"We are so often caught up in our destination that we forget to appreciate the journey, especially the goodness of the people we meet along the way."



Today marks 29 weeks for our pregnancy - it is hard to believe it has been two months since we found out as we have done so much in those two months, and it also hard to grasp that we only have eleven weeks left (if everything goes as planned) with the knowledge that our son is alive and well in the protection of my womb. A few of my students have been saying my belly is getting big and that when Keagan kicks it means he is ready to come out. My students don't know what is going on with our little guy, but my response is always "No, he's not ready yet and I want him to stay in there a little longer!" Again, I want to thank all of you for following us on our journey as we carry Keagan for "a little longer" and helping us enjoying every day with him! Thank you also for your continued prayers and words - as I have said before, they really help us get through each day. In addition, over the past few weeks, we have received some special gifts from some wonderful people!

 



Another gift from the wonderful Katie! She made this beautiful wreath for baby Keagan. I can't believe the amount of time and patience she must have put into this craft, and we are so appreciative of it. Not only that, but I know the amount of love she put into making it greatly exceeds the time and patience. She is such an awesome person who does these amazing acts simply out of the kindness of her heart. I am so thankful she is involved in Keagan's life and apparently he is too. Last week we were at volleyball and I commented on him moving a lot. While I was talking to Katie he got really active and she was able to feel him move on the first try :) We love you Katie, and obviously Keagan does too!!!

 

I LOVE flowers and I also love one of my best friends, Jessica, who delivered these a few weeks ago. There is a funny story of how Jessica and I met, but the friendship we have developed has been so strong and amazing. When I scheduled our 4D ultrasound, I asked her if she wanted to come, but unfortunately she wasn't able to because of work. So she brought these flowers over the next day just to let us know she cared and wanted to be there - I had no doubt of this but am very thankful for her and for this gesture. 

This book is from one of our volleyball players and her mom, Mollie and Pam. I have never heard of this book before, but it is so cute! Here I go - "digging deeper" again :) It is obviously about a dad cutting down a tree. The book starts off talking about the things that would come of the tree when it had been cut down, and they all seemed like good things at the time. But as the child continues to think of the effects of cutting down the tree, he realizes everything he would miss if the tree were cut down. Ultimately he decides that dad should not cut down the tree, because even though there were some positves to it being cut down, the things he would miss greatly outweighed them. Of course, I can find a connection from this book to our journey :) Just over two months ago, we were faced with the decision of carrying Keagan to term or inducing much earlier. As I mentioned in a previous post, there did seem to be positives to inducing early, mainly that we thought we wouldn't have to deal with some of the hard emotions so often if we delivered early. As we continued to process, we decided to carry to term so that we could enjoy our son's life, have more time with him and have the opportunity for a miracle to be performed. Looking back now, I realize if we would have induced early we would have missed out on so many things - so many kicks, so many firsts, so many minutes of enjoying Keagan just as he is. Just as the boy is happy with his decision to keep the tree, we are so happy and at peace with our decision to carry Keagan to term.

 

Earlier this month, I went to a baby shower for my cousin, Cindy; she is due in April with a little boy. It was a beautiful shower and I was so glad that I was able to be there and share in the celebration of her pregnancy and baby. Even though this was her day, Cindy was thinking of me - not only of how I would be emotionally, but she also brought a gift for us. This is something else I have never heard of, but is also something that I love. Rockabye Baby has several different bands, but Cindy found out that I loved the Beatles so that was the CD she got us. It is very unique - it has several Beatles songs but they are all lullabies, played entirely instrumental. It is very relaxing and I enjoy getting to listen to it while spending some quiet time with Keagan. Thank you Cindy!

This gift set is from one of my (former) co-workers, Annie. I say former because we are no longer in the same school, but I love to stop back over and check in with her. Annie is such an amazing and thoughtful person. She said that her daughters loved this book, and I love the message in the book and enjoy reading it to Keagan and using it as a chance to tell him how much I love him. I think the mini version is adorable along with the perfectly sized little rabbit! I have packed this away with our hospital things because I think it would be adorable to incorporate these into some of Keagan's newborn pictures! Thank you so much Annie!

