To make some room for Javan and Cosette to share a room, we thought it would be a good idea to build a loft in thier room. The room is perfect for a loft because it has a super high vaulted ceiling which gives room for it. We're pretty luck to have a guy in our life that is talented enough to build such a nice loft!!


Work in progress...

He added 4 lights underneath the loft and 2 plugs for Javan to plug in a light and clock (or whatever he wants)

The finished product. Javan LOVES IT!

Watching daddy and Javan wrestle. The view is much better from the bumbo!

Cosette Grace's Birth Story

I will never forget the day that I found out I was pregnant with Cosette. It was March 19th.  I woke up before  Javan and Lance to have some time just for me and God. The verse for that day in my Beth Moore study was:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeremiah 1:5

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born, I consecrated you…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later I took my first positive pregnancy test. I thought it was so cool that God gave me that verse earlier that morning. I had no idea that it was more than just a fun way to hear God's voice.

I had no idea the road that lay ahead.

Diabetes was the first obstacle. 

My blood sugars were dangerously high during the first trimester - the most crucial time for a baby's development. There was a good chance my baby would be born with damage to the brain, heart, spinal cord, missing limbs or even miscarriage. 

I received prayer several times on behalf of my baby

and each time God spoke Jeremiah 1:5 to me.

With God's help and a lot of research, I was able to overcome diabetes and maintain my blood sugars without medication... However I chose to forego my dream of having the baby at home since I was now considered high risk - a heart breaking decision :-(

The midwife couldn't find a heartbeat so we decided to do an ultrasound.

They couldn't find a baby. I was told that I was not pregnant.

While I waited for the bloodwork to determine whether I was actually pregnant (even though I KNEW I was) the Lord continued to reassure me. This time through a dream.

~ I was in a room of doctors doing an ultrasound. In the ultrasound the baby was DANCING. It was a little girl with dark curly hair and dark eyes. She was perfectly healthy dancing and dancing and the doctors were all scratching their head saying "She shouldn't be doing that!"~

The Lord was not only reassuring me that our baby girl is going to be absolutely fine but looking back now it was foretelling that she may baffle a few doctors along the way too :-)

Our 20 week ultrasound confirmed that my dream was right and it was a girl AND she was perfectly healthy! Praise God!!

The next 10 weeks were pretty awesome. I had the diabetes under control (beside a few emotional breakdowns because I couldn't eat bread or icecream or fruit...ok maybe a little more than a FEW emotional breakdowns.. but hey I made it) and I was able to do a lot of traveling. Cosette got to go to Puerto Rico AND Alaska.

At the 30 weeks the doctor did an ultrasound to check that the baby was not getting too big (a common "side effect" of diabetics). We saw a perfect 4lb baby that measured exactly what she should have for that gestational age....

They also found fluid on her brain.

I was told it could be something severe like down syndrome or one of the other Trisomy chromosomal diseases (some which have a very very low survival rate). Or it could be nothing at all.

Despite the doctor's efforts to fill my mind with "too much info" and scare the daylights out of me...

God gave me peace that passes all understanding. 

Each time I would get prayer of healing for our little Cosette.

The Lord would remind me that he has it under control. 

He told one woman who was praying for me

"I love your baby girl more than you could EVER love her. Trust me, I have it under control."

and time and time again... the Lord would tell each person who prayed for me Jeremiah 1:5

Cosette was also breech. I tried every trick in the book that I could think of to turn her but.. she didn't want to turn. We could have had the doctor try to manually turn her from the outside - an "external version" but we decided that there must be a reason she was that way  - God has it under control.

And so the last trimester was full of the back and forth of worry countered by God's reassurance... it was a LOOOONG  10 weeks. Since I wasn't able to have a home birth, my plan was to labor at home and then deliver her at the hospital. I kept saying that my worst fear would be that my water would break in the doctor's office because then they wouldn't let me labor at home...

