Happy 18th Birthday ~ Andrew!

Tomorrow Andrew will be 18! I cannot believe it and am thinking we must go get his license renewed as it expires tomorrow!

As I look back, I can go right to the hospital room in Abingdon where Andrew and I wore out several people trying to get him here! I remember looking around at one point and thinking that everyone helping me was as exhausted as I was! I won't forget Pete eating candy I did not like (so he told my doctor it did not bother me because I did not like it ~ even if I was starving!). And Whitney saying she was going to run and "get a drink...uh...I mean, go to the bathroom" because she knew I was so thirsty. I remember being promised pizza and 2 liter drinks by Gene Kistner ~ which by the way were long gone the next morning when Andrew finally arrived. I remember pretending I was running up hills and giving it all I had to get my baby safely in my arms!

The next morning when Andrew had arrived, pretty much everyone went home exhausted. And about that time, my grandparents (Nannie and Grandad) arrived. Grandad took Pete to breakfast (he was starved!), and Nannie offered to stay with me...until the nurses came to get me out of bed! Then I had them show her to a nice waiting area so she would not faint. She was not up to seeing me in any kind of pain! It was so sweet ~ that special time to share with them. And they were the only people who knew us within a few miles radius who had gotten a good night's sleep!

At the hospital, you stayed in a large room with a TV and all of the soft drinks you wanted before the baby came. When you really could not watch much TV nor could you drink. After the baby, they moved you across the floor to a wing with tiny rooms. A little old man came by with a clip board to see if we wanted to "rent" the TV for $5 a day. I asked Pete, "Please could we?" And he agreed! All drinks had to be paid for, and there was not much room in the new room for visitors! How funny it was!

I remember when the young pediatrician came in at 4:00 am the next morning and fumbled with the light above my bed to tell me my baby was having seizures and how slick it was outside with ice on the roads. How could I go back to sleep after that? I cried and called people to pray as soon as it was polite.

I was scared. I wanted them to take Andrew and fix him and hand him back. I remember that so vividly. I did not want to feed him or hold him too long. I was so scared of him! Then I remember leaving with the flowers and gifts. A woman said she saw all of the baby stuff but where was the baby? I broke down and cried. Pete and I celebrated Andrew's first Christmas with him still in the hospital.

On the way to see him one day during that week, I decided I was his mother; and God sent him to ME to care for. We learned the seizures were toes "twitching", so they did not seem so scary then. He had lots of medicine (that he took for six months) but no more seizures after the first ones. Andrew had a male nurse named Joe with a dyed black comb over and a comb always sticking out of his back pocket. Joe knew I was scared with Andrew and would hand me Andrew, a bottle, and then he would walk away. I called Joe a few times at 2:00 am when we returned home with Andrew, and he spit up his medicine in the middle of the night.

We returned home to a furnace that had backfired. It was a mess - soot everywhere. But we lived through that and got the rooms repainted and had enough left over to get a new floor in the kitchen and new counter tops. Our house was little, so it did not cost much. I liked having some new, clean things, but I was so thankful to have my baby home. He had a soft yellow room with a border with magician's hats and bunnies. He had sweet soft clothes that Whitney and Dede had washed while I was on bed rest. Of course they had been rewashed after the furnace incident!

Fast forward almost two years later, and here came Peter! Peter taught Andrew to crawl on the couch, but Andrew told me when Peter almost scooted out of his car seat on the floor while I spoke to a doctor on the phone. Peter was always in a hurry to get somewhere! And then almost two years later came Will who always liked to play with Peter or follow his daddy around. And then seven years after that came Sam! And Andrew says he cannot remember our family before Sam was born.

Andrew prepared me well as the first child. He was obedient and calm and quiet and sweet. He was loved by everyone. He took good care of his brothers and played with them and was content to be with his family. He usually had one or two friends, but he liked being at home - just as he does now. He sat still in church and did not make a peep.

Things started popping up when he was one, then two, and then at three seemed to take right off. It has been one hurdle after another. And sometimes we hurdle some things more than once. Andrew still handles things in his quiet way and is obedient and reminds me of that little baby I so fiercely determined to care for during his scary first week.

I have been working on a poem/song for a long long time. I will post it when I am done. I keep adding and changing. I am so thankful for my child. I have had a couple of times when I have been literally scared out of my mind that he would be gone. I have seen such scary things that I never would have thought I could handle. But I think it goes back to that first week when God told me I am the one who is his mother. And I don't need to get in his way, but I need to care for him the best way I can - with God's help. And I am thankful for a husband who understands that. We cry together and pray together and believe together. And though we are not always on the same page, we can respect where each is and still do what is best at the time.

I am sad to see Andrew's high school years come to an end this year. But Andrew is different. They have been hard at times, a struggle. These have been some of the scariest years - and knowing when to let him go and when to hold on tight. So for Andrew, I am excited to see what is to come. I have had two different people in two very different years tell me of boys who seemed to "outgrow" their seizures in their late teens. That gives me hope as I realize that my hope sometimes has an expiration date (dumb, but I did realize that with some things). And hope does not expire. I am thankful for the teachers, coaches, and friends he has had during this time. Some of them have known him since he was so little and cheer him on and pray for him constantly.

Happy Birthday to my super duper special boy! I thank God for the opportunity and privilege it is to be his mom!!!!!

And please join me in continuing to pray for him to be wholly and completely healed of known and unknown things. And for him to grow in the way the Lord has for him.