17 months

My sweet Wesley is growing up so fast. It is hard to believe that my baby is almost a year and a half old now! Where has the time gone? Wesley is our little bundle of joy. He delights in life and loves to laugh. I regularly come into the room to find Zach performing comedic acts and Wesley laughing so hard his little belly is shaking.

He loves to play with things that can spin, like wheels on a truck. Whenever he comes across such a toy, he first inspects it with his hands, carefully spinning it around and watching it intently. Then he gets that look in his eye of pure delight, opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue, and enjoys the pure pleasure of having the wheel spin across his tongue.

I love watching how much Wesley enjoys being with people. If he comes into a room and sees one of us there, a smile will light up his face and he will come over to us as fast as he can, laughing all the way. He loves to give us hugs and kisses and play games such as "duck, duck, goose", throwing a ball back and forth, or any other game he might make up on the spot.

It has been very exciting to see him take a few big steps developmentally over the past two months.

• Due to sheer determination and an "I will not give up no matter how many times I fall down and no matter how much it hurts" attitude, Wesley started walking at 15 months. As evidenced by the black eye in the photos above, he still has balance issues and run-ins with inanimate objects. But, he is improving each day.
• He has started saying "dada" and "all done" (ada) and signing "all done".
• He comes when we say "Come to mama/dada" and obeys (most of the time) when we say "no"
• He has started giving us things when we say "Give it to mama/dada".
• He kisses us back when we kiss him.
• He lifts his arms up to show that he wants us to pick him up.
• He is learning how to use his pincer grasp.
• He is eating crackers and veggie straws & drinking out of a sippy cup all by himself.

We have been so encouraged as we have seen him grow in his receptive language and language comprehension. Thank you Lord for the work that you are doing in our precious son.

We love you Wesley! Your joy and laughter are contagious, and we love watching you grow up!

Milestones

As a mom of a special needs child, "milestones" is one of those words that I dread to hear. Any time Wesley is compared to a milestones chart, he always falls short. And as he grows older, he will only fall farther and farther behind when compared to an average child.

My first big run-in with the milestone chart was when Wesley turned one. When I think back to when Zach turned one, I think back on all the excitement of that first birthday. This is the monumental moment when a child goes from being a baby to being a toddler. They start walking, talking, eating table food at meals with the rest of the family, playing games, and so on.

When Wesley turned one, my response was very different. It hit me even harder than it ever had before that things are going to be different for Wesley. He was still drinking from a bottle and not even trying to hold it on his own, had just learned to sit up at 11 months (although he had been army crawling since 7 1/2 months), was refusing to eat any solid foods that were not Gerber 2nd baby foods, and was not even remotely close to talking, signing, or walking.

One day as I was grieving over the life that Wesley would never have, a dear friend shared with me that she had been praying for me and felt that the Lord had laid it on her heart to encourage me with the fact that Wesley may not be meeting the milestones in the time frame that an average child might meet them, but that doesn't matter. God has a perfect milestone chart for Wesley, and I can know with confidence that Wesley will meet every milestone on His chart at exactly the right time. This has been such a comfort for me to come back to time and time again. Whenever I am tempted to compare Wesley to other kids or be discouraged/worried about him because we have been working for what seems like forever on something and he's still not doing it, I go back to that and remember that Wesley will do everything that God has planned for him to do in exactly the time frame that God has planned for him to do it.

While I know it will still be hard for me every time Wesley's milestones are mapped to a chart, I rejoice that I can trust God's good and perfect plan for Wesley's life.

Psalm 139:13-16

¹³ For you created Wesley's inmost being;

you knit him together in my womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because Wesley is fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

¹⁵ Wesley's frame was not hidden from you
when he was made in the secret place.
When he was woven together in the depths of the earth,

¹⁶ your eyes saw Wesley's unformed body.
All the days ordained for him
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

This Psalm has been such a comfort to my soul and a precious promise for me to cling to throughout the months since Wesley was born. God knit Wesley together, and he is fearfully and WONDERFULLY made! Wesley's frame is not hidden from the Lord, and all of his days were ordained before even one of them came to pass.

When I am tempted to fear the future or to worry about when Wesley will learn to walk without falling, talk, sign, or eat solid foods, I can cling to the promise that all of Wesley's milestones have been ordained too. They will come to pass in perfect accordance with God's wonderful plan for Wesley's life.

Psalm 13:6

"But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me." Psalm 13:6

Lord, please help me to trust in your steadfast love. Even when my circumstances seem to say that you have forgotten me, or that you are not dealing with me according to your love, please turn my eyes back to your Word and help me to believe the promises that I find there. Your steadfast love toward me and toward our family never ceases. You give me new mercy and new grace each morning to walk through the day that you have set out for me. Great is Your faithfulness!

