Growing Pains {My Faith Journey}

Growing up in a Christian home where Bible stories were read regularly, prayer was a typical part of our meal time and night time routine, and church was a regular part of the week, I am truly blessed to be able to say that I cannot remember a day of my whole life that I did not know Jesus as my Savior. I was about seven years old when I actually chose to get baptized and commit my life to Christ, but even before that, I have always known Jesus, even if it wasn’t in an “intellectual” sort of way. I am grateful to my family for this; for the legacy of faith which they passed down to me such that I have never lived a day of my life without the peace of Christ. 

This makes for not such an exciting testimony of salvation, but of course, as I have grown up and matured, as I have inevitably faced life’s challenges that come with the growing responsibility that time and age brings, I have learned to rely on God in different ways.  Much like teenagers experience growing pains, my story is about the “growing pains” I have experienced through my faith journey.

The majority of my life growing up was spent in a pool. I think I was seven when I started swimming competitively and over the next seven years the sport completely took over my life. In many ways swimming was an excellent thing for me; it kept me healthy, being good at something gave me lots of self-confidence, and my busy training schedule taught me discipline and kept me out of the kind of trouble kids get into when they are bored. On the other hand, swimming became an idol for me.  I had a singular focus in life, and it had nothing to do with God.  By the time I was in high school my life revolved around my sport.  I had practice before school, I went to school, I did my homework in the car on the way to afternoon training, I ate my dinner in the car on the way home from training, and I went to bed. With that much time and energy devoted to swimming it is easy to see how I began to identify myself by my athletic success. And you can imagine how crushing a career-ending injury was to a fourteen year old whose whole world revolved around being an elite athlete. I questioned God, why did He let this happen to me?

While taking a break from training after having shoulder surgery, I had to find something else to do with my time. I played some other sports, but mostly finally made friends with some people from school that I previously hadn’t had the time for. These friendships were wonderful for me, as having fun, loyal, and supportive friends always is wonderful. However, this little taste of popularity caused me to place more and more importance on being liked and being popular such that now instead of swimming, my social status was the most important thing to me. I always had someone with me, I always had a “boyfriend,” and always kept myself socially busy. By the time my parents announced we were moving to another state just before my Junior year of high school I was devastated because I was in such a comfortable social situation in the school where I was.  I didn’t want to leave my best friends and I didn’t want to have to start over building popularity somewhere else.  Looking back, I can see this as another attempt by God at refocusing my attention.

When I arrived at my new school I quickly made a good friend, who is still one of my best friends to this day, but I was definitely a “small fish in a big pond” and never really gained any sort of popularity. I did eventually find my place as part of our church’s youth group and in my female small group through that youth group.  God really used this time in my life when I had fewer distractions from athletics and social status to guide me towards whom He intended for me to become.  My faith was becoming my own as I transitioned from believing the truths told to me by my parents and church leaders, to spending more time studying God’s Word and really discovering biblical truth for myself.  For the first time in my life I felt God really leading me. 

As it approached time for making a college decision, I felt God guiding me towards student ministry which put a new spin on college searches since a ministry major would require a Christian college, something my parents were not too keen on given the lack of educational rigor stereotypically associated with “Bible college.” I clearly felt God’s leading though, and through a series of events including not getting into other colleges I really should have based on my grades and extracurriculars, we settled on an educationally respectable Christian liberal-arts university that had my desired major. This represented a major step in my spiritual journey; when I chose to follow God’s leading as opposed to God allowing injury or relocation to refocus my attention.

After college, I married into the military and ended up pursuing a teaching degree, which led to a more portable career than student ministry.  I felt like I had found my calling as a secondary math teacher. I loved working with students and seemed to have an aptitude for teaching and classroom management. As a first year teacher my students outperformed every veteran teacher in the department, a fact I was very proud of.  I loved feeling good at my job and like I was making a difference in the world. Again, I found my identity in my career success rather than in my position as a child of God.

