Laura turned 3 in September. Her very favorite things are
everything Frozen, Megan, and Mom. She loves playing Barbies with Eva. Her
vocabulary is incredible, and it makes us laugh to hear her say phrases like
“Are you kidding me?” or “I don’t have time for that!” She loves to sing,
especially in the car or at bedtime. Every time I sing the kids to sleep, she
says “Mom, I want to cuddle you”, climbs on my lap, takes one side of my ear
buds, and sings along. She may be the smallest, but she’ll never be overlooked
due to the size of her personality.
Eva turned 5 in November. She still loves pink and tutus and
jewelry. Her best friend is Beth, who she now shares a room with. She loves to
mother Laura or anyone smaller than her and calls them “Hon” or “Sweetie”. She
loves singing and randomly bursts into song. Her favorite thing to play is
Barbies. She has decided that when she grows up, she is going to buy the house
we rented in Florida this past summer (or move to Oklahoma – which she has
never actually been to, but for some reason imagines as a wonderful vacation-y
spot), and live there with her three children, taking care of flowers and
playing on the beach.
Jack is 8 and got baptized in September. He is in 3rd
grade this year. His favorite part of school is the friends he makes. He was part
of a club called the Ninja Warrior Spies, but is now in a club called League of
Incredible Spies. He loves Pokemon and the Avengers. He loves playing on
electronics. His favorite computer games are Rift, games on MAD.com, and Animal
Jam. His current life goals include becoming a professional chef and
stay-at-home-dad, living in TX, and having as many children as he can.
Beth will turn 10 this week. Her very favorite thing is
reading and she devours books in hours. She loves the kindle as we can buy
books at any time and they are instantly available to her. She’s in 4th
grade this year and continues in the GATES (Gifted and Talented) program
through school. She still loves the color purple and her Aunt Kiki (my sister, Christy)
is still her favorite person. Her favorite animals are monkeys. She continues
to work towards her goal of being a doctor. This year she’s decided to focus on
being a pediatrician. She reads all of Rob’s medical books to help her prepare.
She’s decided to go to Baylor University when she graduates from high school.
Kylie is 11 and in 6th grade. She started middle
school this year and made the switch to an online school (Texas offers three
different online public school options). She loves doing school online,
especially as it allows her to sleep in and spend lots of time on the computer.
Her favorite class is her technology class and she does really well at it. Her
powerpoint was chosen by the teacher to be shown as an example to the rest of
the class. She loves Pokemon and her new Nintendo 3DS that she saved up and
bought herself (with the help of the money we had budgeted for her Christmas
gifts). She loves basketball shorts and big baggy t-shirts, and hates dresses
and anything fancy and frilly.
Megan became a teenager in July when she turned 13. Her
favorite part of turning 13 was being old enough to get a facebook account. She’s
in 8th grade this year. She is also attending school online this
year (like Kylie), which she enjoys because the schedule is much more flexible.
She really likes the club options through her online school, and is part of the
Caring for Animals Club and the Minecraft Club. Her favorite Christmas present was
her bike, which she asked for because she learned how to ride a bike this year.
She can’t wait until she’s old enough to volunteer at an animal shelter and
keeps trying to talk us into getting more pets (we think 3 cats and 1 dog is
more than enough). She wants to be a teacher when she grows up.
As of last May, Rob has worked for Fidelity Investments for
eleven years. He’s been in his current role for four years now and really likes
the department and team he’s part of. He is the only one at the company that
does his particular job, and has enjoyed getting to develop new processes for
that role (his boss said he’s done “a superb job” at it). He continues to enjoy
playing Rift (an online game), and loves that the kids play it with him. He
remains the primary caregiver for the kids and does a fantastic job at it. His
guy nights are still with Dan watching UFCs at either Buffalo Wild Wings or Dan’s
apartment (Dan doesn’t have six kids running around, plus he has cable and a
DVR). He’s made spending time with me and taking me on dates even more of a
priority this year, and we usually have a date at least once a week, even if it’s
something simple like grocery shopping together.
I (Laney) continue to work as a LMFT Associate (Licensed
Marriage and Family Therapist Associate) for a private practice. Even though I
only got licensed 16 months ago, my schedule is completely full. I work four
days a week, but work ten to eleven hour days, and sometimes Saturdays. My
group for female addicts with sexual addictions and intimacy disorders has been
running for almost two years now (it’s still the only group of its kind in the
DFW area) and we are considering starting another one. I love, love, love my
job and feel so blessed to be able to work in this field.
Update on my heart – when I went back for my six month checkup
in March, my ejection fraction had returned to where it had been. My
cardiologist told me there was nothing else they could do and we just had to
wait until it got bad enough that it was worth the risk of a heart transplant.
We decided to get a second opinion. In June, I met with a new cardiologist who
told me I’d been misdiagnosed and it wasn’t caused by my pregnancy; it was
probably viral cardiomyopathy (what Barbara Hershey’s character dies of in the
movie “Beaches”), but could have been caused by the medications I was on when I
was pregnant with Eva. He said that he could have done something if he’d
treated me within 3-6 months of the condition developing, but probably wouldn’t
be able to do much now. That was hard to hear. He also took me off all of my
medications for a week and did a stress echo to get a new baseline unaffected
by medication. He discovered that at some point, my heart had healed, but the
medications I was on were so strong that they masked it. He took me off two of
the medications that day and cut the one I was on the highest dose of in half.
Three months later, he cut that dose in half again as my ejection fraction was
now within normal range (the lowest number of normal range, but I’ll take it)
on a regular echo, even with the medication. I have to wait another six months
(until next March or April) to lower the dose again, but as long as I maintain
my current ejection fraction, I’ll be “out of the woods”. I’ll have to stay on
a maintenance dose of medication for the rest of my life, as I’ll be at higher
risk of heart problems in the future, but I’ll be able to function much closer
to a normal level of activity and they aren’t calling it terminal anymore!
As I’ve stepped down my medications, it feels like I’ve come
back to life. It’s been wonderful to have the energy to spend some time with my
kids again and to be conscious enough to hear and remember the cute
conversations they have with each other. It’s been difficult to see all that I
missed out on over the last two and a half years, and to see the differences in
what I’m capable of now versus what I was capable of before my heart failed. We’ve
been really, really blessed to have Kala as our babysitter for two years now.
She’s taken over the parts of the role of mom that I can’t do. Rob’s done an
amazing job at stepping up and taking over things that have always been my
responsibility, and I’m really grateful for him.
We’re adjusting to our new normal. We got to go on a
vacation this past August for the first time in seven years. We rented a house
on the beach in Florida. It was great to get to spend time together as a family
and one of our goals for this year is to go on vacations (even if they’re small
ones) much more frequently. We’re settling into being a family with two working
parents, and adjusting to not having any little babies in the house for the
first time in thirteen years.
We hope the year went well for each of you!
Merry Christmas!
Love,
Rob, Laney, Megan, Kylie, Beth, Jack, Eva, and Laura
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