I really got to offer the King of Heaven that would pay him back or make it all worth his while?

Nothing.

It's this picture that captures it for me.

True vision.

True perspective.

I have never cared for anyone the way this mother cared for her son, day in and day out, without respite.

Honest truth? I know I can't.

I pitch a fit when I don't get to "punch the clock" at 6pm. And I've been doing this for almost 6 years.

I still love sleeping in,

to the point where I debate how terrible it would really be to just tuck a box of Cheerios under my covers and toss them in the direction of the screams.

I like time to myself more than most people I know.

And I simply don't get enough of it.

Can I get an Amen?

All that is to say,

don't get any crazy ideas about me,

dismissing my thoughts to my saintly nature.

(spit)

Puh-leeez.

I just know truth when I see it.

It rings deep in a place inside of me that was made for knowing it and living it.

My soul.

You have one just like it.

And it's these pictures that inspire me.

Everyone needs a little inspiration...or a lot.

We were made for that too.

And inspiration is what I got on March 28, 2009, when a 5 pound little boy made his way into this world, full of life and losing it all at the same time.

An honor, an inspiration, a joy, a gift, and more.

And when I say he's a gift, I don't mean the kind of gifts that we hope others get, cause they are so hard.

Not the "well, more power to ya" kind of gift.

But the kind of gift that I would knock people out of the way,rushing like a single lady trying to catch the bridal bouquet to sign up for.

Mean it.

What an honor that momma with 13 remarkable kiddos has. She gets to live a beautiful picture of God's whole hearted, sacrificial, fanatic love for us.

I want that.

For my life.

How many people? How many people called Christians? Have not even entertained the idea of caring for a child with special needs,on purpose?

It's one thing when they're born broken.

Watcha gonna do?

But choose that?!

I would. Now.

I didn't. Then.

But God graciously took the choice and made it for me.

And now I know.

And I pray I get the chance to do it again.

For me, that means I'll keep asking God to bring my son and daughter from Haiti home to us.

I actually get excited about taking care of my Haitian son, M, who is blind.

It's not because I think it will be easy or that I am even equipped or able to do it.

I'm totally not. Let's just be clear on that.

It is because my God has ventured out of the most "comfortable situation" anyone has ever experienced to care for this broken human.

So I can at least try.

He has promised to go with me.

I simply have seen what joy awaits for those who venture to see the hand of their God in what the world calls impossible, broken, ugly or worse...

unrewarding, a waste of time, not worthy of your efforts and investment.

So too many children wait in the foster care system or an orphanage, or a hospital, and many die alone.

Largely because they are broken and their need is so great.

It's so great that no one wants to even try to step into it.

Or perhaps those broken ones aren't good enough to risk coming in and messing up an orderly, perfect, predictable life with beautiful, healthy children.

What have they got to offer?

Much more than you can see with your temporal eyes.

Trust me.

Or better yet,

Trust Him.