Slow month

Not much new around here. We went to Mattoon for 4 days to spend time with Chad's family. It is always so much fun. It's usually rushed so we spent an extra 2 days there. It was a great time, we had time to relax as well as visit. Here's some cute pics from this Sunday. Uncle TT was here raking leaves so Kenzee had a great time playing in them. The first one is my favorite! And I love the last one too: Where'd TT go?

Halloween - better late than never

Here are a couple of pics of our little monkey with her witch and pumpkin friends. We met up with Amy, Haylee the witch, and Maddie the pumpkin for a quick dinner and some trick or treating in Nan's neighborhood. Then it was back to our neighborhood after Chad called to tell us that there were "hundreds of kids over here". We had a great time despite the killer sore throat I ended up with.

A little bit of everything...

Not a whole lot of good news around here. Evan de Mello passed away the day after we lost Kylie. They are playing together in heaven I am sure. Beth also found out yesterday that she has a new tumor in her lung. She had just finally gotten some good news earlier in the week. The cat scan showed that all of her other tumors had either shrunk or disappeared from her treatments. They gave her the okay to do another round of the treatment but just wanted to check out her lungs as a precaution. So now she will do radiation on the lung tumor before the treatments. Not much else going on around here. I just added a couple of songs for Kylie. They make me smile. Just getting ready to go back to work. I have worked from home a little bit this week. I will do the same next week, along with a few dr appts. Then back at it!

Kylie Sue Zike

Kylie Sue came into the world at 8:02 AM Wednesday October 3. She was 1lb 12oz and 10 inches long. The last hearbeat we heard was around 7:oo this morning. Sometime during the quick delivery she passed away. We were able to hold our beautiful baby girl and spend time with her while surrounded with our friends and family. It was very peaceful for me as well as Chad I am sure. The hospital gave us a beautiful memory box with a couple of things in it. They were able to get good little tiny feet and handprints. There was also a local photographer that volunteers to come and take pictures of the baby. He gave me the cd, I haven't looked at it yet. If anyone would like to see them, feel free to email me. Thank you everyone for thinking of us whether it was in your prayers, in person, sending flowers, calling. Whatever it was that you did, we felt everyone's presence and it meant so much to us!

Thank you....

For the many of you that already know.. Thank you so much for your thoughts, prayers, messages, & especially the cookies. They have meant so much to Chad & I both. We are doing pretty well in my opinion. I know that next week and after will be much harder though. So I ask that you all keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the future.
And for those of you that have no idea what I am talking about... The appointment last week that I was so upset about couldn't have been any worse. I was told by Dr Egley that our baby has cystic hygroma and non immune hydrops. This means that 1- there are giant cysts growing from the back of the neck and 2- the body and organs are retaining fluids. The end result is the baby has no chance at survival outside of the womb and very little inside of the womb. He said I could either deliver immediately or wait as long as I needed. Well, I wasn't ready to go right then, I needed to sort things out and letting Chad know what was going on was probably necessary too. Chad & I talked about things over the weekend and Chad wanted to do it as soon as possible, I wanted to wait just a week. I needed to prepare without putting it off too long. We met with Dr Boyd Tuesday morning to have everything explained. We both felt so much better after this. We got so many questions answered. Dr Boyd agreed with waiting a week. So I go in Tuesday at 6 am to start inducing. He is hopeful that things will progress quickly, but nature will make that call.

No news on the mystery baby

Well, I went to the Dr for aNOTHER sono today. The mystery baby continues to be just that. The midwife for some reason or another looked at the sono for LESS than 30 seconds and said I can't see anything, I am sending you to the specialist. Now maybe I was already frustrated but my thought is she didn't even give it a decent try. So now after paying for 2 $400 sonos, I get to go to the specialist and pay for an $800 sono! I don't know but I am getting really frustrated about 1. I STILL haven't seen my doctor 2. I feel like the midwife has never spent more than 3 minutes in the room with me after I wait for more than an hour 3. I have to pay THREE deductibles and 20% of 3 sonos and whatever other nonsense that the midwife isn't capable of doing. So I go Friday afternoon and I WILL NOT LEAVE until I have a due date and know the sex.

Evan de Mello

I sent an email to many of you a week or so ago about Evan de Mello. He is an amazing little boy with a very sad story. I have been following his story for about 2 months now and am just amazed both at him, his parents, and what all of the thousands of people that have been praying for him have accomplished. About a week ago the doctors warned his parents they couldn't do anything else for him medically. Well, all of the extra prayers are working and we need to keep it up. Evans birthday is coming up and instead of gifts, a friend of the family has made an appeal for anyone that can to donate $5 in hopes of raising $4000 for his 4th birthday. Make sure you read the journal and some of the guestbook entries, it will make you realize all that you have to be thankful for. I think they have really changed my outlook on a lot of things. Well please visit this website and pray hard for Evan and the de Mello family. www.cotaforevand.com