The Gift of Hope

Hi again, life is going well here in the Luton household. girls are happy and doing well. Haddyn started walking just shy of 10 months! so it's pretty busy around this place. she just toddles around the house following her big sisters. it's pretty stinking cute. Anyway, I had been reflecting on some of the things the Lord has brought us through and felt like sharing one of my lows with you all in hopes that it might encourage someone out there who might be in a low right now.

Last July when Hallie was in the hospital with a brain bleed I had a glimpse into something I don't ever want to experience again; for a brief moment i lost my hope.
You see she had just gotten out of the hospital at the end of june for two brain bleeds that were caused by a head bump and then here we are a few weeks later when she is showing similar signs of a brain bleed. So in the middle of the night we rushed to the ER and they tell us she has another brain bleed, she had not hit her head this time and doctors were pretty much just thinking she had some condition where she was just going to have spontaneous bleeds in her brain now. (This thankfully ends up not being the case but we didn't know this until days later when we did an MRI which showed that she had two small strokes that bled versus just a spontaneous bleed.) Strokes we had dealt with before, but spontaneous brain bleeding scared the hope right out of me. Strokes are scary enough. So before i knew we were dealing with a stroke, the doctors pretty much took my hope away and were coming in saying there wasn't much to do, just make her comfortable so she wouldn't bleed more. I was in the room alone with her because we couldn't bring the baby into the ICU, so adam was in the waiting room with Haddyn. So i was listening to these doctors and became so overwhelmed because they had no idea what to do or why this was happening. One doctor even went as far as to say that he had operated on a patient with vasculitis (they thought hallie had this) before and that it was so bad that she died! i mean, what??? don't tell a mom that, seriously. i sat there and looked at my sleeping girl, and i just bawled like a baby. i lost my hope. it was a desolate place to be. adam wasn't in there to comfort me, hallie was on sleeping medicine. i was alone. or so i thought anyway. That's the thing about God, He's there even when we don't see Him. I knew I had to do something, i could not fight for my child's life from the bottom of a pit, i needed to be in a place of faith in order to get her through this. so i picked up my phone and through my tears i called my friend lindsey and said, "pray...i need you to pray for me, i am struggling...choke choke." so she hit me hard with some uplifting words and i started to feel like i could do this. Praise God for prayer warrior friends and family right? then a short while later, or at least i think it was a short while later, it might've been a day later, i can't remember. but the chaplain came into pray with me over hallie and she said someting during her prayer that switched my light back on. She said the word hope. I don't even remember the context of what she said, i just heard the word hope and felt such a peace flood my body. I knew in that moment that if i embraced the Hope that Jesus Christ so freely gives us, that all would be okay, no matter what the outcome was. This was a major turning point for Hallie and me. I began to pray from a place of hope rather than a place of fear. I knew Jesus was there and that He was in control. Hope is the gift God gave us to enable us to endure this life on earth. we live in a fallen world where there unfortunately is sin, sickness, and disease. however, we know the ending....victory through Jesus. "in this world you will have trouble,but take heart, i have overcome the world!"John 16:33. Hope is believing that God can and will make your circumstances better, whether He completely changes the circumstances or gives you the grace to walk through them. all things are possible with God. So Hallie began to show signs of improvement right away, i mean the surgeon even said, "the prayers must've worked". he had the OR booked and everything and hallie ended up not NEEDING ANY SURGERY this time. Praise the Lord! So she recovered and we brought our baby home again, we also brought home with us such a strong appreciation of the hope that God gives us through His Son; hope that Hallie will be completely healed, hope that in this world despite the trouble we might have, we can overcome the world with His help, Hope that He has our children in His hands, and that that's actually the safest place for them to be. So if anyone is in a place of hopelessness i would encourage you to hand your situation over to the Lord and give Him the reigns. Don't give up hope, believe that He can and will deliver you from or through your current circumstance. Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Hebrew 10:23

ok, hopefully soon i will upload some pics of my little monkeys, in the meantime thanks for letting me share my story with you!
Happy day to you!

