{"id":827,"date":"2007-03-26T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T12:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-march-26-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-03-26T08:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T12:06:00","slug":"monday-march-26-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/monday-march-26-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday March 26, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

B<\/font>irthdays are something I love, especially when they’re mine.  It doesn’t make me giddy like it did when I was eight, but I still love going to bed at night and knowing that tomorrow is my birthday!  Birthdays were a big deal in small ways when I was growing up.  It meant getting to sit in the front seat out of turn, choosing the menu for supper and using the good dishes and a special centerpiece, sometimes having friends over, and always carefully chosen gifts from all family members no matter how small.  <\/font><\/p>\n

Birthdays as an adult are a little different, and yet, so much the same.  It’s still so much fun to be celebrated as a person and to be reminded of how loved we really are.  Usually I declare a strike, or at least a partial strike on my birthday.  I want at least one day a year to do only fun things with no guilt.  This year was an exception.  I had been off doing new house things all week and dirt and mess and clutter screamed at me from every horizontal surface in the house.  I knew sitting down and reading a magazine wasn’t going to be any fun.  I decided to clean the house and do the laundry a day early then take a day off Friday to do something for myself (IF I could keep myself away from the house with David Lee working there, too).  It was the best decision I’ve made all month.<\/p>\n

My sister, Beth, who is expecting twins, had her 24 week diagnostic ultrasound bumped up to 19 weeks because they were planning to go to FL for several weeks (work-related).  It just so happened that the ultrasound got scheduled on my birthday and, in true family form, she promised to call me first with news of the babies gender.  By 1:00 I had that same feeling in my stomach I used to get when we were first dating and I was expecting David Lee to call.  I could hardly wait.  Finally she called.  But it was a rushed phone call with the bare facts.  Identical twins …. girls (OUR DREAM COME TRUE)….something’s wrong … the babies are different measurements…..need to go back as soon as we eat lunch ….. gotta go.  I didn’t realize how serious it was until later that afternoon.  Her babies have been diagnosed with twin twin transfusion syndrome.  Basically what that means is that baby A is acting as a donor baby (they’re calling her Hannah for now) to baby B the recipient baby (whom they’re calling Sarah for now).  Inside the placenta, one of Hannah’s arteries is connected to one of Sarah’s veins which means Hannah accidentally pumps blood to Sarah.  This causes Hannah to become anemic and not have enough blood volume so she shuts down blood supply to her organs, in particular her kidneys.  That means she stops urinating and so there is almost no fluid in her sac.  Meanwhile, Sarah is getting way too much blood which overworks her heart and in an effort to get rid of it, she urinates on high and makes way too much fluid.  If left untreated, Hannah will die of anemia and lack of blood to her organs and Sarah will die of heart failure.  Treatment options are limited both in what they can do and in the success rate.  Most typically, they do amniocentesis to remove fluid from Sarah’s sac to help equalize things and to keep her membranes from rupturing.  Beth will see a specialist Wednesday to determine treatment plan for her and to monitor progress.  She’s at 19 weeks gestation right now which is still way too early for the babies to survive outside the womb.  We’re praying for a miracle and would love for you to support Kelvin and Beth and their babies with prayer as well.  It is so good to remember that God created these babies and He loves them even more than we do.  And while we cry and feel out of control, He is Sovreign.  <\/p>\n

It was so good for me to be able to spend the day with Beth on Friday.  We had a beautiful day taking a walk, reading about TTTS, talking, being quiet, scrapbooking, playing with Adam and Lawrence, and just being together.  I know everyone loves their family but this is why I love mine.  Mom and Beth were planning to come over to surprise me Friday morning.  On Thursday I was on the phone with Chris telling her how I know it’s selfish but I just wish Mom would surprise me and come over.  I knew she had a dentist appt and it was unreasonable; but I still wished for it.  She sounded a hair fuzzy; but not enough to make me ply her with questions.  In spite of the fact that we’d just been handed a terrible diagnosis and she’d been up til 3:30 in the morning with Lawrence who had a dreadful virus, Mom still came over to surprise me Friday morning.  I was just getting dressed when I heard David Lee coming up the steps.  Instead Mom appears blowing party streamers with David Lee shooting pictures right behind her!  Beth still wanted so much to come along she called to join the party via the phone right before we left to go to her house!  That night we had a birthday supper at Mom and Dad’s.  David Lee, Adam and I went to Apple Bees the night before and Adam didn’t think I’d really had a birthday because I didn’t get two candles on my cake so Mom put 29 of them on the cake!  Impulsive me blew them all out at one time and forgot to make a wish!  Hopefully that leaves all wishes open-ended to good things, right?  I just wish Christy could have been there with us.<\/p>\n

And many thanks to all of you who sent me birthday wishes, especially Chris who started the wave!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Birthdays are something I love, especially when they’re mine.  It doesn’t make me giddy like it did when I was eight, but I still love going to bed at night… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-dl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}