This picture frame is from one of the aides in our classroom, Rainie, her husband, Eran, and daughter, Eleisea. The quote is absolutely perfect, and Rainie said that is exactly what her family thought when they saw it. It says "Baby Precious one, so small, so sweet, dancing in on angel feet, straight from heaven's brightest star, what a miracle you are!" This is true of Keagan in so many ways! It looks beautiful on the dresser in the nursery, and I am incredibly grateful for your thoughtfulness Rainie, Eran and Eleisea. You are amazing people and I am so glad you are part of our journey!

Our family is so incredibly thankful for our church family. Roy shared our story a few weeks ago and there has been an amazing response of support that has totally blown us away. Sharing was emotional for us, but definitely a good thing. Right after Roy finished telling the congregation, one of the women in the church asked if they could pray for us. We went to the front of the church and many members of our church family gathered around us just to pray for our journey and Keagan. It was a truly great experience and brings happy tears to my eyes to think about. Not only that, but one of the women in the church, Raven, felt led to start a prayer group for us. Between Raven and our pastor's wife, Crissy, they organized for women in the church to meet every Sunday before church to pray for our family and for any needs of others. I am so thankful for this group of women that come together. While it is sometimes emotional for me, it is amazing to know that we have those people praying for Keagan and us every week and to know that the whole church is supportive. And when I say whole church, I truly mean that. These adorable signs were made by the kids/teens of the church. Crissy told me the kids understand that Keagan is sick and that he needs a lot of prayers. She gave these signs and pictures to me after church two weeks ago except for the one on the bottom right corner. One of the little girls, whom I have never talked to before, walked up to me and said in the sweetest little voice, "This is for baby Keagan." This too brings me to tears. I think of this group of kiddos as Keagan's firsts friends and I am so thankful for all of them, their loving hearts and actually for their naivety to our situation. Because they don't fully understand everything that is going on, they are a good reminder of the things that really matter on our journey. (If you can, click on the picture and try to read some of the things the kids wrote. I love their words!)

Keagan's First...

Polar Plunge!

Papaw and Gramma have a place at Indian Lake that we love to go to in the summer. I was very excited about getting to take Keagan there after he was born (maybe I'll still get to!) and him having the memory of spending summers there with his family. For this reason, I definitely wanted to make sure we did one of Keagan's first at the lake, so when Gramma told me about the polar plunge I thought it was a great idea.

As you may know, a polar plunge is when people jump into freezing cold water, creating quite a sight that I was excited to see. Well, Gramma had bigger plans for us... I went to Papaw and Gramma's house on Saturday with the expectation that Keagan and I were only going to be watching this crazy event, but I walked in and saw a towel in mom's hands. Earlier in the week she had told me that dad and his friend may be doing it so I thought, oh, they must have decided to participate but then remembered she told me the night before that they weren't. When I asked why she had it, her response, with a nice little grin on her face, was "You and Keagan!" She wanted us to do a "baby polar plunge" and just have me put my feet in. Yeah....right!

We went to a nice lunch with mom and dad's friends Stanley and Sherry and then headed over to Oldfield Beach. As we pulled in, Gramma encouragingly said "Do you want me to take the towel?" With very little enthusiam, I said "Sure...I can use it as a blanket :)" As we waited for the real thing, I convinced myself to do it. Papaw, Gramma, Stanley and I walked over to the side of the beach where I would not be in direct eyesight of anyone. I rolled up my pants, slipped off my shoes, and eased my way into the FREEZING COLD water. I don't even think the water came up to my ankles, but hey - it was cold! Keagan is lucky I love him because never would I do this for myself! He did not have any reaction when I stepped into the cold water, but he did give me a few kicks about ten minutes later.