Small Parable, Big Meaning

Hi there. So during my quiet time the other morning as I was flipping threw my Bible heading towards Ephesians, I happened across these words, The Peristent Widow. This quickly caught my eye and I felt drawn to read on. And thankfully I did, because this parable gave me so much hope, so much encouragement, and above all, an overwhelming sense of comfort in knowing that our God still speaks to us through His Word TODAY. Here's the parable from the Book of Luke, Chapter 18
The Parable of the Persistent Widow
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

WOW. I had chills when i read it because I felt like the Lord was directly speaking to me, telling me not to give up but to keep praying and that He would bring Hallie her justice; her healing. There have been times when fear comes in and I lose hope, but now I have this parable to remind me of God's promise that He brings justice to the persistent. So this day I choose to be "the persistent mother" who keeps bothering the judge to 'grant Hallie justice against her adversary'.
So if you are struggling with something or feeling discouraged, know that the Lord is calling you to press on and cry out to him and He will reward your persistence. Put your faith in Him and believe that He hears you and will bring forth your justice in due time. Let Him find faith on the earth.

Jesse Tree...you can do it!

To all you parents of young'uns out there....this is a fun holiday activity for the family that focuses on the true meaning of Christmas...a Jesse tree! You can find more about it here http://tiredneedsleep.blogspot.com/2010/11/advent-2010-printable-ornaments-and.html There are free printables for the ornaments, etc. We started last night, so it's not too late for you all to start. just catch up tonight. You print out the ornament, have your little one color it and then hang it on the tree that evening as you or your hubs reads the suggested scripture reading for the night. Each day builds on the previous night leading up to the birth of Jesus. In a world where the focus becomes quite blurry at Christmas, let's give our kiddos the joy of knowing the true meaning of Christmas and what that means for them eternally. Have a great day!
P.S. I tried to insert the ornament printable link up there, but it didn't quite work, so just copy and paste it and it should take you there.

We're Back!

Let's try this again! Things have actually settled down a bit to where I think I can attempt this blog thing again. so here we go...again :)
Well I finally uploaded some pictures, so that makes this easier. i still haven't figured out how to just upload certain ones from my camera and i literally had like 850 pictures that it uploaded so i kept putting it off. Anyway, i will give a quick update as to what has been going on. i say "quick" but that might be hard, for we have had A LOT go down since i last posted.
First off, Haddyn Joy is exactly that, a JOY! She is such a great baby and has been just what our family has needed in this season of life. Haddyn is now 8 months old and into everything. She started crawling at 6 months and pulling up at 7 months. so it's been busy, busy around here. She is sleeping through the night, Praise the Lord and mumbles da-da and ma-ma. She adores her big sisters and they help me so much. It's like there are 3 mommies around here.
Harper Bear, as we call her is as spirited as ever. She is so full of life and is just so much fun. She is super independent, wants to wear leggings every day and acts as though she is 15.
Hallie girl, our little miracle, is doing well. However her little body has endured so much, i just marvel at the Lord's healing power in her life. This child has had 6 strokes in her brain and 3 brain bleeds. She was doing great last time i posted and we were just trucking along in life, when she hit her head one night and that landed us in a life flight helicopter to san antonio to have emergency brain surgery. Her brain was bleeding in two places and man was this mama scared. But He was there with me and miraculously got us through the ordeal. So recovery was hard on her due to the stress that put on her body, but she got better within a couple of weeks and we pressed on. Then one july evening she got a bad headache (which was not a good sign in her case) and that meant we were rushing her to the hospital once again. Come to find out she had another brain bleed. She actually had two small strokes that then bled into her brain. No surgery this time, just prayers and prayers, and did i say prayers!!! The surgeon could not believe it, he said "well the prayers must've worked." He thought he was going to have to operate and told us it would be life threatening to operate and if she didn't show signs of improvement it would be life threatening to NOT operate. Her pupils were not reacting, she wasn't even waking up with wet cloths on her. All of our buddies/prayer warriors hit their knees and in turn hit the enemy head on and within minutes Hallie started to come around and eyes started to react again. Can I get a Hallelujah! So then it's onto the recovery road again for her. Those times are hard for her because of whatever auto immune process going on with her is affected by stress, so when she gets home from the hospital she has high fevers and can't walk due to the pain. But she prevailed once again and life shortly became normal again. She suffered no major residual effects from all these traumas. Her walk isn't quite as fluid as a typical 5 year old, but she's as bright as ever and man does she know Jesus. So as of now, she is doing chemo and high dose steroid pulses to try to suppress her auto immune thing. hence the puffy cheeks and weight gain. The steroids have made her gain about 10 pounds which is huge for a little 5 yr old. We also had to cut her hair due to the brain surgery where they shaved half her head. The doctors don't know exactly what Hallie has and we have been to numerous places. They marvel at the fact that she is doing so well in spite of all she has been through. they haven't seen a child have this many strokes and be well. I told them it's Jesus. He has her in His hands, and it's a daily surrender for me to place her there. But when I do all my fear melts away and His peace calms me.
OOPS, i think i mentioned the word "quick" up there in reference to my update, so sorry. Please continue to pray for her, she still gets daily fevers and we do not want anymore strokes!
So here we are now in November and all 3 girls are happy and precious. I am blessed to be there mama and they crack me up daily. Here's some pics of the family from the past several months. Ok, I am off to try to burn off the umpteen pieces of PW's pecan pie that i inhaled over the past week. Be blessed and remember to talk to your Creator today :)

