Baby #3

Yep, it's true....baby #3 is on the way. Mark and I are pregnant! Our third child is due in the middle of July, which means we are in our 15th week of pregnancy. I felt fairly yucky from week 9-13, but now that I am in the 2nd trimester I am feeling much more like myself.  So far everything looks good with the pregnancy; we have not seen our little pumpkin on ultrasound yet, but the heartbeat is strong. I go in again this Friday for another checkup so hopefully everything looks great then as well.

I know this news might sound crazy to those of you who have been following our story for the past 2 1/2 years.  I agree, it will be a little wild to add another child to our chaos, yet we are very excited and we felt the timing was right. We took this step mainly because we really want Charlie to have a sibling close to his age that he can play with. Don't get me wrong, we love Ruby from the bottom of our hearts and so does Charlie, but she won't be a sister that Charlie can go throw a football around with. Charlie will be 2 1/2 years old when his little brother or sister is born and we think that will be a great age gap.  Also, we have a great babysitter who helps us out almost 20 hours a week and Ruby will be going to school part time this spring.  All these things made us feel that this was the right time.

God is good; we have peace, joy and contentment that can only come from Him.  We are so thankful for this new little baby and I think the pregnancy is a sign of us moving forward with our life. For so long after Ruby's adoption we were in "survival" mode; we were grieving and just trying to keep our heads above water.  Now, for the most part, we have accepted things with Ruby and we have discovered a new normal. That doesn't mean it is always easy, but there is peace in acceptance. We are excited to see what God has in store for us in the future! Praise Him for the gift of new life.

"I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future" - Unknown

TenHaken Christmas

Pictures from our Christmas in MN; a little late, but better late than never....

Ruby in her new Christmas PJs

Every year we read the book, "A Cup of Christmas Tea" with Mark's family.  This year all the kids got new PJs and changed into them first.

Precious Giggles

Cuddle time with Grandpa

We are helping Charlie open his stocking. This is after he fell and bit into his lip. You can see the blood on Mark's shirt!

Presents!

Ruby's new toy from Grandpa and Grandma

An attempted shot of the grandkids Christmas morning...it didn't go over very well :)

Great Grandma Douma made Charlie a sock monkey for Christmas. It is so cute and he LOVES it. Thanks Grandma!

Charlie played "house" with his animals. Here he put all the animals to bed :)

Cousins at the kid's table

Singing Christmas carols

More fun with cousins

What a great week. It is such a blessing to have loving families;
we are especially thankful for this during the holidays.

A Night Away

I surprised Mark last night by taking him away overnight. I arranged for Emily, our great babysitter, to stay with the kids from Friday afternoon to Saturday around lunchtime. I showed up at Mark's work in Grand Rapids at the end of his work day and told him we were going out for the evening. He was very surprised and excited.  We ate at the Melting Pot fondue restaurant where we sat, ate and talked for over two hours with no interruptions; it was wonderful and the food was delicious, especially the chocolate fondue.  After dinner we went to the movie, "The Tourist" and then we stayed at a hotel close by.  We had a fabulous time being together and it so good to sleep the entire night without having to get up with crying kids! We were excited to see Ruby and Charlie when we got home, but the night away was well worth it.

Schonewill Christmas

Photos from the Schonewill Christmas...


Charlie and I made star cutout cookies to bring to the party.

Charlie liked to help, but mostly he liked eating the frosting and the sprinkles.

My family had a "create your own pizza" bar for our Christmas party. It was a lot of fun, although it was a little tough for the oven to keep up with all the pizzas.

My Dad read the Christmas story to the grandkids.

Then we sang Christmas carols around the piano. This was a tradition on Christmas Eves growing up so I am glad we can pass it on to our kids. 

Mark singing to Ruby

Kari trying to reign in Inara and Charlie for a few more songs.

Presents!

Charlie was very excited about the drum and musical instruments he got from Grandpa and Grandma.

We had a fabulous time celebrating with my family.  Thanks Dad and Mom for a meaningful family night and thanks for the gifts!

Home

We are home; Ruby was discharged this afternoon. We are all tired, but glad to be out of the hospital. Ruby has been sleeping since we got home. Hopefully after a few days of catching up she will bounce back to her normal self. The doctor didn't have a specific reason for why this seizure happened yesterday, but he did send us home with an emergency med to give Ruby if she has a prolonged seizure like this again.  We are praying we don't have to use it, but it is reassuring to know we can if we need to. 