Then we got pregnant and my husband and I made the decision for me to stay home with our son for at least two years.  Becoming a mother sent me into serious identity crisis mode.  I went from a job I loved and was good at to being a stay-at-home-mom. I didn’t feel like what I did on a day-to-day basis was very significant and I didn’t feel like I did it well and there really was no way to quantify success. Through many heart-to-hearts with my husband and with a wonderful group of Christian girl friends I learned that my real problem is that I have always used worldly status to identify myself {athletics, popularity, career}. As a stay-at-home-mom I didn’t have much worldly status and this led me to find my identity as a child of God, living for His glory, not my own.

I was further humbled during my second pregnancy when we moved to Singapore temporarily.  It was a difficult pregnancy beginning with what we assume was the miscarriage of a twin followed by lots of bleeding into our second trimester.  Combine that stress with the usual pregnancy nausea and vomiting, unfamiliar food in a foreign country, severe insomnia lasting 6 months, a toddler just discovering his independence, and being half a world away from our support system of friends and family, and it made for a very miserable me! There was no way I could be a decent wife and mother operating on as little sleep as I was getting {about an hour per night} with constant nausea and frequent vomiting. Until then, there had never been a time in my life when I could not do something if I just put my mind to it.  At that time, I could not.  I was so far beyond my capabilities and every day I prayed for just enough energy to take care of my son and keep it together for my husband’s sake. God provided.  Life didn’t get any easier for months, and still, every day God provided just enough love… patience… energy… to make it through.  The experience of living beyond myself and relying fully on God was one of the best experiences of my life. I would not trade the intimacy with God and spiritual growth I experienced for anything. I now have a greater appreciation and trust for God equipping and empowering me supernaturally for whatever He calls me to in life. At this time, it is being a wife and a mother. Who knows what tomorrow might bring, but I know that whatever it is, He will give me just what I need to be successful for His glory.

As I now reflect on the growing pains I have experienced throughout my faith journey, I realize that there is a singular theme, one simple, and yet profound, truth, which I have had to learn over and over again in my stubbornness, and that is that my identity and my purpose are found in Christ. So often I am tempted to identify myself by my successes.  So often I am tempted to think I can do it all on my own. But when I look back at the story of my faith journey I can see that my identity and significance lie in doing what He calls me to do, with the power that He provides, for His glory. Let me not forget it!

What Our Christmas Card Should Have Said {Bless the Lord O My Soul}

Photo credit: KC Knoop Photography

This year has probably been our most challenging yet. We dealt with miscarriage, parenting a toddler, a complicated pregnancy, moving overseas, depression, two months apart, a child undergoing surgery, preterm labor followed by two weeks with a premie in the NICU, and a major, still unresolved bout of pneumonia that almost resulted in spending Christmas in the hospital recovering from urgent open-chest surgery.  So it has been a little rough here and there! However, despite the challenges we have been immeasurably blessed to see God's hand at work through every single situation. And the challenges have spurred growth in us unlike any other time in our lives.

As this year comes to a close, I have been reflecting on all that I have learned throughout this year and wanted to share a few of those lessons. {The links above and included throughout in orange are other blog posts from throughout the year that go into greater detail}

Lesson 1: Show Grace
This year, with all it's challenges has taught me to show grace.  I have needed lots of grace this year particularly from my husband who had to put up with me when I was not a very happy camper as a sick, pregnant insomniac living overseas where I hated just about everything. My husband never let on to how insufferable I was and instead showed endless support, love and sympathy when what I deserved was a swift kick in the tush and a "get over it." I can't tell you how much this makes me appreciate my husband! I knew I was being insufferable and felt like I couldn't help it. Had he given me what I deserved I would have felt defeated, but because he showed grace, he motivated and empowered me to get through a difficult season in my life. Experiencing the power of grace to lovingly change me into a better person has taught me how important it is for me to offer that same loving grace to others, God knows we all need it!