Thankful

So once again i don't have much time, but wanted to jump on here and share something. I was in the kitchen doing the dishes (i'm so domestic hehe), Haddyn was asleep in the swing and the girls were playing outside. Then i go over to window to peek at the girls for a bit and they are running in the rain oh so joyfully! It just made me so happy to see them running and laughing and just having the best time. It brought back so many memories of playing in the rain when i was younger. But more importantly it overwhelmed me with thankfulness to the Lord, that my girls are able to run and play in the rain. I mean 8 months ago, half of hallie's body was completely paralyzed and now she is trotting around our backyard with such joy. Praise the Lord for His healing hand that is upon her. To see them out there with such excitement and hunger for life made my heart just about explode. How blessed i am! So that's it, just wanted to say I'm thankful for my life and what the Lord has done in it.
So if it's raining where you are, go run in it...it might just make you feel 10 again!

I'm still here...

Hi friends! Just wanted to let you know i'm still here, however it's really hard to find the time to blog! right now all the kiddos are asleep and i should be too, but i thought i'd just give a quick update. Things with three are going surprisingly well. Haddyn is a super sweet baby and the girls just adore her. I have some very good helpers. Tonight is Haddyn's first night in her bedroom, so i'll let you know how she does. I am ready for some sleep, so i thought i'd try moving her to her crib. other than not sleeping through the night yet, she is a great baby. She rarely fusses, which is WONDERFUL! But mommy is ready to work on getting this baby to sleep more at night! Hallie is doing well too, she is tolerating her treatments, but the fever is still coming every evening. please pray for her body to stop attacking itself and for protection from the side effects of the chemo. hallie is so happy all the time despite the daily fevers and such which is a blessing. and Harper is just growing up so fast. She is into everything and just says and does the cutest things. I hope to write more soon and post some pictures, but right now i have to go to sleep before the little miss beckons me!
night night!

