Getting to the meaning of my daughter's upcoming wedding....

Our daughter is officially getting married in the beginning of September!

 It has been suggested that perhaps she is being selfish for not delaying the wedding considering all that is happening with our family.  I will admit that we *have* considered delaying.  However, Lauren prayed about it and felt strongly that we should continue forward.  I am so proud of her and I really don't care about being overwhelmed by it all....I will try to explain why....

I have been more emotional lately and it feels significant to me because I can literally go *years* without a tear....

I barely got misty at my wedding.....

and I have never cried at any of my children's births....I just get right to caring for them, studying them, and falling in love with them.

Well, that is not entirely true.  I did cry at my stillborn daughter's birth.

My husband has cried each and every time we have had a new baby, he cried at our wedding, and he is easily moved by a touching spiritual story.

So, I guess I have even felt that I wasn't showing enough emotion in the past.  The emotion is definitely there but I work pretty hard to keep it well beneath the surface.

But, this last year has created a very different person in me.  I re-posted the pictures of our little Kate Margaret's hand because I think it is important to understand where I am mentally right now....

The loss of our daughter was rare and unexplained.  It came out of the blue sky...literally.  I was a happy mother, nearly seven months pregnant one moment....and then I went to bed like any other day of any other pregnancy.

At 4am, I woke up with a horrific headache unlike anything I had ever had before.  Despite going to the ER, no cause for the headache was determined and no one checked on our baby.  Two days later, amidst my continuing and searing headache, our little one passed away in utero.

That moment forever changed something inside of me.  Things that only happen to other people, had happened to us.  Something that was rare that is discussed in insignificant statistics, had happened to us.

Words like "unlikely", "unusual", or "rare" now suggested risk to me rather than something benign as it used to.

So Robertson's recent illness of Guillain-Barre likely ignited more worry and fear than it would have gotten out of my former self that would have said "oh, everything will be just fine...it always is"  My brain rapidly registers that "everything isn't always fine....."

Don't get me wrong, I know that ultimately when we are with God and looking back on our lives, I do believe that we will understand, with much more clarity, the trials that we have been through.  But, in the moment, I know how it feels when your mind says, "everything is NOT okay!"

So, I will bring this to the present day....we were just told that Robertson's test for the Miller Fisher variant of Guillain-Barre was very strongly positive.

 The test just came back a few days ago and I will describe the results in the best of my, non-medical background, kind of way.

A normal test result would be 100 or lower.  Robertson's test result was 12,000!!!  The neurologist stated that it showed the aggressive nature of his illness and the rapid onset.  It confirmed in my mind that if he had not been diagnosed as quickly as he was (if not for the healing blessing, the prayers of so many, and the expertise of the neurologist) our little boy would have quickly been on life support....or worse.

When we were at the opthamologist's office and we discussed the illness and the fact that he still has double vision, I mentioned that his voice had sounded high like he was sucking helium out of a balloon.  He nodded and said that it made sense as the Miller Fisher variant works on the face/head first and it is a progressive paralysis.  He stated very simply..."his vocal cords were becoming paralyzed."

Those two new pieces of knowledge...the absolute verification of having the Miller-Fisher variant of GBS and what had been so rapidly happening to his body (including his vocal cords) *really* got to me.

Robertson and I walked over to Burger King after the appointment....he had the dark glasses on from having his eyes dilated and with one look at him......it absolutely took everything in me to choke back the tears.

I made the grave mistake recently to research a bit more on Guillain-Barre and found a case where a young man did experience a recurrence of symptoms nine months after his first incident (very rare...but then again, it all is!).  It was mentioned that the first incident was well treated by IVIG but it failed to work at all for the second incident.  The young man was put on life support as it progressed and then he lost his life.

Needless to say, I am back to not researching and just watching Robertson carefully and praying.

So, how do I pull this around to marriage?

Not only do I not think that Lauren is being selfish, I firmly believe that the wedding is divinely inspired.  It is *exactly* what we need right now!  We need to celebrate, bond, and come together as a family to rejoice.  It is my plan to do whatever we can to create a wedding with tradition, meaning, and an extra measure of fun....if we don't succeed?  Well, then it will be fun -ny and we will laugh about it and still rejoice in their marriage!

Look at the picture Mary recently took in the walnut orchard next to our house!  Did I mention that we are doing the reception at our home?

Here we go with wedding planning and in just a few more weeks, the last trip for the adoption!!!!!