After a big ordeal of getting sand off my feet, socks and shoes back on and trying to warm up a little, we watched the real thing. I was happy so many people participated because it was a fundraiser for Special Olympics, but those people are crazy! They were supposed to make it out to the people in yellow, give them a high five and come back in. Some didn't make it that far, but they all made it further than us. That's okay though - the few steps I took into the water were plenty for Keagan and I! After the polar plunge, we enjoyed spending time together at the Moose Lodge where the fundraiser continued.

As Gramma said, Keagan and I can now say we have done something most people haven't! I am glad to have shared this first with my son. He's the only reason I got through :)

It was also Keagan's first St. Patrick's Day, so we took advantage of this picture opportunity. To this man's defense, they had a costume contest as well :)

 

I sent a message to Roy and told him the water was freezing. His response was "You got in?!" I then sent him the picture of myself and said "This counts, right?" :) I was pretty proud of myself, even compared to the other people, but his response was it would be a special on the 11 o'clock news that a "pregnant polar bear was sighted jumping into Indian Lake."

Great company for the day! Love you all!

Baby Keagan's Nursery

Roy and I feel we are meant to be parents, and have had those feelings since before we even got married. So, we took the opportunity to purchase the furniture for a nursery shortly after getting married. We were not pregnant and did not have plans of getting pregnant within the year even, but knew that we wanted to have children eventually so we spaced out our purchases and had the boxes just sitting in our spare bedroom until the wonderful time that we found out we were expecting! When I told Roy I was pregnant, he wanted to put the crib together the next day but I asked him to wait because I wanted to make sure everything was okay with the baby. Thinking we were "in the clear," I believe we put the crib, glider and changing table together in November and December.
As I said before, we had planned to go shopping for nursery decor the day of our gender ultrasound but those plans came crashing down along with the world around us on that day. When we got home we put up a curtain to cover the view into the nursery (we don't have a door on that room yet...) because the pain of looking at all of the furniture was too much to bear on top of everything else. This is actually a painful memory for me in itself. I had a curtain covering the closet in the room, so with tears running down my face and a whirlwind of emotions going on I took the rod down and tried to shorten it to fit in the nursery doorway. I remember Roy standing behind me with his hands on my back and me yelling "I can't do it." I literally could not get the rod to turn but even more so I think I was just saying I could not deal with the news we had learned that day. Roy took the rod out of my hands as I continued to cry and said "I will do it for you." This is symbolic of how Roy has been my rock through our journey, and I am so thankful for him.
That curtain stayed in front of the nursery for days, maybe even weeks. Then one day, I decided to go in and sit in the nursery. I know Roy did this too in the days to follow. While this was hard, it was really helpful for both of us and now I enjoy sitting in Keagan's room thinking of everything we've done with him and how much love is being shown in several facets of our lives. Eventually, we got to the point that we could take the curtain down.
After that, we decided to prepare the nursery. Several people may think this is silly or that we are just making it harder for ourselves and to be honest, I think that at times as well. But Roy and I both have a feeling (praying this is not just high hopes) that Keagan will live a few days and get to come home with us, and we want him to have a room to come home to! Even though he will be staying in our room if he gets to come home, he still deserves a room in our minds :) Not only this, but we also are doing this as an act of faith. Once again, we are not denying what we know to be medically true but we also know that God CAN perform a miracle and painting Baby K's room demonstrates we believe in God and that He can allow our son to come home with us. Another reason we made this choice is it has actually been a healing process for us. We have had the joy of preparing our baby's nursery and creating memories as a family through doing so. Just as sitting in his nursery is helpful for me now, I also think it will be a common place for me to go as we grieve. Maybe not the best idea, but sounds like something I would do :)
Stories behind the nursery:
The dresser was the one piece of furniture that we did not have. Because we had bought the set nearly two years ago, the dresser was only available online when we went to look at it in November. My parents wanted to purchase this for us and made sure to get it while it was still available. It was then lovingly assembled by Keagan's Papaw. I hear it was not an easy process, so we are incredibly grateful for him doing that for us!
We were given advice to paint the nursery a gender neutral color so that if Keagan is not able to come home, then at least we could keep the nursery the same color for our next baby regardless of whether it is a boy or girl. One of my fears has been having to paint over the color we chose for Keagan and having to making all of the wounds fresh again. I kept these things in mind as I picked out the colors. You will see that I chose blue and will probably think that's not very gender neutral. Don't worry, I know :) Blue is actually my favorite color and this shade was one that I was looking at for a girls nursery based on the bedding I found so we will make it work if we need to! Roy painted the entire nursery in one night - he said he was determined to keep going until he finished and I was amazed the next morning when I woke up to the beautiful room. Papaw and Gramma came over to help with the finishing touches. Papaw made sure I didn't move any furniture (I tend to think I am very strong and can do things myself) and helped with a lot of little details. Gramma helped with painting the stencils. We were both afraid to make a mistake so we tried to get each other to do it :) I am so thankful to Roy, Papaw and Gramma for their help in creating the perfect nursery for Keagan.
I had the desire to paint something on the walls, but wasn't quite sure what, so I just started searching. The first website I looked at had the dandelions and they jumped out at me. I continued to look for other ideas but kept coming back to the dandelions. I thought they were appropriate because our journey has been based so heavily on hopes, wishes and prayers. What better way to represent this than with dandelions!? Side note - the stencils were extremely easy and quick!
The butterfly has a special meaning to me. When I opened the package of stencils that I had ordered from the internet, I was thrown off by a little butterfly stencil. It was not packed with the other stencils and was not part of our order at all. It seemed like a mistake that it was included. I did not have any plans to use it, but I thought, well maybe there was a reason it was in there and now I am so glad it was. I looked up the meaning of butterflies and found so many interesting things that I could apply and pray for in our journey. Here are a few of my findings.

