{ First Mother's Day }

For all your prayers, love, and kind words...thank you. It means so much to us. The past two weeks have been a wild ride, and the outpouring of support we've experienced since finding out about Lainie's hernia has been overwhelming. We feel our days dripping with grace, even during the hard moments. Our church family and Bible study group have surrounded us with prayer and friendship. Friends who have walked this road of "I have a child [or baby] hospitalized with a serious medical condition" are right beside us. Our midwives have been so supportive and helpful, offering information and advice and letting us know we're still free to ask them any questions we have, though we are no longer technically their clients. It makes me so sad to leave their practice. I really hope that in the future, they can deliver at least one of our babies. Their care has always been exemplary, but I can't even begin to tell you how impressed we are with how the midwives and their staff have handled everything from the first ultrasound inkling of "something might be wrong." They are awesome. Our doulas {yes we have two, one for the birth and one to encapsulate the placenta...formerly I was afraid to tell people I'm planning to ingest my placenta in powdered-pill-form, but now that is the least of my worries} are amazing, going above and beyond the call of duty to help us formulate a new birth plan, connect us with resources, and in general giving me the guts not give up entirely on having as natural a birth as possible, given our circumstances.

God is good. We can't get away from that fact...and we don't want to.

In lighter news, here are some photos from Mother's Day. We went to church in the morning, then had brunch with Mike's family. His sister took these photos, providing incontrovertible evidence that the man I married is a ham, in the best possible sense of the word. He's going to be such a fun dad!