My brother Kyle had surgery this morning to repair his ankle. The surgery went well and he is going to stay in the hospital for one more night. My mom will be there by tomorrow to help him out at home.  Prayers for his recover and pain tolerance are appreciated.

Thanks for your prayers for our family!

Update

Last evening Ruby woke up and drank a bottle and ate a little bit of pudding. She was exhausted and lethargic, but we did get a few smiles out of her, mainly when we gave her a couple bites of ice cream :)  She was fairly fussy, but that is to be expected with all her little body and mind has gone through in the past 24 hours.  We gave her some sleeping supplements at around 9:30 and then I (Kelli) went to sleep at my brother and sister in law's house (thanks Mike and Jess!). Because Ruby is in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) they only allow one family member to sleep with her; Mark was gracious enough to volunteer.  I slept well; six great hours of sleep felt really good. I hope Mark's night with Ruby went okay; I will find out soon as I am heading back to the hospital shortly. 

We are meeting with the neurologist this morning and we are hopeful that if she continues to do well today they will discharge us yet this afternoon. Hopefully we can get some of our questions answered before we leave the hospital. Thanks again for your prayers!

On another note.... My brother Kyle shattered his ankle and broke his leg last night in a basketball game. He is having surgery to put pins in this morning. He lives in Nashville so it looks like my mom is going to try to get out there as soon as she can. Please pray for Kyle as he is in a lot of pain; pray the surgery goes really well and that when the doctors check out his ankle in surgery they will be surprised that it is in better condition then they think. Also pray for his recovery as he is worried about not being able to get around to work, got to class, drive...etc. Thanks!

Breaking in the New Hospital

It is the first day the brand new DeVos Children's Hospital is open and guess where we are.....that's right, DeVos Children's Hospital. Ruby is the first patient ever to be in room 812. The hospital is beautiful, but we wish we didn't have to be here; here's the story..

This morning, while I was at work, Ruby started seizing and wouldn't stop. Our wonderful babysitter called Mark and told him he better come home because something with Ruby wasn't right. By the time he made it home she had already called the ambulance. The paramedics took Ruby to the Zeeland Hospital ER where they gave her a med to stop the seizure; finally after 90+ minutes of seizing, they got her to stop. At this point she was stable so they transferred her by ambulance to DeVos Chilren's Hospital.

When we got here, Ruby was screaming mad for a while (this could be a wierd reaction to the meds). Finally, after some Benydryl and Ambien she fell asleep, exhausted. Hopefully she sleeps for awhile and then wakes up alert and calm.

Right now the doctors don't know why Ruby had this kind of seizure; it might just be her type of epilepsy manifesting itself in a new way. They want to watch her in the intensive care unit here for awhile to make sure she doesn't go into another huge seizure. We are hoping this was a one time thing and we will be able to go home tomorrow....we will see what the doc says in the morning.

It was an incredibly scary morning; we deal with seizures everyday, but never any of this magnitude. To see my little sweetheart on a hospital bed twitching and not responding was terrifying. It just reminds me of the fraility of her condition. The reality that this could happen again is hard to come to terms with. Thankfully we have a God who gives joy and peace during scary times. I am so glad He holds the future in His hands.

We covet your prayers and will try to keep our blog updated. Thanks!

Tubes

I have a few pictures I need to post before my Christmas photos.
These are a few shots of when Charlie got the tubes in his ears redone. He was such a trooper and it didn't seem to phase him at all.

Here he is in the waiting room before surgery.


Waiting before surgery in our room....

Some more waiting....the "Max and Ruby" DVD I took along was a big hit.

'Mile

Whenever I pull out the camera, Charlie yells, " 'mile!" (which means smile) and then he scrunches up his face like this.....

I thought these kind of pictures didn't happen until kids hit the awkward teenage years! We have a little work cut out for us before the next family photo shoot :)
Love you Charlie!

Close Call

This morning Charlie and I dropped Ruby off at "school" (group therapy) and then we ran some errands together. When we went to pick her up an hour and a half later, we were a few minutes early. Charlie does not like to stand still by me in the hallway while we wait for Ruby's classroom door to be opened--- I know, big surprise :)  So, as usual, he was running up and down the hallways, looking in lockers, pointing out the fish mural on the wall, peaking in classrooms...etc.  Today, he found a new toy, the fire alarm.  I turned my head for one minute and when I looked back at him he had three fingers around the fire alarm, ready to pull. I ran towards him and stopped him just in time.  Wow- that was a close call. How humiliating that would have been to have the whole school evacuate because my son pulled the fire alarm. Thank goodness he didn't go through with it!