• Butterflies can symbolize a profound change of the soul. Keagan has had so many effects on us and several other people we know. We will never be the same because of his life and know other people feel the same way.
• Butterflies can also be a symbol for long-life. We constantly pray for the length of Keagan's life and would LOVE for him to have a long-life.
• Just as caterpillars will never crawl again but instead will fly as butterflys, our little guy may never be able to crawl but he will definitely be flying high in the sky as an angel.
• Lastly, butterflies symbolize beauty. Caterpillars spend the perfect amount of time in the cocoon to transform into the new beautiful creatures. Baby Keagan will spend the perfect amount of time in my womb until God says it is time to grace us with his presence as a perfect and beautiful little baby. I can't wait to see our beautiful son!

I painted one butterfly to look as if it were resting on the crib. I painted another in the closet with the hope that if we move to a new house in the future that butterfly won't get painted over and Keagan will always leave his mark there :) Everytime I see a butterfly I will now think of our little guy and hope you will too!

Heartbeat Check #6

Gosh - I feel like it has been forever since we have had a heartbeat check (the last official one was three weeks ago!) Roy and I were so looking forward to once again getting to hear that amazing sound. Thankfully Keagan's heartbeat was easy to find today. It was 125. That seemed really low to me, especially considering how it is generally in the 140-160 range but our doctor did not seem concerned at all. I am hoping he was just sleeping which would help explain the difference. I know it also normal for the heart rate to fluctuate, but this number just shocked me a little. Regardless, his heart is still beating, he is still moving and, as my belly shows, he is still growing! Yay!!!

Our high risk doctor mentioned last week that we could move our heartbeat checks to every two weeks because Keagan's heart rate has been so strong and because I can feel him moving so often. I mentioned we kind of liked hearing it every week, but having some Mondays without an appointment will be nice. So, for those of you who look on Tuesdays to see what Baby K's heart rate was, we will not have an appointment next week so you'll have to wait two weeks along with our family :)

I also wanted to update everyone on my health. I had a little scare a couple of weeks ago. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism five years ago, but my second trimester thyroid bloodwork actually came back high. This would mean I now have hyperthyroidism (Graves' disease) which is more concerning than hypo. As if I didn't have enough appointments already, I was sent to my family doctor, to the hospital to get an ultrasound and to an endocrinologist. After this round of appointments, I received a phone call last week from the endocrinologist letting me know that the bloodwork he ran came back normal so I don't have Graves'! I don't mind the extra appointments now that I have those results :) This was such a blessing and I am so thankful that this does not have to be an added concern for us. There is a medical explanation as to why my initial bloodwork came back high, but I won't bore you with the details. If you are interested, I would be happy to share with you personally.