O Lord, may my heart always rejoice in your salvation. Fill me with the joy that comes from knowing that you have provided for my greatest need in sending your Son to pay the penalty for my sins. Romans 8:32 says, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Since you gave up your Son to provide for my greatest need, how can I not trust in your steadfast love toward me? How can I not trust that you are working all of these things for my eternal good? How can I not believe that you will give me everything that I need as I seek to both care for Wesley and also try to effectively care for Zach, manage my household, and love & serve my husband? Lord, thank you for the promise that your grace is sufficient for me! May I cling to this promise every moment of every day.

Lord, you truly have dealt bountifully with me. Thank you for your abundant grace and mercy and love that you pour out on me each day. Thank you for the two wonderful boys and the wonderful husband that you have given to me. Thank you for the wonderful church that you have placed us in and for all care that we have received from friends at our church since Wesley has been born. Thank you most of all for saving me from my sin and for making me your child. You have blessed me beyond measure. Thank you Lord!

God's Perfect Plan - Part 2

Click here to read Part 1.

But yet, these past months have been long and difficult. And, I know they are only the beginning of a long and difficult path that the Lord has called us to walk. I still grieve often for my son and the life he will never live. I often feel alone and feel that the road the Lord has called me to walk is too hard. Sometimes I just want to give up. But in those moments, God is always faithful to lift my eyes off of myself and point them back to him. When I am looking at him, all the cares of this world seem so small in comparison. When I am reminded that he will never leave me or forsake me, I no longer feel alone. When I am reminded that he will uphold me with his righteous right hand, the road no longer seems so hard to walk. And, when I am reminded that my God also had a Son who was despised and rejected by men, I know that the God to whom I cry out is intimately acquainted with my grief. And then I am comforted, for my God knows my grief because of his great love for me. While I did not choose this path, he did. And he chose to allow his son to suffer and be rejected so that I might be saved. And so that Wesley might be saved.

My prayer at the beginning of 2009 was that if someone were to ask me what I was most thankful for, I would be able to answer “the gospel”. While I would not have chosen for the Lord to answer my prayers in this way, I am grateful that he has graciously used this trial to fill my heart with thankfulness to him for giving his life for me and for saving me from my sin. He has filled me with a joy in the gospel that I did not have before Wesley was born. And I know that as I continue to walk down the road that he has laid before me, only he will be able to sustain me and give me the strength to go on. This gives me great joy, for I know that as I lean on him for strength and cling to his promises, my love for my Savior will only grow deeper with each passing year. So, while I would never choose for Wesley to have a chromosomal abnormality, I also know that this is the way that the Lord has chosen to sanctify our family, to work in us for our good, and to give himself great glory.

God's Perfect Plan - Part 1

It has been eleven months since the birth of our second son, Wesley David. These months have not been at all as we would have imagined them. When he was born, we were overjoyed that God had given us a healthy, beautiful boy. But, soon after he was born we began to suspect that things were not as they ought to be. He had a very weak suck, and after 3 weeks of trying to help him nurse, we had to give up and switch to bottles. Nursing was something that was very important to me, and I had to give it to the Lord, trusting that this was not part of his perfect plan for Wesley's life. Little did I know that this would just be the first of many times I would have to release my tight grasp of my dreams for Wesley's life and hand them to the Lord.

As well as struggling to eat and gain weight, Wesley also had difficulty breathing. After many doctor trips and visits to specialists, he was diagnosed with laryngomalacia, where the trachea is weak and falls down over the airway, blocking it and making it difficult to breathe. It seemed that every time we turned around, we identified new potential health problems and visited more specialists. When he was one month old, we decided it would be wise to put him through genetic testing to make sure everything was OK. What I was not prepared for was the phone call I received two weeks later from our doctor. When he informed me that Wesley had a rare chromosomal abnormality, the weight of it was overwhelming.

In that moment I began the fight for faith that I will continue to fight the rest of my life. The fight to trust that the Lord's plan for Wesley is perfect. The fight to believe that here, even in this, God is working for our good. He is working this for the good of Mike & I, he is working for the good of our family & our marriage, and he is even working this for Wesley's good. The Lord has been so kind to remind me again and again of the truth in Romans 8:32, which says “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” I continue to cling to this promise and the hope and peace it provides. Because God gave his own Son for me, providing for my greatest need, how can I not believe that he will provide for all of my other needs? How can I not believe that he will give me every good thing?

The Beginning

As Julie Andrews says, the beginning is a very good place to start. Unfortunately for me, it seems that the beginning of my entrance to the blogging world should have occurred 11 months ago, with the birth of my second son Wesley. So, I shall attempt to retrace my steps and recall all that has happened in this season before forging ahead and blogging about the present.

My desire for this blog is to share how the Lord is at work in our family, and more specifically how the Lord is using the birth of Wesley to conform us to His image and to bring great glory to Himself.