My mom thought that was the silliest thing for me to keep saying that. She kept thinking "why in the world would you think your water would break at the doctor's office of all places..."

Maybe I talked about it so much and convinced my body to make it come true or maybe God told me in a dream and that's why I kept thinking it or maybe it was just coincidence but I was sitting on the table at the doctor's office waiting for him to come in to check me when...

"POP" - my water broke!!

I tried hard to hold back my tears as I sent Lance a text to have him come to the hospital. No home birth for me.. no laboring at home... nope... i'm having this baby in the hospital from the beginning.

Its hard to explain why it was such a huge hearts desire to be at home. Its not that I think you can't have a perfectly healthy birthing experience in a hospital. I did it twice now.

Its just the "experience" of delivering my baby at home, in a calm, peaceful environment, without a crew of nurses coming in and out.. trying to prick you and your baby with needles that you have to fight to deny...

and having Cosette in the hospital was particularly challenging since she was "high risk". I often sit and think of all of the things I "should" have done differently so I didn't have to experience what I experienced...and had her at home. At the end of the day I can't blame anyone but God and, well, he took care of her from Day 1 so I suppose its not my place to question him. There was only one way I was going to labor in the hospital....it was if my water broke in the doctor's office... and that is EXACTLY what happened.

They put me in a wheel chair and we went right over to the hospital (the office is connected to the hospital).

I tried to hide my tears as I cried the whole way. The nurse must have thought i was crazy.. why is this girl crying.. she's about to have a baby! I told her it was because I was in shock. haha.

They got me settled in the hospital room and set up the monitor to track my contractions. They started to put an IV in me and I yelled "WHAT are you doing?!!?" haha. I guess my patience was a little short. I forget what her reasoning for me "needing" an IV but I quickly denied that... along with any other "chemicals" that they planned on putting in my or my babies body.

And so.. between contractions.. I had to sign a stack of paperwork stating I am denying EVERYTHING.

After that.. they dimmed the lights and left me alone with Amber (my midwife) and Lance. This was the best part of the entire labor (ironic, huh, since its technically the most painful). With each contraction Lance and Amber helped me breath through them. They rubbed my back and talked me through each step. We tried several different positions but I found kneeling backwards on the bed was most comfortable.

Of course the contractions were painful - but the room was quiet and peaceful. Lance said that when I had first told him I wanted to deliver the baby naturally he imagined the classic hollywood portrayal of a women screaming in agony, blurting out obscenities and threatening to never have a baby again... instead it was nearly silent in the room as I quietly worked through the contractions with my two best coaches at my side.

And then I felt the urge to push...

Amber went and told the nurse. And that was when things got a little crazy. The room was suddenly filled with  nurses and hospital staff and the head nurse was shocked to see how far along I had progressed so quickly. They called the doctor but he wasn't there at the time - so I had to wait until he got there. 

But, my body didn't want to wait. Cosette was ready to come out!!

In the meantime, the head nurse was not so happy that I refused the IV and made me have the needle put in my hand (even though they never ended up using it anyway). All the while, she is screaming at me telling me NOT TO PUSH because the baby is breach and the doctor NEEDS to be there. 

I can not begin to explain how impossible it is to NOT push when your body is telling you to - so I was screaming back at her telling her I NEED TO PUSH - WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?!?!?

With her fingers the nurse proceeded to "hold the baby in" and actually tried pushing her back in! Amber kept swatting at the nurse to get her to STOP. 

In what felt like an eternity.. the doctor arrived and made me move out of my comfy backwards position to my back and finally I was able to push. 

I was concentrating on pushing and never thought to look. Amber said "Merrie, look at your baby" and I SCREAMED with delight as I saw her body coming out of me. Lance said it was an amazing moment that gave him chills. 

One last push and out came Cosette's little head at 7:33pm on December 7th.
6lb 14oz 19in
(they actually told me she was 20 in but I went to
2 different ped's the next week and both measured her at 19in.)