The same day I had my thyroid ultrasound, I also completed my glucose screening. My doctor told me today that my bloodwork came back looking good but my glucose screening results were really low. Their "cut-off" number is 135. My number was 67, and he said usually peoples in the 50's and 60's feel lightheaded or dizzy after drinking the drink. I felt fine, so he was not concerned with these results. I have sent an email to my high-risk doctor tonight and am hoping she is not concerned either. There are times that I feel lightheaded and dizzy throughout the day, but I just eat more frequently and that seems to help. I will keep you all updated on this as well.

On a side note - You all have been so wonderful and we are told so often that people are praying for us, and that means the world to us. I want to close with a request for continued prayers.  I had a few rough days last week and anticipate one this week, so if you could pray for strength and comfort for me I would really appreciate. I also ask that you pray for Roy as he continues to provide and protect our family. Please pray for all of our family members as well, as I know this is not easy on them either. They are our strongest support system and they experience hurt and pain right along with us. And most importantly, I ask that you pray for physical healing for our precious baby. As I have said before, we believe wholeheartedly that God is able to heal our little guy. We know that With God all things are possible. Keagan being born completely healthy is possible, or us getting through things if he is not is possible, but only because of our Lord. It is amazes me how great and powerful our God is, and I love the fact that overnight He could perform a miracle with just a single touch, a word or even a thought. Please pray for that miracle for our baby.

Keagan's First...

Snow Angel and Snowman!

When I got the phone call last night that school was going to be cancelled today, I got excited! Roy, on the other hand, always gives me dirty looks when school is closed because he still has to go to work :) As we were going to bed, he said "You're lucky you're pregnant. I'm only okay with you having no school because Keagan gets to spend the snow day with you." Unfortunately, after my excitement, I had a rough day today. I did not feel like getting out of bed, doing anything I was supposed to do, or even getting dressed...and I didn't. When my mom came over after work and Roy got home I was still in my pajamas, sitting on the couch and occassionally breaking into tears. It was just one of those days. I did find motivation to get dressed and get outside to do Keagan's first snow angel and build his first snowman with Roy after some encouragement. I am thankful for that because it helped me not feel as sad as you will see in the pictures. We figured this would be the last snow of the season so we needed to take advantage of it.

We enjoyed creating these memories with baby K, so enjoy the pictures and little comments!

 

Our angel's first snow angel <3 This was like a little workout for me! The snow was so packed that it was hard to move my arms and legs, but definitely resulted in some laughs! I am guessing some of our neighbors and people who drove by saw me - a grown woman...out in the snow...appearing that there were no kids around - but I did not care. Keagan, Gramma and I had fun!

 

 

 

Daddy is much better at making snowmen than Mommy - good thing he was there! Keagan's snowman has a Burton hat on and a weird nose...that was one of my few contributions! I was trying to add snow to hold the eyes in place but ended up with a nose :) Thank you to Gramma for being our photographer for these firsts!!!

Fluid Check #2

We got to see our little bundle of joy again today, and he's still as cute as ever. Keagan's cousin Carson even got to come see him :) Not only that but everything medically seemed to be on target as well. Keagan's heartrate was 152; still going strong! For the first time, our technician, Beth, pointed out the four chambers of Keagan's heart. This was definitely a good thing. He is measuring very close to his gestational age, except for his legs - they are measuring a week and a half ahead! Beth also pointed out that our "peanut's" feet are also really big. I guess he's taking after me there! The point of today was obviously to check my fluid level, but we actually all got wrapped up in looking at baby Keagan that we all forgot about checking it. Beth left and came back in saying she was going to have to scan again to measure it. We were definitely okay with this because it was another chance to see our sweet baby. My fluid level ended up being 20. That is within the normal range, but is approaching the higher end. Our doctor said it was normal for fluid levels to fluctuate (as it was 15 last month), so my hope is that my fluid level is not going to steadily increase but will instead fluctuate slightly in either direction so it will still be considered normal.

