God of my Hope

I entitled this post "God of my Hope" for two reasons. One is that God has given us so many moments of hope in the past few weeks and two is that, despite these incredible blessings, it is sometimes SO hard dealing with a not completely healthy baby that I am at the absolute end of my rope more often than not and just needed that phrase to hold on to.
I realize it's been awhile since I last wrote and I wanted to get an update out again but generally the only time I have to sit at the computer is when my hands are busy with a baby, making it a little unmanageable to type. However both kids are currently asleep and even though one is in my arms I think I can still manage typing with two fingers!
Tonight and a lot of yesterday as well as most of the evenings in the past week or so have been incredibly stressful. Sometimes even when we have great days I am a wreck by bedtime because of the stress of our evenings. Taking care of supper and two kids bed and bathtimes can be tricky enough but when you have a toddler who is exhausted and lonely by bedtime and a baby who is colicky but isn't supposed to cry....well you can imagine the ensuing drama.
Here is some of the high points that I try to focus on to stay positive:
-Lancelot had another appointment today and the doctor was very impressed with his progress. He is now 9 pounds 8 ounces (up from 8 pounds 13 ounces (birth weight) a week ago) and 23 1/4 inches long (up half an inch from last week and 2 inches from birth). She also feels his breathing has gotten quite a bit better and that he is looking much healthier. In fact she said that she feels quite confident that his vocal cord function will return...when she doesn't know...but she feels that it will and this will not be a lifelong problem. She even gave us some hope that by the end of the summer we MIGHT be able to travel and be a "normal" family already. For now we are not quite there but it was good to hear the hope that someday we should be there. Also, the doctor has requested that this next week we demand feed him like a normal baby rather than force feed him or enrich his calorie intake. She wants to see how he handles it. If he can do well this week without any feeding help she feels we will be able to stop weekly doctors appointments and see her only at the regular check up times or for other issues as they arise (which hopefully they dont)!
-We have been able to take Lancelot out on some errands recently which has been a relief. We even got him to sleep in his stroller while we took Little Lady to Tinkertown this past weekend! We had to do a lot of hand sanitizing and kept him covered in his car seat the whole time but we were able to get out and experience a taste of normal life with a toddler again. It was healing for all of us.
-Slowly we are able to handle short periods with only one parent and two kids as we learn to balance and better anticipate Lancelots needs. It's one step closer to being back to a normal life.
-Lancelot has done a lot more crying and although this is not good we have noticed that he is not turning as blue as easily and his cry is also getting a lot stronger...both great signs!

Here are some of our current concerns and prayer items:
-That Lancelot will handle this next week exceptionally well so that we will be able to stop worrying about his weight gain and will no longer need weekly appointments. Today was a bad start to the week as he didn't eat well and had a terrible stomach ache or something this evening that had him screaming and therefore not eating.
-That Lancelot's colic or whatever it is would calm down. Of course we realize baby's cry but a baby who isn't really supposed to cry and who wears himself out and won't eat is extremely stressful.
-Little Lady has been having some potty problems which we are thinking we need to check with the pediatrician about. Hopefully they are nothing and just related to a mixed up schedule that she will soon adjust to but it is a little worrisome.
-That we will be able to handle more one parent and two kid scenarios so that Prince Charming can return to work during his time off school this summer. If he can't we will likely have to quit school early for him to return to work because this whole sick baby thing has completely blown our budget.
-That the thrush that Lancelot has once again will quickly disappear as will his reflux.
-That none of us will catch any bugs anywhere and bring them home. We still have to be careful, although we have been given a little more leeway. On that note....my health is a bit of an issue as I have been having a lot of headaches and have recently almost passed out on a couple occasions. It's likely this is just from stress and lack of sleep but still.
-That Lancelots vocal cord will return to full function. We asked our pediatrician today when we could possibly take a trip to visit family in another province and she felt she couldn't give the go ahead for us to fly anywhere until Lancelot has zero episodes of turning blue and is completely healthy. This is frustrating since we don't know when that will be and sometimes I worry we won't ever get to that point. But the pediatrician feels confident we will...it's just a matter of patience while we wait for the "when".

Please continue to pray for our family. We feel your prayers and greatly appreciate them. We praise God for how far he has brought our family in the past few weeks and continue to pray as we hold on to him and his promises of hope for our future.