Just 4 hours after my water broke.
Our little genius baby was crying "maaa maaa"
The nurses said "Wow, she's saying her first words right out of the womb" haha

I wanted her to come to me right after birth and I wanted them to wait to cut the umbilical cord but they didn't do either of those things (by the way, the cord was pretty short and wrapped around her shoulder... most likely the reason she was breech). Instead they cut the cord and cleaned her up and THEN nitpicked at every little thing about her. I don't think this is normal protocol but because she had fluid on her brain they wanted to be sure she didn't have downs syndrome.

When I first met Cosette the doctor who brought her to me said 

"there are a few things you should know about your baby..." 

and proceeded to point out any thing that was different from "normal" in their book.

She continued "...and so these are all signs of downs syndrome". 

At the moment I DIDN'T CARE WHETHER SHE WAS BORN WITH 3 EYES 

she was MY BABY and absolutely PERFECT TO ME. 

When I finally got to hold her it was love at first sight.

They wanted us to stay an extra day and have an inpatient MRI but we were so OVER the hospital and made them discharge us early.  We did an MRI on her brain the next morning.

Over the past month, I learned that she does NOT have downs syndrome and all of the little things that pointed out have gone away (I'm glad it was so important they couldn't have waited until after I met her to tell me about it). She has excellent reflexes and she is extremely alert.

She is absolutely perfect. She is the most easy going, mellow baby. She nurses well and often gives me 5 hours of sleep at night. She likes to bite her bottom lip - Lance said she was actually biting her bottom lip when she was delivered. She was born tongue tied so we had that taken care of the next week. She likes to hold her hands at her chest right under her chin. She has a little bit of dark hair on her head and her eyes are so dark you can barely tell what color they are. When she is going to sleep or waking up she usually only open/closes one eye at a time. We say she likes to give the "one eye" or the "pirate stare". :-)

She has the most adorable little smile that makes me melt.

She. is. perfect.

She was born on a Wednesday and the following Sunday was Javan's pagent at school. I could NOT miss that so we loaded her up and went to church... 4 days old.

During the worship I felt the Holy Spirit come over me and the Lord said to me:
"See Merrie, I TOLD you everything was going to just fine."

As a nursing, sleep deprived, hormonal mother you better believe I CRIED tears of joy and RELIEF when I heard those words from the Lord. It was the most amazing moment to be reminded that all of those times the Lord reminded me that he had it under control - HE WASN'T LYING... He really did take care of our little girl and I am so glad that I trusted Him. 

Our darling little "Coco"

After a month of having my mom come out and help with the baby, a busy (but nice) Christmas, and 20 hour drive to PA and back...we are finally working our way towards "normal" this week since I will be heading back to work next week.

Here are some of the highlights:

Mom flew out the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. We were sure I would have had the baby by then.. but no... Cosette decided she needed a little more time in that warm cozy womb. :-) 

In the meantime, we decided to keep

busy with Mom-Mom.

Of course, Cosette was born on December 7th.
My next post will be her birth story and highlights about her. 

Christmas was a whirlwind. Traveling from grandparents to parents to Aunt's and Uncle's houses was pretty exhausting but it was so much fun to show off our little Christmas blessing. 

The Monday after Christmas we cleaned up the house, took down the Christmas decorations and packed up the car for our road trip. At 3pm we headed out on our journey to PA.

It should have taken about 16 hours to get to our first stop at MY Mom-mom and Pop-pop's in Gerry NY. Because of a lot of rain - a tiny bit of snow and a huge car accident that delayed us about several hours (we ended up taking an hour or 2 nap in the car instead of sitting in traffic)  we finally arrived around noon on the 27th.

Meeting her great Mom-mom for the first time. 

Here Cosette is meeting her great Pop-pop for the first time. 

The next day we continued our journey to Javan and Cosette's Mom-mom and Pop-pop's house. There was a little bit of snow in Gerry NY but Lance is awesome and we made it through without a problem.