Mr. Keagan had his head buried against me again, but today was one of the few times we have been able to see his whole face and what an adorable face he has. His lips and nose, as I said last week, are absolutely perfect. There was one point when we were trying to get a 3D image of his face that he put his open hand in front of his face as if to say "no more pictures!" Gosh. He's just so cute.

Roy and I were a little sad when we left today's appointment. We were and continue to be thrilled that Keagan is still growing and his heart is beating strong and he is moving and happy. We are also happy my health has not been affected. However, we were just hoping something would have improved from our previous appointment. This is not medically possible, but ALL things are possible with God and that is what we hold on to. We were hoping to hear them say they saw something they hadn't seen before as we have heard at every ultrasound but that wasn't the case today. When I told my mom this, she pointed out all of the positives from today and the fact that we did see the four chambers that hadn't been shown to us previously and with these comments I was back on the joy of the perfect baby which Roy and I have been chosen to parent. We love you Baby Keagan and are so thankful for you!

Four chambers of his heart

 

In case anyone was worried :)

This is kind of hard to see, but this is when he put his hand in front of his face :) His arm and hand are right in the middle of the screen.

Precious profile



Keagan's First...

Boy Scout adventure!

Camp Lazarus held it's annual Maple Syrup Festival this weekend, so we took advantage of this opportunity to have Keagan participate in Boy Scouts. (Thanks to Gramma, who heard about this on the radio and shared it with us!) When I first asked Roy about going his response, once again showing his sense of humor, was along the lines of "you want me to go out in the middle of winter to tap trees, enter a pancake eating contest, and throw tomahawks?" He gladly went for his little boy though, and we had a lot of fun as a family!

Here are some pictures from our day with some little fun facts! (I'm getting back into "Boy Scout mode" so get ready for a maple syrup lesson!)



There are 700 taps at Camp Lazarus. Trees can have one tap per every ten inches in diameter, but should not have more than three because this would drain the tree of all of its sap. It takes 56 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. The sap is collected from the buckets every two to three days so that it doesn't spoil and taken to the "sugar shack." There it is brought to over a specific temperature based on the barometric pressure that day. Today it had to be boiled at 216 degrees.  There was all kinds of smoke billowing out of the sugar shack and condensation dripping down on us from the roof when we were inside.

The picture to the left was of a typical campsite that may have been used in the pioneer days. There was a cute little boy who explained the bed to us, but I saw bread and jam by the campfire and got distracted so we didn't stay there long. Oops! To the right is Keagan and I in a cute little cabin with hand-made furniture and toys. If there hadn't been so many people inside I was going to climb up to the loft as that's where all of the kids were, but I decided not to :)

 

Outside of the cabin, we had the opportunity to cut some logs using a hand-saw. There was a two-person saw and a one-person saw. Lucky for me that the one person opened up first, so Daddy got to do this one for us! He looks so natural, right!? We then were able to take our piece of the log to get it branded by a boy scout. He could not get it to brand quite right, but we told him it was perfect and we loved it. He was so shocked. I thought it was kind of poetic. This was Keagan's first day as as honorary boy scout (in our minds), and while his appearance isn't the same as "typical" babies, he is asbolutely perfect and we love him even more because he is special. 

 

We enjoyed pancakes and "bug juice" for lunch. I couldn't get Keagan in this picture, but I hope he enjoyed them as well! Roy asked if the syrup had been made there, but the little boy scout who served us said "No, this is GFS brand." We both chuckled at this, and who knows, Keagan seems to like smirking as well, so maybe he did too! The pictures to the right are our souvenirs from the day - our branded piece of wood, Keagan's first boy scouts patch, and stickers for his scrapbook.

 

What a great memory for our family! We really enjoyed ourselves at Camp Lazarus today and are glad Keagan had an opportunity to experience this first!