Has it really been THAT long?!?!?

I just have to admit that I am the world's worst blogger. I just seem to fall of the invisible internet world and then randomly appear again. This time I have a good reason. Well, I guess first trimester pregnancy is an okay excuse but this one is better.

(This turned out to be a looonnggg post but the end is worth it. God is amazing!)

First of all, we had our second child. Corbin Isaiah was born on April 8, 2009. The birth itself was awesome! Thank God it went exactly like I had envisioned, with the exception of induction. I had developed high blood pressure and it was becoming dangerous for the baby and myself. The contractions started at 4 pm. At 8 pm I was 3 cm and then at 9:00 I was 10 cm. Corbin was born at 9:34. I was even able to have him without an ephideral because my husband was a wonderful lamaze coach! Thanks honey!

Everything seemed to be going great. They seemed to be able to get my blood pressure back down and everyone seemed pretty healthy. The night before I was to be discharged from the hospital they told me that Corbin was not going to be released because he had lost more than ten percent of his birth weight. Since Corbin was going to be kept one more day, the doctor said he would let me stay another night. God knew exactly why Corbin lost the weight: I needed to be in the hospital the next day.

That morning my blood pressure started to rise. The doctors started medication that morning but it still wasn't working. They decided to go ahead and give me a shot. About 30 minutes after the shot, I started feeling pretty bad. My heart started to beat exceptionally fast and I was becoming short of breath. I paged my nurse and waited for a few minutes. I pressed the button again but by the time she got in the room I was barely breathing and my heart rate was 190.

After many tests and 24 hours in the ICU, the doctors still do not know why this happened to me. I do know that God made sure that I was still in the hospital when this happened. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if I would have been at home! I am so thankful that Little Man lost enough weight to justify being in the hospital another night.

We spent a week in the hospital and then it just took me a while to get adjusted to "normal". I didn't mean to let blogging, or Michaela's school for that matter, go for so long but it just happened. I was about to start again but...

We decided to go to the zoo one day. The day seemed like any other day until we decided to get on the train. Chris was sitting in the cart in front of me and I was holding Corbin on my lap and I had Michaela sitting next to me with my arm around her. As we went around a curve the train derailed.

I don't want to go into too many details, but everone in the family except me was hospitalized that day. Michaela had some bleeding on her brain and had to have plastic surgery. Corbin had a fractured skull and Chris, who had been pinned under the train, had broken both bones in the lower part of his leg. He also had severe road rash on both legs. (This is not a full list of the injuries but this gives you the gist of what happened.)

I spent the next week living at the 2 hospitals. We have an AMAZING children's hospital right here in our city and it's only 3 blocks from our trauma hospital! The kids were released about a week later and Chris was there about 3 weeks total. We are all home now and everyone is recovering beautifully. God is so good and faithful. It has been amazing to see the great physician work in our lives.

Today I got to think about something though. I started to think about the children's names. Michaela's middle name is Grace. I can tell you right now it is only by the grace of God that she is still here. It is only by the grace of our wonderful healer that the bleeding was stopped on her brain. It is only by the grace of God that I get to see my baby turn two next month.

Corbin's middle name, Isaiah, means "saved by God." We chose that because Corbin means "dark and bruding" and we wanted something to balance it out. (Can you tell that we really like choosing names because of significance and meaning?) Anyway... I was thinking about Corbin's short life. Within the first few days God used him to possibly save my life. He was the only reason I was at the hospital when I had my 'attack'. Then just a few weeks later God used me to help save Corbin's life. As we were falling over, I can remember pulling him close to me and wrapping my body around his while I was grabbing Michaela. God has already saved him and he has been used as an instrument to save someone else. I pray that God will continue to use him to save many more people!

So needless to say, I haven't had much time for blogging lately. But I think I'm back.