A little of this and a lot of that...

So, Ava was baptized on the first Sunday of March. It was chaotic, But I wouldn't have traded the day for the world. We were so blessed to have Brian, Betsy and the boys stay with us for the weekend which Tyler just loved! He still wakes up in the morning asking "Where's Mac?" Gotta love that boy!

The Baptism was nice, but I was a little saddened by the fact that there were 4 other baptisms that morning. Yes, you read that right. 5 baptisms total. It just felt a little impersonal, and if I had known this before, we easily would have waited another month or so. The positive is she is baptized, and our promises were made. That is what counts.

I haven't really shared my feelings and experiences of when I initially found out about Ava. It was hard. The hardest thing I have ever dealt with to date. When someone tells you that your daughter has fluid on her brain and all you see is fluid in the ultrasound room (no brain), it is overwhelming. I am not sure I have cried that hard before. I had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of hydrocephalus and what the outcome for our little girl was going to be. So, I went home that night and Googled her diagnosis. Bad move. I was truly balling my eyes out at this point. I closed the computer and decided no more of that. This was also the night that Tyler fell out of his bed. Weird, huh? He had been in his big boy bed for months now, and he picked that night to roll right out. I crawled in bed with him, and softly cried myself to sleep while oddly feeling secure in the warmth of my two year old son.

I woke up the next morning still in tears and tried to hold myself together. After a day or so of just pure confusion and pain, I received a card from some very special people. After reading that card, I realized that no matter how many tears I cried, no matter how many documents I read on possible scenerios for Ava, no matter what, Ava's fate was in God's hands. I had to now rely on my faith. This is something I had never really done before, but I just knew that this was the way I was going to get through it. So, that day after praying hard, I took a deep breath and said that I have to be strong and take what is given. After that, what few tears came every now and then were not so big and not so painful. And anytime I started to get upset, I went back, read that card, and I took a deep breath. It it His will, and it is out of my hands. I just had to keep remembering that.

I still have this card that was given to me. My goal is to have someone copy the front onto a canvas and hang above Ava's crib. These words, very simple might I add, stopped me in my tracks and brought me to a place that I had not yet experienced.