Archives for June 2017

Thank you so much to each of you!!!!  You guys are ridiculously kind and encouraging and nice and thoughtful.  Thank you for praying for Everett and our family.  Thank you for sharing this piece of his story and asking your people to pray along with us.  It absolutely means the world to our family.  It is so humbling and such an honor to have people praying along side us.  I have already connected with several of you who live in Ann Harbor or the area and what sweet encouragement you have given us.  We are GRATEFUL to each of you!!!

So in the mean time…between now and his surgery date…we are trying to soak up each day.  We have things we really want to do with Everett before we leave and we have things that just must be done…like doctors appointments, etc.  It’s this desire to do all our regular day in and day out things with him mixed with some really rare and special things.  We’ve done pizza movie nights (Ev loves pizza), wave pool trips, all the counter sitting Everett’s heart desires, playing as hard as he can 🙂 and more swimming.

(Josh pep talking his boys for the day…gah…I love him.)

Yesterday we took Everett on one of our regular lunch dates with Josh Kelley to the Nashville Farmer’s Market and then walked around outside in the Bicentennial Mall.  We let the kids pick their lunch so there was Chinese food, hamburgers & fries, pizza, icees, wishing pennies and Jenni’s ice-cream.  We have so many other things we want to do with him and just keep taking each day in.

Today Everett had to get his teeth cleaned in preparation for his heart surgery.  This was crazy short notice and when I tried explaining to him what was going to happen I just didn’t think he was picking it up.  My SIL & BIL, Andy and Becky, have been such a gift to us and Everett with their love and Chinese.  Becky facetimed with me and explained to Everett in Chinese all about the dentist.  He showed off his teeth and nodded his head.  Neither of us we’re really sure he got it, but at the dentist he did AWESOME and kept asking where Becky was 🙂  Success.

We had to schedule the appointment super short notice, but our amazing dentist office, Kid City Smiles, got us in immediately, caught that he needed pre-meds, we’re beyond the sweetest, cried with me, marked their calendar with Everett’s surgery date and hooked him up with goodies galore.  He cried not once and grinned so much.  I could have plopped myself down in the middle of that floor and cried my ever loving eyes out.  They are far more than a dental office!

I’m really going to try and keep everyone updated on how he’s doing, but we’ve also got lots of fun time scheduled with this boy between now and the 26th.  We are tying to soak each day up to the absolute fullest while holding on to hope.

We believe in a God who heals.  We believe in a God who redeems.  We believe in a God who restores.  We believe in a God who works miracles.  We believe in a God who created Everett and his special heart.  And we believe in a God who loves Everett far more than we ever could.  We are hoping in Him.  Thank you sincerely and deeply for hoping with us.

I fully intended to stop in and peck out some words on these keys last week and then last Tuesday morning rolled around.

I started Tuesday off in our DCS office at 8am sharp and then spent almost the next two hours in a meeting which left me absolutely emotionally all over the place.  I sat for as long as I could, but my anxiety soon started spilling over so I got up from the conference table and paced the floor in a pattern.  In our team meetings I always remain quiet unless someone speaks to me or we get near the end of the meeting and my concerns for our littlest have not been discussed…those are the moments I  choose to speak.  When the meeting ended I felt so bad for so many different people involved…my heart was so broken for them.  I was also really pissed.  I was talking to a friend who is also a foster parent and we just continue to talk about how we can be so brokenhearted on behalf of others and so compassionate and simultaneously so pissed off.  This world is just a mess…I’m just a mess…God will always be the goodness in this world.

I met Josh afterwards at church to exchange the kiddos and to attend a mini service camp.  I stayed because Everett 🙂  We headed home afterwards.  I got a message from my friend Brooke…Everett’s best friend’s mom…that their dossier was officially logged in to China.  We rejoiced.  Their sweet boy…our sweet boy…is coming home soon and soon is just not quick enough.  At 1:59 pm my phone lit up with the words Ann Arbor, MI.  My stomach sank and I immediately knew what else our day would hold.  I stood in our laundry room and my mind raced back to a similar day back in 2012 when I stood in this same laundry room with this same pit in my stomach as I talked with Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and scheduled Amon’s open heart surgery date.  I hit accept on my phone and spent the next 11 minutes talking with a kind lady named Lindsay.  And just like that Everett was officially on the books with Mott Children’s Hospital for open heart surgery.

Since arriving home our sweet boy has been through so many tests and medicines and a slew of doctors and experts and specialists have looked as his case and his little body and they all just shake their heads.  Our cardiologist was very upfront with us from the first time she got to see his special little heart and body in person that she was unsure if or how Everett’s heart could be repaired.  She said she did not see a path…his heart is very broken and very complex.

We have the best doctors around.  Our pediatrician and cardiologist are insanely good and we absolutely trust them.  We have just continued to lean in to their wisdom and guidance.  An entire team at Vanderbilt sat with no ideas of how to fix Everett’s heart and no surgeons willing to make an attempt.  We appreciated their honesty.  Our pediatrician has been speaking into us from day one that we don’t want just anyone working on Everett’s heart and this may lead us out of Tennessee.  Our cardiologist continued to reach out to other experts in the pediatric cardiology field.  We waited to hear back from Boston and Ann Arbor.  We sat in limbo for a few weeks while leading experts reviewed his case and then we got word that a world renowned surgeon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who only accepts very complicated and hard cases, thought he could do an initial surgery to move Everett forward.