Lesson 2: Practice Humility
I am one of those women who likes to think she can "do it all" and this year I learned that I most certainly cannot. I don't like needing help or having to ask for help, but this year I had to. As it turns out, admitting that I need help and gratefully accepting help can actually build relationships. Vulnerability can be difficult, but it creates some of the strongest bonds.  I have been blessed by a wonderful husband and friends that have been so loving and gracious and have gone out of their way to help me when I've needed it.  I feel so much freedom in knowing that I don't have to always having it all together and be able to do it all myself.

Lesson 3: Remember Joy is Not Circumstantial
God is good. All the time.  He has been with me through every situation good and bad and I have found joy in His presence regardless of what I have gone through.

Lesson 4: The Power of Prayer
This year I have learned a lot about prayer and now treasure the intimate communication with God. I have learned that prayer is less about what I am asking for and more about how God is going to use those things which are near to my heart to teach me and those I love. In the quiet moments when I am open and vulnerable before Him, when I am actually listening, not just talking, He ministers to my heart giving me peace regardless of the outcome and teaching me to have a perspective and attitude more like Him.

Lesson 5: Parenting is a Huge Responsibility and a Huge Privilege
Parenting a toddler for the first time this year really drove these lessons home. I have been on the verge of pulling my hair out at times but the experience of parenting a toddler has taught me so much about myself and challenged me in ways I never thought possible. As Q has become more independent and verbal we have seen the fruit of our parenting labor which sometimes makes us proud and is very often convicting. While I have learned that he is his own person and thus, I cannot {and should not try to} control him, it is a huge responsibility being his greatest role model and seeing the ways in which he mimics me. It is such a privilege to be allowed to raise these precious children whom, though God loves  more than I ever could {unfathomable}, He still allows an imperfect me to parent them and experience all the joy that comes with that.

Lesson 6: Life is Not All About Comfort
As this year draws to a close I am constantly reminded of the many blessings in my life, especially in contrast to the challenges we've been through this year. I am blessed by a gracious and loving husband, the health of myself and my family, financial security that allows me to be a stay-at-home-mom as well as enjoy many comforts in life. Yet, it has been the challenges this year that have pushed me to grow which has me contemplating whether we are really meant to be so comfortable? My inkling is no... We'll see how that plays out in 2013...

The sun comes up, its a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes

Bless the Lord O my soul, O my soul, Worship His holy name

Sing like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name

~Matt Redman "10,000 Reasons"

Counting My Blessings

*from a journal entry on October 4th

My beautiful daughter Madelaine (pronounced Mad-uh-lane) "Lanie" Kate was born unexpectedly early yesterday morning. She was only 35 weeks gestation which comes with and all-too-familiar stay in the NICU to help her mature before we can take her home. As labor began I kept thinking to myself (and repeating over and over again to my husband), "No, this can't really be happening, it is too early. I can't go through this again with another child." After having my almost 2 year old son at 36.5 weeks gestation and enduring an emotionally draining 12 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), I wasn't sure I wanted to have more children and potentially put them through the same difficult start to life. My OB convinced me that though I have a bicornuate uterus, which likely caused my sons early arrival, that second children didn't usually present the same problem. And so, here we are again, with another, even earlier, premie. But my husband and I have decided that our children't lives are worth it- they are worth the stress and heartache of an early start. And I believe if you asked my healthy, happy almost 2 year old if he would rather not exist and have such a healthy, happy nearly 2 years to avoid the difficult he experienced during his 1st two weeks, I think he would tell you the initial difficulty was worth it.

This time about I am so happy to have the perspective I now have due to going through a similar experience when my son was born. I was a wreck then- I couldn't look at him hooked up to wires and tubes without crying. He would start to get better and we would feel like we were making progress towards taking him home and then he would digress sending me spiraling into an emotional black hole.

This time I know better than to have expectations. I also know that just because she digresses a little doesn't mean she'll never leave the NICU. My goal this time is not to will her to get better so that we can go home, it's to stay here and be a mom and support and comfort her in any way that I can while she takes whatever time she needs to mature.