Labor Recap

March 7th came and went and still no baby. Each day i would think ok, this has to be it, only for the day to end with no baby. Then came saturday. Some things started happening that morning that led me to believe it might be the day, but I still wasn't feeling much at all; no consistent contrations, just some aches here and there. I went on a long walk with jill t and was hoping that would get that baby moving on out. Gill and Debbie, Adam's parents arrived from Oklahoma around noon, which ended up being so perfect. Debbie is a teacher and had to wait for her spring break to visit and so they were thinking the baby would be about a week old by the time they got here, but lo and behold their daughter-inlaw was still with child when they showed up. We had a bbq lunch and just hung out most of the day. Still not any baby action, just some cramps here and there throughout the day. Around 5 o clock though i started having some braxton hickish contractions that were just slightly more intense than normal. but we weren't sure yet. so i continued to just hang out with the family, but around 7:00, i went back to my bedroom because i was just feeling pretty crampy and getting a little uncomfortable. once i was alone in there i started writing down when i was getting these cramps or what i now know were contractions. my mom came back to my room about twenty minutes later to check on me and looked at my paper and said "evan, these are like 2 or 3 minutes apart!" ooops! i was writing them down but not looking at how close they were! when she said that i thought, okay, maybe i should get my stuff together and tell adam we might need to think about going to the hospital. at this point i was still unsure that it was the real thing and didn't want to have a false alarm, but they were close and getting to the point where i had to lean over when i was having one. anyway, i went and told adam we needed to go (because i do have a history of quick labors) and everyone told me the third would be even quicker. So we hopped in the car told the kiddos bye bye and left them with Grandmommy and Granddaddy. This was about 8:00pm. I checked into the hospital 10 minutes later and was 6cm. The baby's heart rate was low so they were concerned because of the heartrate and the fact that i was about a week overdue. The dr. miraculously got there in like 5 minutes and checked me, i was 7 cm then. and she broke my water to check for meconium to see if the baby was in distress. sure enough there was meconium. The Dr. called for the pediatrician to get there asap, which just happens to be her husband. The nurses were running around getting everything ready and it was very intense. They were afraid the baby's heartrate was dropping because she possibly ingested the meconium. They were going to take me to the operating room to do a c-section to get the baby out if i didn't get to 10cm quick enough. So they rolled me down there, put me on the operating table and everything was pretty chaotic around me and i just couldn't believe what was happening. The nurses were scooting me around and getting me ready...but Praise Jesus, I had the urge to push and thankfully one of the nurses said i could push and then about 30 seconds later out came Haddyn! No need for a c-section, the Lord intervened and brought her into the world so fast, i had to ask adam, "did she just come out?!!!" I couldn't believe it. It was all so intense, i thought we would get to the hospital, labor for a few hours, call some friends, have an uneventful birth with no drama. I didn't think we would show up and see her within 45 minutes! She was perfect and we were so thankful everything turned out okay. She had swallowed the meconium but it didn't get in her lungs and the cord was around her neck. But other than that everything was fine. And now a week later, she is doing great and I am starting to feel back to normal again. This one took me a little longer to recover from for some reason. But i am feeling good today. She's a great baby and eats well and is sleeping good too. Well there you have it, that's my labor story!

Haddyn Joy Luton

Well as it turns out we don't have to take down the letters we had put up...much to my relief because it was quite the process to get those letters on the wall! So Haddyn Joy Luton it is and it fits her perfectly! Haddyn was born Saturday March 13 at 8:49 pm. She weighed 8lbs and was 20.5 inches. I'll give the labor recap later. We are all doing great and the big sisters are loving every minute of this experience! They are such good little mamas. I will write more later but just wanted to get some pics up and such.

So much for due dates!

March 7th came and went and I am still pregnant! What is the deal? I really can't believe it, i think i thought for so long that she'd be early that this is just totally unexpected. But God is in control and maybe he's just trying to teach me to have some patience! I go back to the dr tomorrow for a quick check-up and to see if i have progressed any. Please pray that i have :) On another note, i am getting to just enjoy hallie and harper and make the most of this special time with them. They are so excited and it's fun to watch them ask the baby to PLEASE come out because they want to meet her. We still haven't completely decided on a name, but i'll let you know when we do. Hallie's blood test on monday came back looking good, so that was a relief. When they do the treatment it can cause them to have low blood counts, and while we do want the treatment to work and cause some things to lower, we needed to watch her platelets closely due to her being on blood thinners, and praise God they didn't get too low. But please continue to pray for her. She is due for her next treatment next weekend. She is also still getting pretty high fevers in the evenings that just make her lay around and not feel so good and it's just not any fun for her. So all your prayers are always appreciated! well,
I hope my next post is telling you all about our new baby with pics and all!

Still pregnant...

