Trusting

*sigh*

I just haven't wanted to write this out.  It's just so sad.  But I know that if you know, you will be faithful to pray for us this next month or so.

Matt and I had to make one of the saddest decisions of our lives thus far recently.

Background:

When I'm on the antibiotic treatment (2 weeks on, 1 week off), I am almost completely incapacitated. This is why it was such a help to have my brother and his wife and niece come, then my sister, then my mom.....all of them helping so much with the kids and the house while I literally lay on the couch in misery.

Each round of antibiotics has gotten worse for me (as far as how I feel), and the last round just really did me in and my husband and I realized I just can't do this (sick and caring for two little ones) without help.  Unfortunately we don't have the means to hire a nanny.   And with the holidays afoot, we just can't expect our church family to take on our burden of a M-F 7:30am-6pm childcare service for our family.

After lots of prayers and thinking of different scenarios, we have decided the best course of action for now is that we send our oldest two states away to be with Grandma and Grandpa until Christmas.  Thankfully she feels so comfortable with them and loves their house and Oscar the dog. And all of my siblings are nearby to come take her on play dates.  And Matt's parents are nearby to love on her too. I know she'll be happy there.

It's just she's my little girl and I know her little heart and how she misses Momma after only one night away.  It makes me sad to think about it.  But we've already planned to do Skype every night and call each day.  Even sadder is losing the constant entertainment she is and the joy she brings to our lives.  We will miss her SO much!  When we first decided upon this I cried for a couple hours I think.  And in the decision making process I cried a lot too.  But what encouraged me a lot was that Matt was very insistant that this is what would be best for our family right now.  How nice to have a strong leader as my husband!  I feel easy in trusting his judgement.

God has brought peace to our hearts about this now and we know He'll use this situation for our good.  And hopefully my body can really fight the Lyme spirochetes in a more efficient way since I will be able to rest more. (Our littlest is still little enough to sleep most of the day away and when she IS awake, she's very easy to care for).

I won't go into all our details of why we thought this was best, but just know we considered EVERYTHING else that we might be able to do to help and this truly was the best option.

It might be hard to understand -- how can someone be so sick that they can't at least "get by" during the day?  My family who was here can attest to the fact that even just walking from the couch to the bathroom took SO much out of me that I would end up tremoring on the couch afterward.  The latter end of each treatment week is the WORST for me.  Often by the time Matt gets home I need his help to walk.  I haven't really found a great way to relate how you feel when you're on this treatment.  The best I can come up with is maybe the worst flu you've ever had - weak, achy in your muscles and joints - except about 10x worse than that.  PLUS, you add horrible nausea, headaches, sensitivity to noise (there were times when my mom was here where she'd see me cringe when Georgie would come in the room to talk or when Olivia "yelled" to us to help her in a predicament.  Even the typing on a keyboard that my mom was doing for work was causing my whole body to hurt more), ZERO energy (too tired to even sit up unless I had properly rested for the occasion), balance problems, and pain...lots and lots of pain.  And that's not even all.  But it's enough to give you the idea.

It WILL be hard to care for just Baby Liv, but it will be MUCH easier to care for just her.  And I've already had some friends say they can occasionally come over and help with her or take her for a day sometimes.  So that will help us tremendously.  We'll take any help we can get.

Just goes to show you how awful this disease can be and the effects it has on the family.  Boy, we are SO thankful for supportive extended family (on both sides!!).  I know some suffering with Lyme who have family that just doesn't "believe" that you can get that sick or that Lyme is real.

So - brief timeline so you know how to pray - 

Nov. 8th - My mom is coming and graciously going to stay a whole week, helping as she did when she was here last week just so we can have an extra week with our little girl before saying goodbye for a month. Thanks, Dad for letting us have her again for a week!

Nov. 13th - They'll head down to Grandma's house together! 

Georgie is very excited about this. We don't talk about it much but we have told her in detail the plans of what is to come and she hasn't expressed any angst about it.  And she knows we'll see her again at "Christmas-time" (as much as a 3 1/2 year old can conceptually understand that timeline).

We head down to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas/moving-out-of-state (yes, the Army is moving us right around the holidays!) on Dec. 15th.  So it will be just about a month without our Georgie-girl with us.  I keep telling myself it's not that long and we have such technology today that we'll be able to "see" her every day.

-Please continue to pray for our family that God will continue to encourage us as we are often discouraged by how bad physically I am doing, and how sad we are to say goodbye to our little girl for a month.  

-And pray for Georgie that she will adapt well to being away from Mommy and Daddy and sister.  

-And pray for me that I can properly care for  Baby Olivia in the next few weeks.  

-And pray for Matt as he has the burden of working, preparing for a big move, and holding down the household chores and meals and such.  What a wonderful husband God gave me!  

-And pray that through this trial God would be glorified through our response to it and through our actions during it.