Time time around I am not distraught, I am not an emotional train wreck, I don't feel like I have to or need to control the situation (thank you Q for teaching me that controlling your children really isn't possible anyway). Instead I am full of joy at having a beautiful new daughter and I am counting my blessings rather than focusing on those things out of my control.

I am so grateful for the following blessings:

• That God choose to trust us with Madelaine's precious little life
• That she is mature and healthy enough that we know she will be okay with a little time
• That I am able to stay with her indefinitely while she gets better due to the help of my mom who is taking care of Q and our pups
• That we are able to board at the hospital where she is in the NICU so we can spend maximum time with her without the commute and so I can still have a place to rest and recover from labor and delivery just down the hall from baby girl
• The wonderful, helpful staff at both hospitals where we have been
• That pumping and milk production seems to be on the right track for breastfeeding (this helps to make me feel like I am actually doing something to help her)
• The leadership and emotional support of my husband
• The prayers and support of our family and friends

Today has been a good day for Miss Lanie Kate. She is off her blood pressure medicine, off the ventilator, and down to "room air" through her pressurized nose tubes. I'm thrilled that she is doing better but expect her condition to yo-yo a bit and am determined not to lose it if/when she gets worse again.

Home is where the heart is?

Today, spending our great American holiday, the 4th of July, overseas with my husband and child has me thinking of "home" and how that is such a difficult concept for me to define.  I'm an American, and being overseas for the past few months has made me appreciate and long for my home country. But where exactly is "home?" Is it even a physical location?

Happy 4th of July from Singapore!

My little grill master with his oven mit

Being goofy with our oven mits

We have a "home" in California where all our earthly possessions reside, the things we find important enough to lug around the globe on our many many military moves.  There is certainly something comfortable and "homey" about being surrounded by familiar things with years of memories hidden in them... the first piece of furniture we bought when we got married that now has a hole in the cushion from one of our dogs burrowing in it, the pie plate I use to make my husband's family's apple pie that is his favorite, my favorite serving dish that was a wedding gift from good friends bought in a place near and dear to all our collective hearts, our surfboards sitting in the garage that bring a smile to my face every time I see them remembering the good times we've spent with good friends surfing the beaches of Oahu, the house where we brought our first born home from the hospital, etc.

Despite having a home in California, we often refer to Maryland as "home" because that is where we met and fell in love and where our families and our best friends, our children's godparents, still live. We both grew up on the East coast and just don't feel quite at home when it is 85 and sunny on Christmas day (when we lived in Hawaii) or when it is 65 and foggy the entire summer (where we currently have a home in Cali). There is something about the familiar memories of our childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood... of unbearably hot summers spent at the pool or the beach getting 5 shades darker in the sun, crisp, beautiful fall evenings at football games in a sweater with a hot apple cider, cold, snowy Christmases and President's Day ski trips, and the hint of warmth and life in the spring sparking spring fever just in time for spring break... that strike a chord in both of us as "the way things should be."

Right now, having my family together is "home," even if our location is literally on the other side of the world from all that is familiar and comfortable to us.  The luxury of being together is not something we take for granted as a military family.  When Sam is deployed, I never feel quite at home until I am back in his arms again.

As the saying goes, "home is where the heart is" and in that case, my "home" and my heart are spread far and wide. There are pieces of my heart in California, Maryland, many of the other places we have lived, wherever my closest friends currently live, and mostly wherever my husband and children happen to be.