We had some Christmas at my parents house and Lance and JR did a little snowboarding. 

The kiddo's all loved Cosette, especially Ryan - he was particularly interested in having the baby around. I was surprised how much 4 little boys could love a little baby like that! 

Pop-pop even got the chance to hold her. one time. when Mom-mom wasn't around ;-)

Then we continued out journey down to Uncle JR and Aunt Kim's house. Lance and JR did a little more snowboarding while Kim and I and the kiddo's went to the pool!

After that we spent the next week relaxing with family and visiting friends. We left on Friday at about 11am and arrived in Kansas City in the morning on Saturday. I forget now what time it was .. I think about 5am or so...Anyway we spent the entire day on Saturday taking turns sleeping and unpacking. It was worth it to drive through and be able to sleep in our own beds. We had great weather and I have a great husband who rocks when it comes to driving :-)

I keep getting asked the BIG question... so...do you have diabetes or not??

For the most part I think my  blood glucose numbers were looking pretty good but still there have been a couple of times where they were a little high... I just didn't have any idea. I did know that it was much BETTER than before.

Welp, I decided to give myself a blood glucose tolerance test and find out. 

I drank 75g of carbs (20oz of juice - by the way, for someone who is used to NO sugar at all... that was a LOT for my tummy to handle on an empty stomach.). 

You fail the test if 1 hour later your number is over 200 and 2 hours later your number is over 140.

I tested at 1 hour and it was 206 - okay... I guess that means I fail. Ho hum.

10 min later I tested again.... 140! Sweet!!

2 hours later I tested again .....drum roll please....

102!!!

So, i guess that means that I'm definitely not type 1 (the kind that isn't producing any insulin at all) and I might be borderline type 2...so I will need to keep an eye on my carbs and my blood sugars just to be safe. 

Now, with my sister-in-law her diabetes went away for 3 months after she had her son and CAME BACK after 3 months. Its called a "honeymoon period" and I will have to keep an eye out for that. 

Praying it stays away and continuing to eat low carb/high protein because truthfully, I felt better that way anyway. :-)

Wow, so much has happened over the past few weeks - I don't even know where to start!!!

Of course, the biggest news is that Cosette Grace "Coco" was born on December 7th at 7:30pm.

She is so perfect.

The hospital experience was... well... a hospital experience. The medical staff didn't fail to attempt to add a few gray hairs and a little more unnecessary worry than they already have... but that's for another blog. The bottom line is... Cosette is a perfectly healthy 6lb 14oz beauty.

Javan is a proud big brother! (she's sporting her little sister shirt)

Javan has had several exciting things going on. Last week, well, actually I think its been 2 weeks now.. Javan started wrestling.

Wow, does he love it!

Its so fun to see Lance get excited with him too. Lance wrestled from 1st grade through high school so he is great at working with Javan. (and yes, he high school's team is the "Lancer's" haha. too funny)

Javan also had his pagent on Sunday.

He, of course, was the BEST little angel up on stage.

I've got about 18 million (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little...but not much) pictures to sort through and I'll get some good one's up here..hopefully soon!!

Saw this today and it made me laugh out loud :-)

Source: Uploaded by user via Samantha on Pinterest

we bought a new car!!

Its official. We are a minivan family :-)

It will definitely make our trip to PA a lot more comfortable!

Here's the link to the ad for it. I was going to take my own pictures and then realized.... they did all the work already, might as well utilize it while its still on the site. haha.

http://www.accumotors.com/inventory/view/3205971/2006-Chrysler-Town%20&%20Country%20LWB

Zaine

Wow, yesterday it was 72 degrees ... today I don't think it hit 50. brrr.....

Didn't stop the kiddo's from playing outside together :-)

This is Zaine and Javan

This is Zaine, Tanner, and Javan.