For all you medical/CHD people…our surgeon is going to try and repair Everett’s severely leaking atrioventricular valve and also close off his pulmonary artery.  The goal is that if successful this will make him a candidate for a fontan procedure next.  Josh Kelley and I met with our cardiologist and had to have a conversation no parent wants to have and ask questions no parent wants to ask, but afterwards it was very clear this was Everett’s chance…this is his shot.  There are no other options if we want Everett to have a chance at life.

In 14 days Josh, Everett and I will board a plane with one way tickets headed to Ann Arbor.  And on the 28th we will hand our boy over to a team of the best-of-the-best for a risky open heart surgery.  It makes me want to vomit every time I think about it.  I have cried my eyes out this past week and we have been sitting with this reality and trying to process through it.  It’s a lot to take in and when someone asks how I’m really feeling all I can say is sad.  I simply feel so very sad.  I have a hard time reading my Bible…I have a hard time knowing what to say to God…I muster out tiny little prayers with very few words…and all of that is okay.

What I love about God is that He sent Jesus to walk this earth and to know so personally how broken and hard and sad and complicated this life is.  He can actually feel and relate to all our feelings because He experienced them Himself.  He knows and therefore, when I don’t have the words to say to Him, that’s okay with Him…He sees my heart true and deep.  Just because I’m sad doesn’t mean I don’t trust Him or love Him or think He’s any less good or in control.  Just because I’m sad doesn’t mean I don’t think He’ll work a miracle in Everett’s body or that He loves any of us any less.  Not at all.  It just means I’m a human being living in this fallen world and I know the reality of this world is sometimes shit things happen that are heartbreaking.

So please continue to pray with us for our sweet Shuai boy.  Tell all your family and friends and co-workers and neighbors and strangers and ask them to cover his little body in prayer.  We simply want pretty much everyone praying over him…that’s not too much to ask right!?!? 🙂 Thank you guys for always be so incredibly kind and loving and supportive.  You really are the nicest.

And last thing:  The Nothing Bundt Cake store in Hendersonville, Tn is donating 10% of their sales this month when you mention the Carman family.  We are so anxiously awaiting Shuai’s bestie…like that boy seriously cannot cannot cannot get here soon enough.  So let’s all head out and get some cakes, mention the Carman family and let’s support their adoption fund.

 No matter what…God will be praised and His goodness will remain oh so good and if you need us, we’ll be living it up with our Everett Louie Shuai and kissing his face off.  Ann Arbor, we’ll see you soon.

My creating has been insanely limited this year.  I can get really sad about it some days because I love to create and it’s my business and both are zero right now, but then there are these two littles who are anxious and stressed and sad and grieving and attaching and bonding and sick and just struggling and I’m reminded this is a season…a season, but a really important one.  And seasons come to an end eventually.  So for now I’ll choose to carry on and crack up at this pile of unfinishedness beside our kitchen table instead of cry. 🙂

Hold the ice-cream phone please.  Beth recommended the red velvet flavor and ummmmmm, it’s freakin delicious.  My new favorite for sure.  Josh Kelley and I almost devoured the entire container in one standing in our kitchen.

Josh brought home a plastic pool for Memorial Day and it is easily the best $15 we’ve spent in quite some time.  Every day kids are swimming laps in it and it makes me chuckle so hard.  Everett on the other hand is still completely skeptical of this whole “swimming” thing.  In fact he’s yet to actually sit in the pool/wave pool/slip n’ slide.  Standing is his swimming game.  He loves the bath, but is a big no on the outside pool activities.

This is my new favorite lunch.  Let’s discuss the contents of this sandwich…avocado, Everoast Chicken, tomato, pickles, lettuce, bacon, avocado again and mustard.  Be still my sandwich loving heart.

I found the boys like this the other morning in between the 6 and 7am slot with the Star Wars opening credits rolling.  I can’t explain how much I love love love that they don’t remember life without one another.  My twins.  4 months apart.  They were the cutest babies together and they are the cutest 8-year-olds together too.  I’m the luckiest.

I’ve decided my next business venture with be in the floral business because flowers are my jam lately.  First, I’m going to start out of our house.  People will bring in their pickle, salsa, banana pepper, jelly, roasted red pepper, fruit, olive, spaghetti sauce, etc etc jars and we’ll fill them with flowers.  Josh is going to quit his job and solely grow the most amazing flowers ever in our backyard. It’s sure to be a hit and we’ll definitely still be able to feed all these children.  🙂 Hahahaha.

Amon drew our new van and I died.  Let’s all take note at how much magnadoodle space the van takes up…all of it…and how many wheels it has…a ton…and how giant my head is…so ginormous…and how thin my appendages are…sticks.  Alas, I love him.

And this week at Everett’s cardiologist appointment we got our first slither of good news since we got home…a good blood work report came back and he does not have to get blood drawn next week.  All the praise hands.  I have had so much anxiety and sadness and stress about Everett’s little heart.  We’re on the cusp of a possible big, scary move for Everett and his heart.  The waiting in the unknown is crazy hard…plus Josh really wants to take him to the beach and currently we can’t plan anything while we wait to hear.  And the thought of handing our boy over to a team of surgeons for a risky initial surgery makes me want to vomit.  My prayer for Everett is so simple right now because it’s all I can muster out, “God, I surrender Everett and his heart to you.  I know you love him even more than we do.  Please heal his heart.”  Please continue to pray with us for supernatural healing in Everett.  We believe in a God who works miracles.

Now I’m off to finish watching Trolls for the umpteen time 🙂

Happy Thursday.