Partnership

Two nights ago I was on an adoptive Momma's Facebook page, looking for a video she had posted earlier.  In the process of looking for the video, I found her husband's Mother's Day Facebook tribute.  In it, he lovingly sang her praises for partnering in raising their children who he called an "amalgamation of Rain Man, Nell, and the Boy in the Plastic Bubble."  See, these two have learned the key to surviving through the storms of life - partnership and laughter.

I immediately copied and pasted the message and emailed it to the Good Doctor.  He responded with this message:

Dear Cindy Joy King, or Laura Sybil, or whoever you are, even though you may have dragged me into this thing a few years ago kicking and screaming, you have influenced my life more than you will ever know.  You are an amazing Proverbs 31 mom...go ahead and look it up...and through it all you have not only survived, but thrived.  AND on top of that, you have willingly (or not so willingly) laid down your life for the least of these.  As Jean Valjean said, "To love another person is to see the face of God."  I love you!  Take that for your blog!

Challenge accepted.

I know that there are singles who parent alone and there are singles who adopt.  They have my full praise because I could not do it.  God knew that to raise our family we would need a good dose of reality, level-headedness, and unconditional love mixed in with my stubbornness, organization, and humor.  And as this video so clearly states, I suppose one of us had to be the brake every time I wanted to press on the accelerator.

So even though it's not Father's Day yet and even though the Good Doctor had the audacity to go out to eat to celebrate Mother's Day without me, I'm so thankful we're walking this road together.  God knew what he was doing when he took this very shy girl from PA and sent her 10 hours away to college.  He knew what he was doing when he gave you that early morning class first semester so you'd meet me in the dining hall.  I can still remember sitting in your dorm room, telling you that I planned to adopt 20 special needs children.  I don't know why you didn't run when you had the chance.  Probably the same reason that I didn't quit when you said no way, you weren't adopting any children.  And you still asked me to marry you after all that.  Maybe you thought I'd get over it.   Maybe you didn't quite understand how stubborn I could be?

But here we are.  Right where we are supposed to be.  And we don't look a day older, do we?  Well, that depends.  The Good Doctor summed it up this way:

I'm crazy in love with this woman.  She's the accelerator, I am the brake.  If we were both accelerators we would crash, and if we were both brakes, we would never get anywhere.  So we work together as a team, even though we are in two different states for now, and even though our children are in two different states right now.  We're family!

And there's still plenty of time to get to 20 kids.  Right, dear?

Victor's day was split in two yesterday.  In the morning he had quite a number of desats, some of which needed quite a bit of prodding and stimulation to remind him to breathe again.  We did some skin-to-skin from 1 to 2, a whole hour!  He did so well.  He spent the first half of our time trying to look up at me again and then settled in quite relaxed.  But not too relaxed.  We have to remember to breathe!  While I was out for lunch, the pressure on his high flow nasal cannula was weaned from 6 to 5.5.  Baby steps of progress.  Always Victor-sized baby steps.

Praise God for a clear head ultrasound!  No sign of bleeding!

He did lose another 1/2 ounce yesterday.  Pray that from now on it's only packing on the pounds (gaining "wate" as Eden wrote me in an email).

Pray protection over his eyes.

Pray that he remembers to breathe!  It is NOT an option, Victor!

Pray for miracles!

All comfy and cozy.