Tanner is a little older and his parents are divorced and spends a good amount of time with his dad. We don't see him very much, but its nice for them when he comes out to play :-)

Well, things around here have been BUSY (really great) but  so busy I haven't had a chance to write any updates. So here's life in the Ferris house in a nutshell...

Little baby Ferris has yet to make her debut (obviously) and she's still breech. I have done every trick in the book that you could think of to turn her but she doesn't want to budge. Our doctor offered to do an "external version" where they manually turn her and has a very high success rate.  Sounded great and we were totally gung ho for it  at first until we heard..

They hook you up to monitors, inject a medicine that stops your contractions, and it can be so excruciatingly painful that you may be sore for days later. Oh yeah, and there is that risk that the baby could go into distress from it and you would be immediately sent into an emergency c-section.

Lance and I decided to just pray about it and so we prayed that if it His will then he would give us BOTH peace about the version.  

I don't think that an external version is necessary a bad choice but we both did not have peace about it, so, unless she decides to turn at the last minute... we'll be having a breech birth. That aside, she's doing great!

Its that time of the year at Olson Research Group where all of our clients have to use up their budgeted money before the end of the year or they lose it... on top of co-workers using up their vacation time before they lose it on Jan 1 (therefore a lot of "covering" going on") its been BUSY for me. Last week was just crazy with me working all day and into the evening. I'm really looking forward to maternity leave!!

Lance is experiencing the same kind of busy-ness at his job. In fact - last night and tonight he has been working overtime from 2:30am - 9am!!

Javan is doing awesome, of course. He's excelling at school (as I knew he would). We just got his midterm report and got "excellent" on everything. His reading skills are amazing and we are now working on chapter books. He is also doing really well adding and subtracting in his head (or with his fingers, if necessary).

He talks about being excited to have the baby but his reasoning is that "she always gets the middle when we snuggle." oh boy! haha. I'm a little nervous about the jealousy issue, but we will overcome it like everything else.

The most exciting thing for Javan right now is that there is a new neighbor in our neighborhood. His name is Zaine and he is in first grade. These two were best friends from the minute they met. Every day this week Zaine comes over after school and rings our doorbell and off they go to play in their "fort", (a log in a few bushes) riding bikes, cowboys and indians etc... I've met his mother and she is very sweet - I haven't met his dad yet since he works a lot. We are excited because Zaine is going to come to church with us tomorrow and it will be a great opportunity for Javan to share Jesus with his new friend. The mom wasn't quite ready to go to church. She said "When my husband isn't working so much we will go together." that's ok with me. I have begun praying for opportunities to share Jesus with our new friends and neighbors.

I will post a pic tomorrow of Javan with his new buddy. If you think of it, please pray for their friendship. I know he is young but we all know that "you are who you hang out with" and since we don't know where they are spiritually - it does cause some anxiety for me. I know I can't shelter my baby forever so I've been praying  over him every night this week specifically that The Lord would give Javan discernment between right and wrong and be a good influence to Zaine and also Lance and me insight to know if there is something that needs to be addressed. :-)

This afternoon we decided to buy last minute tickets to a production of Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Our midwife's children were in it. It was great and so fun to see Javan get into it :-) He kept on reminding himself "those are real people all dressed up" or "those swords aren't real" or whatever...its always less scary when you can see that it is just people in costumes as opposed to how realistic Hollywood movies appear. One of the witches helpers had a mask on that looked like he had only one eye and this totally baffled Javan. He kept on asking where are that guy's eye's????? How did they make it look like that?? It was cute and fun and of course as soon as we left he said "is it too late to go play with Zaine?" haha.

So, he did.

And when it got dark he watched some of a movie at their house and had dinner with them... and the best part was that afterwards he just had to run home (no picking him up or driving anywhere involved... sweet!)

I can't believe its almost time to meet our newest little family member. We are sooo excited!

