Plans Change...

We're not having a baby after all. I had a miscarriage last week. Actually, it's my second (the first was before I got pregnant with Eric). Why these things happen I don't know. I know the statistics say something like 20% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage, but that doesn't help your hurting heart much. I still wonder why there was a heartbeat one week and all indications were that everything was good and then there wasn't. What happened to this little one? I keep asking this question to God knowing that I won't know the answer. I wrestle with this...the what happened and why question. I am so profoundly sad that I won't be able to be a mother to this baby or that this little one won't be a part of our family here on earth. My heart smiles, though as I consider that this one is with our Heavenly Father, being spared all the pain and sorrow life on earth brings with it.

I keep thinking of Job in the Bible when he was surrounded with calamity from all fronts he said, "Should we accept good from God and not bad, too?" (my paraphrase). A popular song I have sung in church for years has also be on my mind a lot these days. The lyric is, "You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name." My head is asking the questions, my aching heart is choosing to trust God.

I must say a tremendous blessing has been good friends. Our good friends Kelly and Steve were visiting us while all this unraveled and their presence represented a sense of family and home for me. My mother-in-law went out of her way to make sure Little Eric was taken care of. Friends near and far that knew what was going on have been willing to enter into our grief with us. I have made some really good friends over the past year here, friendships for which I am grateful. What has made a deep impression on me is how many people have openly acknowledged the miscarriage and been heartfelt in their sadness, not mincing words, not feeling akward, not covering it over with idle chit chat. This has been refreshing to me as it has helped the grieving process along for me.

So, here we are pressing on and taking it as it comes. Looking for the good in it all and feeling the sadness along the way. My hope is in Him and his promise that my life and the life of my family is in His hands. The day before all of this happened a friend reminded me that God is saying this to me, "For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Then you will have a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)"

Thank you, Lord that your mercy is new every morning. Thank you that I can weep and not fall apart. Thank you that there is hope for more than what I see here on earth. Thank for the incredible husband and child I have right now. You are good. Amen.


* p.s. I have literally been trying to write this for about three days and everytime I actually get a chance to get on the computer and get my thoughts focused the electricity goes out. Today I actually wrote this through four power outtages each time the computer turning off in the middle of a sentence. Is it strange that my 2 1/2 year old knows how to say, "No power or water" ("No hay luz, ni agua). Thank God I am finally done!!

Guess who is going to be a big brother?

Yep...this cutie...who is getting so tall.

I am due at the end of May. So tired. So sick a lot. SO excited!

BTW...this is why I haven't been blogging much...the crummy, morning sick part.

Altos de Chavon

Last weekend we took a day trip to Altos de Chavon. It was just what we needed to get out of the city and b-r-e-a-t-h-e. It's this little village on top of a hill overlooking a river that was built as a replica of an italian village. It is so sweet and quaint with cobblestone paths, little art shops, a cafe, romatic restaurants, waterfalls, and a amphitheater where they often host concerts (Kenny G is coming up, Andrea Bocelli was here in the Spring). I felt like I was in Europe, definately not like the Caribbean, and I didn't want to leave. Can't wait to go back and hope we can make it a romantic trip next time.

Here are a few pics from the day:

The expert map reader.
Eric and Ericito on the stage at the amphitheater.

Pretending to be in Europe waiting to hear the 3 Tenors.

The Church in the middle of the village. You can't see the inticate cobblestone patterns on the ground, but they were amazing.

Happy boys.

The whole village is built overlooking a river.

Here is some of the mosiac work on the buildings.

Eric, me, Edi and Little E.

My Chacabana Man

This past weekend Eric participated in his first graduation ceremony as a full-fledged professor. Most of you know he is a research professor at a University here in Santo Domingo that specializes in technology. To his disappointment, the "proper" faculty attire is not robes and hoods, but Chacabana. Chacabana is a typical Dominican dress shirt made out of linen with two pleated plackets down each side of the front of the shirt and 4 pockets. So, here he is sporting his look for graduation. He did wear his Northeastern pin to show his devotion to his alma mater.

Untitled...not enough coffee or energy to come up with one.

5:18 a.m...I hear the doorknob turn and the pitter patter of little feet..."Mama, ven," which literally means, "Mama, come," but in my head I translate it to mean, "Get out of bed right now. I don't care that it's still dark and I have a fever and a cold. I am ready to hit the day and you better be too."