As of yesterday I will be returning to California from Singapore (where Sam will be staying to finish his Master's program) next week. We decided to move my return flight up because of pregnancy concerns.  As I've mentioned before, I have a bicornuate uterus that poses a greater risk of pre-term labor (Quinn was a premie). My doctor in Singapore doesn't see any reason to worry as of yet because everything looks healthy and I did carry Quinn till 36 weeks which means my uterus can handle at least that much. But she has begun frequent checks of my cervix to monitor for shortening which would mean that I could not fly the 20 hours back to the US and would be stuck in Singapore for the duration of this pregnancy and any hospital time the baby may require until baby and I are healthy enough to return. We decided that it was not worth the risk of me having to stay here potentially 2 months (or more) after Sam has to return to California, and delivering here alone, just for us to have a few more weeks together.  So we are optimistic that nothing will happen, but we are playing it safe by me and Quinn heading back to the US next week.

The thought of returning to California is bittersweet to me.  I do not love it here in Singapore and will be very glad to get out of Southeast Asia.  I can't wait to see my family and friends in the US again and get back to our normal routine. On the other hand, I am very sad to be leaving half my heart in Singapore. A two month separation doesn't seem like much for us, as we are use to being apart for about 75% of the year (with very little communication). And after all, what is a Fromille pregnancy without a move, some overseas travel, multiple OB's, and a significant separation?!? (yea... we like to keep things as complicated as possible :-P) But this will be Quinn's first significant separation from his dad.  We purposely planned to have our children during Sam's shore tour to avoid this scenario at least for a couple of years... but this will just be a good trial run for when Sam really does have to go back on deployment and at least we can still skype with him this time!

Quinn getting "giraffe kisses" while reading "Kisses for Daddy" before bed

Quinn will really miss his special time with his dad while we are on different sides of the world

I guess my concept of "home" will continue to be unclear for at least a little while longer as I head "home" without the most important aspect of "home," my husband.

Halfway! {20 week pregnancy update}

This pregnancy has been a wild ride!  And I cannot believe we are only halfway through... it feels like much much longer!

I haven't written much about pregnancy specifically since our supposed "miscarriage" but a lot has happened.  You may have gathered from other posts that I have had a particularly difficult time with insomnia since the beginning of this pregnancy which got so bad that, even with Tylenol PM, I was still only getting an hour or two of sleep at night.  You can imagine how enjoyable that made my days chasing a toddler! I am happy to report that though I am not sleeping well by any means, I have started to get significantly more sleep at night over the past couple of weeks without medication- praise God!  Nausea and vomiting also plagued me (like many pregnant women) but I have not been fortunate enough to leave that lovely symptom behind at the end of the 1st trimester, like many women do. I fortunately am not nauseous all day anymore but do have a morning ritual of emptying my stomach into the toilet.  At least it is predictable though, so I just don't leave the house till it is over with and I am good to go for the rest of the day :-)

I continued to have bleeding on and off, sometimes heavy, through about 14 weeks which was always nerve wrecking, as you can imagine.  I have had a lot of ultrasounds as a result.  It appeared that the bleeding was coming from the placenta and around 12 weeks the blood clot showing in the placenta was gone and praise God, the bleeding didn't effect the baby's growth (which was the main concern with a blood clot in the placenta).

Around 18 weeks I had a severe pain in my lower right abdomen that felt like round ligament pain (a common pregnancy-related discomfort due to the uterus growing) but unlike round ligament pain, which should only last a couple of seconds/minutes at a time, it did not go away for hours and I ended up going into the hospital after consulting with a labor and delivery nurse over the phone.  Of course this happened on a weekend so after checking me out, the ER doctor called in my OB who ordered a urine and blood test (both came back fine) but was concerned by the unexplained nature of the pain and wanted an ultrasound of my kidneys, appendix, and gallbladder. I was due to have my genetic screening detail ultrasound (when they check for any fetal abnormalities that might require extra care at delivery) in a couple of weeks so my OB asked the hospital urologist to go ahead and do it when he checked out my kidneys.  Great news was that nothing appeared to be wrong with me internally and we found out our little one is a healthy little girl! We got to peak at her brain, her heart chambers, her kidneys, and all other internal organs and limbs.  It is truly amazing what these high-tech ultrasound machines can see!  I am happy to report that the pain also eventually went away and has not returned :-)

During the detail ultrasound, my OB also asked the urologist to take a look at my uterus because it had been speculated that I may have a bicornuate uterus. This was suspected at an early ultrasound during my pregnancy with Quinn, and again when the doctor delivered my placenta after Quinn's arrival. The high tech ultrasound confirmed that I do have a bicornuate uterus, which is a bit of a concern.

