Nelson fun

Last night Steve and I sat down and wrote out a list of fun and free things to do in the next few months (for both us as a couple, and for the whole fam). I was surprised how many things we came up with. Today we started our fun with a picnic. 65 degrees isn't too bad. As you can see, we attracted quite a crowd -- but it was ok because the girls enjoyed the attention.
Excited to be eating a special picnic in a special spot : )

Lot of fun at the park. We played soccer with the red ball-- rule were that adults couldn't touch it so I picked up lydia and swung her legs at the ball to help her kick it.

Kiera has a new best friend ever since I was sick: Elmo. He comes everywhere with us. Oh, and she informed me this week that Elmo needs clothes. So now Elmo wears Lydia's red shirt. Kiera has even been teaching Elmo to read (which is nice since it helps her to remember what she has learned).

The girls LOVE to wear these slips/tu-tu. They would wear it all day long every day if I would let them.

Family favorite: Playing "tinkerbell". Steve helps the girls to fly around the house. they love it.

The sun is coming out

It has been raining for the past week. The weather seemed to match my mood at times.


Yesterday the sun came out for the first time. Beautiful. I must say that I have been overwhelmed by the amount of love and support I've felt. You really do find out who your friends are while going through hard times. From many friends I've felt nothing but a sincere desire to help and to try and lift my burdens. I don't need much physical help, but all of the love is very much appriciated.

Some reasons I'm glad I'm well and able to particpate in family life again:

Lydia's first experience with Root Beer (steve's favorite). She's a fan.

Dipping fries in icecream, and dipping icecream in ketchup. Yum.

Thus it Ends

We wouldn't normally blog this but we're at a point emotionally that we'd rather blog it now so we don't have to tell people individually over and over again.

Loma Linda Medical Center has a policy to terminate a pregnancy only when the mother's life is threatened. We had to follow through with that policy due to Cambrie's physical condition, which was getting worse and worse by the hour. We're probably more pro-life than most people but we feel in these circumstances the decision had to be made.

Just like post labor and delivery for our two kids, Cambrie is recovering quickly and will be OK. I think now we'll be looking into others options if we were to have any more kids by means of surrogacy or adoption.

Thank you to everyone that has expressed or given their support. It's extremely comforting to experience the overwhelming love friends and family have poured into our family and for that we're so grateful for you!

Warning: survival mode only

It is good to be home again. I'm so grateful that I was able to get the help that I needed so quickly this time. Loma Linda hospital is WONDERFUL.

Although I feel a lot better than before, I still am mildly nauseated. I have a feeding tube that runs 24/7 and I have a PICC line (and IV) so I can hydrated myself with a bag of fluids every night. so my 2 problems now are:
1. I'm WEAK. (Laying in a hospital bed starving probably contributed)
2. I'm hypersalivating. This is something I do every pregnancy for a month or 2. The trouble is that I can't swallow it or I vomit, and if I spit much of it out I get very dehydrated (I'm dependent on only 1 bag of IV fluids to hydrate me per day) so I am left with trying to hold large amounts of saliva in my mouth (I know-- gross!). This makes communication very difficult especially with my little ladies who don't understand my sign language. It is frustrating, but this too will pass. Anyway, if somebody out there wants to communicate with me, do me a favor and email instead of calling : )

My mom is here helping out until I get stronger and more able to manage life. My little girls seem to be handling everything ok since Steve was home for most of the time I was in the hospital (good planning on our part). I am on "survival mode only" though. You won't be seeing any cute hairdos on my girls any time soon, if you come to my house you are likely to find a disaster area. Anything that I can let slide...I will. One day at a time.

She's Home!

...feeding tube and all:)

One More Day

Hopefully Cambrie will come home tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll spare the details of all her complications and just say that though there are several setbacks in her condition, this pregnancy is being handled much more efficiently that the previous two

"Nother Update

I'm sure when I'm walking down the hallway to visit Cambrie that all the nurses glare at me and think, "So that's the inconsiderate husband who wanted more kids and who put his wife through this living he..." Actually, this pregnancy couldn't have been planned any better. Knowing the circumstances of Cambrie's health condition during pregnancy, the Loma Linda doctors are the ONLY doctors that we've found that are willing to render the appropriate treatment. Who knows if we'll have any more since we'll be moving in 2 years to a place with less access to medical care compared to LLU--who knows?

Cambrie's tentative discharge date from the hospital is this upcoming Monday. For those that are still reading on and interested, she had to first start off with about a 1/2 cup of nutrients a day until she was stabilized. She's finally reached that threshold yesterday where she gets enough nutrients to limit her vomiting to a minimum (still constantly nauseous but it's tolerable--relatively speaking), but at least the feeding tube is helping her out tremendously! She's doing fairly well and so long as the feeding tube doesn't have any complications she'll continue to be doing well enough.

Her mom's coming down to help with the kids starting next week; even still, Cambrie will be pretty weak to play or interact much with our kidlets. For those living near us, if you have time so your kids could interact/play with ours it would be the biggest help to our family.

For those interested, here's some photos of our Christmas break