Where's the coffee? Oh, yeah I need to make it right after I get the little one settled into a Thomas video (that I sadly know by heart). *side note: I actually put the movie on in Spanish the other day so we I didn't have to hear it in English ONE MORE TIME. OJ in hand, DVD in, sick child on sofa and the sun won't even be up for at least an hour. Oh joy.

Somehow my sick child becomes more energized when he is under the weather. How exactly does this happen? I used to wonder why the children's channels played cartoons in the middle of the night, but now I know it's really for the adults with sick children who are awoken in the middle of the night and don't have the energy to do anything else but doze on the sofa while their child is happily awake with no idea what "the middle of the night" is. Seriously, when he is sick and he comes into my room at 3 a.m. it's not because he is crying or hurting, it's because he woke up with all of his energy ready for a new day that won't officially get started for a few more hours.

I guess I can be happy that my child is a somewhat easy sick kid. He doesn't really whine and pretty much acts normal. But, why does he have more energy when I need him to be the most laid back so I can get a break from either fighting off what he has or recovering from my own lack of sleep thanks to 4 hour apart tylenol doses and 3 a.m. wake-up calls.

This morning, well before the sun was up (he actually pointed out the window at the moon), he watched about 5 minutes of the video, ran to his room to play with his train, ran back to the dining room to play with his trains at the table, rode his big wheel around the house, laid in bed with me for exactly two minutes and is now running back and forth from his room to the living room.

It's going to be a long day.

Look what I got today...

Today I had my first experience with a "missionary sale". I had heard of these sales shortly after I moved here, but since I'm not really in the complete missionary "loop" (you know I really just hang out with all the cool missionaries) I always seem to hear about them a day too late. Missionary Sales are basically yard sales that happen when a family moves back to the country they are from and they usually sell EVERYTHING. Well, I got the word from my friend Kirsten, who is always in the know, about a sale that took place this morning. The family moving has lived here for 15 years or something like that and has run a school, so you can imagine all of the possibilities of things they might be selling. It was packed and I saw a lot of my friends there, which was fun. And, I'm not sure where all of the stuff came from, but there was a ton of very random things, not unlike what you might find at a yard sale in the states, but a little surprising for me to see down here.

The best part, by far, was going through all of the school supplies and books they had. I really had to use self-control because I could have bought so many more fun finds. I just kept hearing those 6 famous words spoken by my well-meaning husband (words that have changed my pack rat tendancies)..."What do we need this for?"

Well, I came home with all of this for $265 pesos, which is something like $8:

REAL vintage (can I say that if they are from my childhood) Bristle Blocks and Lincoln Logs, some really fun fabric with numbers and equations, which I am sure will become PJ bottoms for little E, 2 christmas trees, a Barney puzzle, a NEW red recorder, a flowered mug, and 4 vintage books (Little Men, 2nd grade Social Studies book, an American History reader, and a children's Bible that I bought because I thought the pictures looked funky and cool).

And, then as I was walking out the woman selling things asked me if I wanted any plants. And, I got this beauty for another $200 pesos. It's a lime tree!!! How fun is that? It doesn't really look like much, but I know the potential it has if I don't kill it first. She said it has pretty little white flowers that turn into little limes. I am wondering if it is a key lime tree.

So, all said and done I spent something like $12...and Big E never asked the million dollar question.

After playing with his Bristle Blocks, Barney puzzle and recorder he pooped out on the sofa. He was so into the recorder that while we were eating lunch he put his hotdog down, picked up his recorder to blow on it a few times, put it back down and resumed eating his lunch.

The Social Studies book was published in 1958 and is awesome. Even though some things are really outdated (like the clothes or the fact that the part on the neighborhood park says that "I can go there alone.") little E and I were reading it together and he seemed to like it. Check this out:
These kids are helping to build a library area in their classroom. Check out the kid with the saw?!

And, then there are these sections called Who can help? where they ask the kids what they would do to help if they were in the picture, and What would you do? where they have these scenarios with blank bubbles above the kids where the reader can say what they would do if they were that particular kid that particular situation. I LOVE THIS and it seems so appropriate for our time, too. I'm sure President Obama would approve (wink, wink).

He's a breadman like his mama.

While I was unpacking the groceries yesterday I kept hearing "mmmm" sounds and this is what I found. Guess he likes those carbs, too. And, couldn't wait for lunch.