A bicornuate uterus is a uterus that is partially (or sometimes completely) divided by a septum into 2 "horns." It has a heart shape to it and there are varying degrees of severity (mine is definitely not the worst case).  Only about 0.4% of women are affected with this abnormality. Three points of concern for pregnant women with bicornuate uteruses are recurrent pregnancy loss (miscarriage rate is around 30% as opposed to the typical 18%), preterm labor (15-25% deliver preterm as opposed to 12% in the rest of the population), and breech or transverse presentation (40% of women with bicornuate uteruses require c-sections for this reason). Another suspected problem is difficulty achieving pregnancy. As far as these statistics go, we have been extremely blessed never to have had difficulty achieving or maintaining pregnancy and to have given birth vaginally to Quinn (though he was breech up until a couple weeks prior). It does shed light on as to why my water broke preterm with Quinn and that is my greatest concern with baby girl now. My OB told me that we were lucky to carry Quinn to 36 weeks.  Based on the ultrasound and the fact that currently baby girl is occupying both horns (not confined to just one side) my OB is not too concerned about extremely early preterm labor, though I will have to start being checked more regularly for signs of preterm labor (such as my cervix shortening) as well as to make sure baby girl continues to grow (sometimes the lack of space can cause babies growth to slow as they outgrow their space).

My greatest anxiety is my 18+ hour flight back to the US in 5 weeks. My OB is still supportive of me flying at that time but we will have to see what things are looking like right before time to leave. Flying itself is not dangerous during pregnancy (it will not put you into labor), but should I naturally go into labor while on an 18+ hour flight, that could be a major problem since my last labor, from water breaking to Quinn arriving, was less than 14 hours. An airplane is not where I want to be with a premie of only 25 weeks!  My OB says currently she is not worried about that so I guess I shouldn't worry about it either... 

Despite all the craziness of this pregnancy, we are so thankful that little girl and mommy are currently very healthy!  And we are just thrilled to be having a girl!  We have decided to name her Madelaine Kate and call her "Lanie." I just can't wait to meet our little Lanie Kate (though I hope I don't get to meet her for at least another 17 weeks or so)!

iwannagohome

iwannagohome is the name of a store here in Singapore that is in just about every mall we go past and I hate it. Because that is exactly how I feel and it is just a reminder to me that this place is literally as far away from home as I could possibly get without leaving the planet.

Singapore is a beautiful country with so much to offer.  Just this past week we visited the zoo (best zoo I have ever been to), the botanical gardens (gorgeous), and the National Museum of Singapore and we have barely scratched the surface on the list of things-to-do here.  People are nice, the city is clean and relatively easy to get around, everyone speaks English, and I feel safe here (as opposed to the panicked, hold-on-to-your-purse feeling I have in most American cities). So why exactly do iwannagohome so badly? I don't really know, I guess it's not rational, but I can't help the way I feel.

I think a lot of it has to do with being pregnant:

I have had terrible insomnia this pregnancy.  As in, I don't sleep more than a couple interrupted hours per night without drugging myself, which I don't like to do considering the baby. But after a few days of virtually no sleep, I really have no choice if I want to be able to function.  Exhaustion definitely isn't helping me to enjoy our new home or embrace new adventures!

Nausea has made eating here a challenge.  I do not do well with Asian food when I am pregnant (learned that the hard way when I was pregnant with Q) and I am not a big fan of not knowing exactly what is in my food and I have no idea what mystery concoctions much of the local food is made of. Sam on the other hand gobbles the stuff up. But every time I decide to try something local, I take maybe two bites and then end up wasting the rest (and eating half of Q's happy meal as dinner instead- yea, healthy...). Unfortunately it is more expensive to buy groceries and cook yourself than it is to eat out, and though you can find many typical American ingredients, many of them do not taste the same at all. So, the majority of my time and energy here goes towards trying to find acceptable meal options and figuring out how to take public transportation to get to them.