For those of you who have asked for a belly shot, there you go. Well I went to the dr. again today and I am STILL 2cm and 50% effaced. No change from last time :(. But baby is doing well and I am enjoying the anticipation. However, the tossing and turning at night, is getting a little bothersome. She really doesn't have much more room in there. I thought for sure last night she was going to break my water with her forceful kicks. Anyway, she's still in there apparently content as can be. And it might be a good thing, because last night at dinner, i asked adam, "so are we settled on the name _______?" and he says, "i don't know, i've always kind of thought ______ isn't it." WHAT!?!!?! but he did say it could be it, i just don't know! So now i am doing the whole "annoy your husband with okay well what are we going to name her" game. He doesn't like this game much, but hello it's 2 days before her due date and he throws the "i've always kind of thought that wasn't the name for her" card! So i guess we will just have to see this baby face to face and pray the Lord gives us her name when we meet her. I mean her name is already hanging on the wall and i have things monogrammed! Most of you know how indecisive I can be...can you imagine me holding my baby and trying to decide between names like the way i debate over ordering a cheeseburger or a salad at a restaurant? oh this is totally throwing me for a loop. We have three names as of now that we will be picking from. Let's hope we go with the one that is beautifully displayed above her crib :)

Hallie update

Just wanted to give a Hallie update to all of you out there to keep you posted and also to ask for prayers for her as her sweet little body endures all of this. I will try to make it short...Hallie has started chemotherapy treatment, not for cancer, but for lupus or a lupus like syndrome they think she might have. Some tests have revealed that there are certain markers in her immune system that are upregulated and inflamed, which is causing her to have these daily fevers, fatigue, and now pain in the evenings. So the doctors believe that there is an auto-immune process going on in Hallie that was contributing to the strokes. Her blood had already tested positive for having some clotting tendencies, so this is a secondary factor that could be the root cause of these strokes, they think the auto immune response is causing inflammation in her blood vessels making the blood have even more trouble getting through. So Praise God for some answers. I don't like scary answers, but we had been seeking Him hard for an answer and a solution for little miss Hallie, so we sought the Lord and at this time believe the treatments to be that solution for her. She has had 4 strokes in her 4 short years, and that's just 4 too many for any kiddo to have. Thankfully, she has recovered what the strokes have tried to take from her. The most recent stroke was a smaller one that affected the muscles of her face, this happened 4 short weeks ago. I think most of you all knew about the other ones. So for now we are on the chemotherapy path of trying to suppress Hallie's immune system enough so that it will stop attacking itself and creating inflammation. She is such a trooper and is handling all this heroically. She is feeling fine most parts of the day. The evenings are harder on her, but she still trys to be trooper. We will be doing these treatments for 3 to 6 months and then go from there. I am a firm believer in the power of prayer, so all you believers out there are welcome to join me in praying for a complete healing for her and for the enemy to keep his hands off of her! Thanks friends! Well, i said i would try to make it short. On a different note, I got my moby wrap in the mail today and can't wait to put our new little bundle of joy in it when she arrives. Baby H is going to be joyful distraction for our whole family, especially Hallie. The girls keep asking when she is coming and I keep reassurring them "soon" because mama's tummy can't get any bigger! Bye friends :)

I'm going to try....

With much encouragement from my husband, I have decided to start a blog. Hence, the word start. We'll see if I follow through with it (hehe). But hopefully I will. Just thought it'd be a good way to keep friends and family updated on our busy lives and to keep everyone updated with Hallie's medical stuff and so on. So here's to blogging!
I'll start with a quick update of our life right now...Adam and I are parents to two precious little girls, Hallie(4) and Harper(almost 3) and baby girl #3 is expected to arrive any time now, actual due date is March 7th. So I'm doing the whole shave your legs every night thing and playing out every possible scenario in my head of the dramatic "rush to the hospital" scene! Needless to say, I'm in full anticipation mode and loving every minute of it. I am a stay at home mom and feel happily overwhelmed with the family the Lord has given me. I am so grateful to Him for allowing me to walk this path as a mother. Lately as we sit around in the evenings and I watch Hallie and Harper "perform" songs, dances or what not for us, I have these "hallmarky" feelings of love i can barely contain. And now knowing we are about to be blessed with a third little one, just blows me away. I can't wait to see the personality she has and how she will fit in with Hallie and Harper. Hallie and Harper are so different, it's going to be fun to see how this one turns out. So I will keep you guys posted on the arrival of baby #3. Keep us in your prayers!