I am halfway through my 37th week....we had a doctors appt today and everything looks happy and healthy, so I can't complain about a little backache and braxton hicks :-)

I wish I could figure out how to rotate my pictures on this crazy blog!! When I look at the actual picture in the file folder its not sideways...grr...well, anyway, this is me at 36 weeks. If you would like to see the picture without having to turn your head, you can just look at facebook. haha.

Happy Birthday Lance!!

Yesterday was Lance's birthday. I got him a watch for his birthday but it wasn't really a surprise so Javan and I made up a scavenger hunt for him to find it. haha. Here's what the watch looks like:

I also made him snickerdoodles. His favorite kind of cookie. Its kind of a huge deal not only because its his favorite cookie but because its basically just made of sugar and flour...2 things I don't eat... therefore 2 things he doesn't get very often. :-)

THEN we went out for icecream.

All in all I think he had a pretty good day and Javan was pretty delighted to have some cookies and icecream too...I made myself a lentil pie and it was pretty delish too (even though it sounds kind of gross from the name haha)...

Let the swelling begin

You may all still have nightmares of my  elephant angles when I was pregnant with Javan.

 Ah yes, I remember all too well the way my leg turned into my foot without a single curve....

I wrote it in my pregnancy calendar with Javan. It was toward the beginning of my 33rd week.

You may not believe me, but I seriously did track this excessive swelling from last time and was ECSTATIC when the 33rd week came and went without any swelling - phew... a sigh of relieve that I won't be plagued with the horrendous cankles.

Well, I went to my appt today. I am 2 days shy of 35 weeks. My doctor says to me "looks like you have a little swelling..."

You better believe I checked out those ankles as soon as I got home in hopes that maybe it was an oversight on the md's part...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! They're HERE!! The Dinosaur ankles have made their debut.

And so it begins.

They WILL get bigger.

 Of this, I am sure.

They will be shocking, I promise.

I'll wait until they look like something from Ripley's believe it or not before I share a pic with you. (I know you're dying to see them).

Wonder if this says something about when she is coming... let's see... Javan was born at 36 weeks and 7 days  and the swelling started at 33 weeks and 3 days....I am 35 weeks and 5 days so that makes her "due date" 38 weeks and 4 days (you better double check my math... its not my strong point).

If I'm going to have to deal with this swelling then I'd like to opt for sooner.... (like I actually have a choice)

Halloween

Another fun Halloween!!

Javan had a little Halloween party at his school. This is his class:

I made the juice boxes for his class ;-)

then we took Javan out to Legacy Church's halloween festival. Javan had fun. Here are some more pirate pics...I couldn't figure out how to rotate them so you'll have to turn your head. haha!

And then we went trick or treating... Lance enjoyed the decorated house:

pumpkin carving

Finally time for some good old pumpkin carving :-) Javan thought it was a lot of fun and of course SUPER cool to light them. :-)

Only 6 more weeks until her due date... yeek!!! so excited :-)

Well, the weeks are getting closer to when we get to meet our little girl and I am so excited to meet her (and to be done with this crazy pregnancy!! haha.

Sunday Lance's sister's threw a baby shower for me and it was a nice time. I've got lots of cute little girl clothes and hats and headbands and coats to dress her up in.

Today we had another ultrasound. The baby is in the exact same position as she was in the last ultrasound. Breech. So, She's gotta figure out how to turn herself around in the next few weeks.

Also, the fluid on her brain is still there. It is the same size though - which is the very good news. And it hasn't grown as she has grown so if you think of it proportionately...its actually smaller. The doctor isn't very worried since she is measuring perfect and proportionately. Her head isn't huge or anything.

Since I'm diabetic he would like me to do non-stress tests 2x a week. boo. They think that I just have all of this free-time to sit around with a heartrate monitor strapped to me. blah.

They want to do another ultrasound in 3 weeks to check again to see if the fluid has gotten any bigger. Not sure if we are going to be keeping that appointment....

Well the bad news is we needed to buy a new water heater.

But the great news is - WHAT A COOL BOX! True entertainment for hours :-)