Oh my goodness. The last three weeks have been a blur for our family. I am so tired, but life is so good. Our little sweet pea (Read the first blog of our newest placement here) was able to come home from the hospital earlier during the week and so far everyone is adjusting well to the chaos that is our little life. Also, the picture above is one I am sure I will cherish forever-it portrays our unique season with a new little one in our home and with a (slightly) newer little one also growing and being awaited for. <3

While we are getting less sleep than when sweet pea was in the hospital, it’s been a different kind of exhaustion than all of the hospital runs and having our family in different places. And I prefer this kind of tired. When we said yes to this placement, we had no idea how long the hospital stay would be or what things would look like. I also didn’t realize the extra added emotion I would feel having a little one in the hospital. Despite the fact that sweet pea was continually improving, and the medical staff was AMAZING, it still felt so heavy.

I said to my husband a few times, that I can’t comprehend how parents do continual extended hospital stays with a sick child or a terminally ill child. And just thinking of that made it feel heavier. I spent many hours snuggling our new little one in the hospital room; reading psalms, praying over them, and praying for all the parents and their little ones whose journey looked a lot longer than ours.

Our stay could have been a lot longer and I had multiple staff comment to me how amazed they were at the improvement and how they couldn’t believe how well sweet pea was doing. I said more than once, “it’s all Jesus!” He was (and still is) doing a miracle in our little sweet pea. I am so thankful to the group of people who committed to praying regularly. As our pastor always says “Prayer is a powerful answer, not a passive response!”

During those two weeks we had a friend come over to watch our other kiddos while we went to our anatomy scan (woohoo!!! We are past the 20 week mark!) and she commented how impressed she was with how clean our house looked. I laughed and told her not to look in my bedroom.

But for real, I can’t take most of the credit. We were doing our best, but the house was taking the brunt while we were spending so much time at the hospital. But just a few days earlier, my amazing mama came over, while a sweet friend had the kids for a play date, and helped me do a lot of cleaning and organizing. Then we had a babysitter over the weekend when we went to a wedding, and she did a bunch of cleanup in the kitchen and living room.

I’m so thankful for our community, and how people have helped with our kids, meals, and even some cleaning over the past few weeks. Over the past year especially, through our own fostering journey and seeing other seasons that our friends have walked through, I’ve really seen the church body come together and support each other. I really don’t know how we would do it without our village and I am so grateful to have such a great support system.

It has also been helpful to have Phil around a lot since he works weekends and I know the Lord has really been sustaining me, because while I am exhausted it isn’t as bad as I would have thought. I have been able to get rest still (hopefully the remainder of the pregnancy is like this too haha). Isa has been super helpful and is totally smitten with the new baby and Kayden is too; although we have a long way to go with being gentle around brand new babies.

This week we just got a play-set (thanks to some amazing friends that made it possible) and we are enjoying lots of outdoor play while I snuggle the new little one in the shade. Hopefully, over the next few weeks we can figure out a better routine in the house and with getting our homeschooling done for the year. We are looking forward to the rest of the summer and loving on our newest little one.