Homecoming...

                                                                    Check me out...

                                  To God be the glory, our family was reunited on Wednesday!!!

There is no question that our reunion was full of joy, but I have to say the enemy was busy launching attacks on us at every turn.  The morning started out with some minor inconveniences, such as running late getting out of the house to get Andrew to school and then to the hospital (things like something spilling on the shirt that your child is suppose to wear to school the next day, so having to treat a stain and start laundry at the last minute, etc), then the waiting game at the hospital before being discharged.  After the Dr's rounded on Grace and confirmed that we would be going home, the Fellow said that she was going to put in the discharge orders as soon as she was done rounding (which would have had us out of the hospital by noon at the latest, however she forgot to put in the necessary orders, so after having our nurse track her down (because we explained to her that we needed to be out of there by 1:15 pm to be able to pick our son up from school on time) she FINALLY put in the order and we were discharged at about 1:20 pm, still enough time to get everything downstairs and loaded into the car in enough time to get Andrew from school, so that we could surprise him with Grace in the car.  David went to pull the car up to save time, he was parked at the front of the hospital waiting for Grace and I (and a nurse that pushed a cart full of our stuff ) to come down and jump in the car, so that we could fulfill my beautiful vision of a sweet car ride to Andrew's school (and on the way, David and I could talk about all that we were going to do as a family when we got home, while praising the Lord all along the way for His goodness).  So, we quickly loaded the car up, said goodbye to the nurse, David jumped in the back so that he could sit next to Grace on the drive, I jumped in the driver seat and put the car into drive, when I noticed that the wheel wouldn't move and neither would the car for that matter....  wait for it, wait for it.....

Yep, we were OUT OF GAS!!! :-(

You see, the car said low fuel, so we planned to put just enough gas in the car to get home on our way to pick up Andrew.  What we didn't think about was that the place that David parked while he waited for us to come down was on a pretty steep incline, so the little gas that was there was sent to the front of  the tank causing the car to think that it was completely out of gas!  As you can imagine, my heart was broken that my vision of surprising Andrew at school was shattered, so I called my Mother in love in tears and had to ask her to go pick Andrew up for us.  Next, Superman, I mean David, sprinted about a mile to a gas station to buy a gas can, fill it, and sprinted back (which some how only took him about 20 minutes).  Meanwhile, Grace and I went to sit in the lobby of the hospital (so that we didn't roast outside) and I just sat there crying.  What happened next was just another one of those hugs from God reminding me that He is there, He see's, and that He has it all under control.  A security guard walked over to me and said, "Oh no, you're crying.  Are you alright?"  He proceeded to say "Jesus loves you and so do we, so please trust that God is in control and that everything will be ok!"  It wasn't long after that and David had returned with gas, put it in the car, and we were off.  Since I was still married to the idea of surprising Andrew we ended up putting Grace on our doorstep (in her carseat of course :-), while David and I hid and rang the doorbell.  When Andrew opened the door, he just saw Grace sitting there as he exclaimed "Baby Gracie!!!" It was even sweeter than I had originally pictured.  Next, we met Abigail at the bus stop with Grace in our arms and she was equally elated.  Since then, we have been enjoying time as a family while trying to keep Grace safe from being loved to death by her adoring big sister and brother :-).

The rest of the night did entail some frustration as we ran around trying to get Grace's medication filled (which one of them has to be compounded, so you have to take it to a special pharmacy), trying to find sterile water because that is what we have to use to prepare her bottles.  Who would have thought that almost nowhere sells sterile water and the few places that do require a prescription for it and it is pretty expensive for the quantity that we need?  We decided to boil the water to sterilize it instead, so coming up with a system on how to stay ahead of the need is what we spent time working out, but I'm happy to report that by God's grace, with a lot of prayer and with a Mother in love that is always willing to help strategize and make things happen, we survived and enjoyed a day that the enemy tried to squander.  God always wins :-)

Side note...  One of my (many) silly fears when we founds out that Grace has "up's" is that she wouldn't look like the rest of our family, but since the moment we met her, we can't get over how much she looks like Abigail.  In fact, the older Grace gets, the more she looks like her big sister.  These pictures don't do a very good job of showing the resemblance, but it's the best I could do in a hurry...  you get the idea though, right?

I'm so honored and grateful that God chose David and I to be Grace's Mommy and Daddy (and of course Abby and Andrew's too).  Grace is a gift from God that I didn't even know that I wanted and needed so badly...