In the few short days since I last wrote we have had some ups and downs with Sarah.  Yesterday and today were pretty much a mirror image of the struggle we had last week with her wanting to come home.  Last night was hard.  After an assessment by her doctors, therapists and social workers they determined that Sarah is still nowhere near ready to come home.  They are hoping now that she may be by the end of the month but it's impossible to put a definite timeline on how fast her brain can heal enough for her to be safe away from the 24 hour care and surveillance of the hospital staff.

As you can imagine, she was not happy when I delivered this news to her.

Her aunt spent the day with her at the hospital, trying to help her through these challenging emotions and frustrations and also hoping to give her a little reality check which we felt she needed.  The reality that if she is unwilling to work for her own recovery then nobody else can help her.  Sarah is being pretty stubborn about her recovery right now and while this is extremely frustrating to all of us on the outside,  her feelings are valid.   While we all want so badly for her to act a certain way, or to have a good attitude and work hard and get better, we really have no idea of the inner turmoil she is facing.  That's easy for me to say, but honestly I was just kind of pissed off about it today.  I guess what I'm realizing is that I have no control over how she will heal, only over how I react to it.

During the day her aunt must have gotten to her a little because she had somewhat of a change of heart.  She calmed down and accepted, at least for today, that she would quit fighting against it.  I'm not expecting the change to stick,  I know she will continue to struggle with this, I'm just trying to take the good and the bad in stride.  I visited her tonight for a few hours.  I admit, I went with my guard up and expecting a fight but the visit was calm and comforting to me and I enjoyed being with her.  I even saw her laugh and smile a little for the first time in a while.  She wanted some cereal, we stocked her closet there with a few boxes.  She sat up on the bed to eat it and did her best but still ended up spilling a bunch of it down her face and on the floor and then she just laughed, and I started laughing.   I think we were both thinking the same thing,  that if we saw someone else eating like that we would probably have made fun of them to each other after the fact.  One of the things I love the most about Sarah is that I can totally cross the line of tasteful humor and I know she will still find it funny.

On the drive home I called my mom.  She had spent the day with my boys and I wanted to get a report on how everything went.  I love hearing about what they are up to when I'm gone all day.  I'm always amused by their antics.  I am so grateful to her right now.  She is an amazing woman and I couldn't do this with out her love and help and council.  I feel lucky to have such a good mom who loves me unconditionally.  I am also grateful for my dad, he is a rock in my life and always has been there to support me and catch me when I fall.  I've been looking to him a lot lately for advice and to keep my judgement in check when I'm doubting it.

I also feel forever indebted to Sarah's aunt Diana.  She has sacrificed her time and put her life on hold to come and take care of my boys and my household while I'm working and Sarah is in the hospital.  She has a lot of energy and patience and does great with the boys.  It has been nice having her around for moral support too as she knows Sarah very well and has really helped me to deal with this.

So many are helping us right now that if I tried to list them I'm sure I would leave some out so for now I hope it will suffice to just say Thank you to all of you.

My mom and I got talking about this whole experience.  She mentioned something about what an unexpected tragedy it really is.  While I can definitely understand where she is coming from,  I haven't really looked at it like that.  I haven't had time I guess.  I don't write this blog hoping for sympathy but more because it's therapeutic to me and because I think Sarah wants her experience shared and is unable to do it herself for the time being.  And while it is a very hard time in our life I don't look at it as a tragedy or a curse.  Sure I would love for things to be the way they used to be but they aren't and they probably won't be for a long time if ever.  That's okay.  I am not really concerned with planning our future right now or dwelling on the past.  It's kind of a blank slate for the time being and as cliche as it sounds I'm really just taking it a day at a time.

So on Monday I was waiting around for people at work and there wasn't much for me to do so I went up to the hospital to surprise Sarah with a visit.  Just as I walked in,  the nurse was wheeling her down the hall to get an ultrasound.  Sarah has been really concerned about the health of the baby since the surgery and had some reason to believe that she had lost or was losing it.  We were happy to see the little baby moving around in there, beating heart and all 4 limbs.  I kept looking for that tell tale sign that I've seen in ultra sounds with my other 4 kids, the part that is often confused with the umbilical cord, but it wasn't there.  I'm not bragging or anything, but it's usually pretty obvious if you know what I mean.  It must just be shy I figured.  But lo and behold, the nurse showed us that we have a little baby girl growing in there!  Sarah was thrilled, just so happy to see that baby was alive and the fact that it was a girl was the icing on the cake.  This gave her a moral boost though it was short lived.  I'm excited for the possibility of finally having a daughter and was relieved to see that she was safe.  I accepted a while ago that we might lose this baby with all that has happened and I still believe this to be a very real possibility and I am at peace with that.  I don't think that Sarah shares that sentiment entirely though.  She continues to worry about it and again tonight had a scare but was reassured when the resident OB stopped by to check the baby's heart rate which was still good.
A few days after we found out about Sarah's tumor I was at work thinking about it,  and her being pregnant and my tile layout and all kinds of other stuff and I had a strong feeling about this baby.  I know about the birds and the bees and science and all that,  and I am not naive to the fact that I somewhat irresponsibly knocked her up without planning it and I'll own that.  But my connection to my kids is very deep as is everyones I imagine.  I have had a strong spiritual bond to all my babies even before they were born and this one is no different.  I felt that this baby came into our life to bring us to the awareness of  Sarah's condition.  It was one of those moments when everything around you kind of just stops and your senses heighten and you just feel it in your soul that it is real.  So for me, at that moment, I accepted that in the end the baby might not stay with us but that it will always be a part of us regardless of the outcome of everything.  Sarah and I have talked about this a lot and I think she feels the same though I know that losing it would be extremely hard for her.  Of course I hope that she will make it through this with Sarah and I'm already picturing us having a little girl in our family but I know that we will be okay no matter what the outcome is.

So anyway...I gotta go to bed.  Lots of tile to be laid mañana.

 Please keep Sarah in your thoughts and prayers.  She needs our love and support more than ever.  She will make it through this in time.  I am very proud of her.