Aside from my pregnancy-related issues there are a few other things I am pining for:

I miss my car. Public transportation wouldn't be too bad if you didn't have to lug a stroller, diaper bag, and baby around with you everywhere.  I probably fold and unfold the stroller about a million times a day to carry it up stairs and into cabs/buses/subways. I definitely don't know why anyone would choose to continue living in a city like this with young children!

I miss our washer and dryer.  I am very grateful that we have a washer/dryer in our apartment, but it holds probably 1/3 of what our washer/dryer does at home does and it takes probably 3x longer. This is especially fun considering we use cloth diapers... At home we wash diapers about every 5 days and they all fit in 1 load.  Here I can only do about half of our diapers at one time and they come out dripping wet so they take forever to dry.

I miss my dogs.  I miss B and W so much it literally hurts! There is nothing that I want more when I am not feeling well (which is pretty much everyday) than to cuddle up with my sweet pups.  They can always put a smile on my face.  Q saw a Boston Terrier out in town the other day and though he knew it wasn't B, he threw a screaming tantrum when we carried him away from the dog :-(

Well, this list could go on and on, but I should stop before it sounds like I'm complaining too much (probably too late for that...). Basically, I am trying to have a good attitude, but iwannagohome.

The Fromille family is growing!!!

As previously mentioned in my last post, we are actually still pregnant!  As it turns out I did not miscarry.  I had an OB appointment about a week after the "miscarriage" to make sure that every thing had resolved itself properly.  Sam offered to go with me to the appointment but I said there was no need, it would be easier for him to keep Quinn at home.  As I was sitting on the exam table waiting for the doctor to come in I suddenly changed my mind and wished he was there. And a few minutes later when the doctor did an ultrasound revealing a perfectly healthy little baby with a good heartbeat I really wished he was there!  I was in total shock.  I will spare you the details of the "miscarriage" but I didn't think there was any way possible there was still a healthy baby in there. Unfortunately the baby wasn't the only thing the ultrasound showed. There is also a mass {likely a blood clot} that the doctor says may or may not cause any complications for the pregnancy.

I was shaking as I drove home and I burst into tears as soon as I got home and saw Sam.  We had spent the past week thinking of all the good things about not being pregnant and we were about to leave the country in 5 days and a complicated pregnancy was not something we were counting on. Even though we were obviously thrilled that the baby was okay, it was just such a shock.  We had been previously unable to contact Tricare Overseas (our insurance) regarding my care while in Singapore and were concerned because technically Sam's orders are unaccompanied so the military doesn't necessarily have to provide routine health care for me there. Sam spent the whole day on the phone trying to get more information and we figured out that I just needed to switch back to Tricare Standard {what I was on when I was pregnant with Q so I could go to whatever doctor I wanted} and we would have to pay 20% of any health care bills while overseas but maternity care when I return to the US would be fully covered. Knowing that I would be able to get regular prenatal care in Singapore helped us decide to continue with our travel plans and just change my return ticket so that I will return to the US just before my 3rd trimester begins so that I will not have to do the marathon travel late in my pregnancy.

Now we are here in Singapore and I am trying to find an OB.  I have a list of a few from Tricare but the only one that I've been successful in contacting is no longer accepting new patients.  So please pray that I am able to find a provider soon!  My OB in Cali wanted me to come back in this week to check on the other mass but obviously I haven't been able to see anyone yet and I'm hoping that I can get in soon for some peace of mind.

Thank you all for the amazing support when we thought we had lost the baby.  It means so much to have so many people that care about us and are praying for us!  And thank you so much for caring enough to read my little updates:-)