One of Those Days

Have you ever had one of those days....

when you're super excited because you finally found some medicine to relieve the unbearable pain you've had for three years...
  
and you can actually do things outside of your house that don't include the grocery store or a doctor's office....

and you're super stoked because you finally can work on your art more than 10 minutes at a time...

and you might even get to catch up with old friends... and gasp! Even have coffee or lunch out?

and then just when you're feeling your best... BAM!  you get a bad stomach flu and end in the hospital for a week???  Yeah, well... I had a day just like that a couple of weeks ago.    

For some reason I don't look nearly as awful as I felt... and thankfully the IV is not in the picture!

I won't go into details because, well, trust me, you don't want me to, but the low down is that I got a bad stomach virus.  My body decided to purge every last ounce of fluid I had and within 5 hours, I was so dehydrated that my body went into shock.  After 12 hours in the ER (thank you very little Lodi Memorial Hospital), I was admitted (ADMITTED!!!) to the hospital because my body was completed depleted of every essential nutrient possible.  Crazy, crazy, crazy.  I ended up having to stay for five days!  It was super awesome.  Wait, no, it was the opposite of super awesome!  In addition to feeling like I might possible die at any minute, I was pretty ticked.  Seriously, can't a girl catch a break??!?!?  I am only now (like just today) able to semi-laugh about it because it has taken me this long (two whole weeks!) to start feeling ok again. 

Another reason I can joke about it is because at the end of all of this, we got to see a beautiful, amazing, strong and healthy little heartbeat of our new sweet baby!  He or she is due at the end of April and will be born just a week or so from Zeke's second birthday.  When I was in the hospital, the doctors told us not to be optimistic that the baby was going to make it.  It was a devastating and heartbreaking week because we had to wait about 5 days before the baby would be old enough for it's heartbeat to show up on the ultrasound.  We were so sure that we were going to get bad news that we both starting bawling when we saw that heartbeat on the ultrasound.  They put us back in the (very full) waiting room in between getting our ultrasound and seeing the doctor and people kept asking us if it was our first baby because we couldn't stop crying and looking at the little ultrasound picture.  If they only knew what a miracle this baby is!  So, the end of this post starts way better than it started!  I am officially eight weeks pregnant, I am recovering from the craziest bout of the stomach flu ever, and my pain level is manageable to this point.  I know the Lord works all things for good, and I still don't know all that He's working through all of this... but I feel blessed.  Truly.  And without further ado... I'd like to introduce you to our second child, one of God's recent miracles...