Headed over the pond

Hi there! I have been swamped this week preparing to head over to London, but I have only been swamped with the work side of this trip. It is Friday morning and I still don’t have a single thing packed. In fact I actually don’t even have my suitcase out yet either. I guess I’ll get to that tonight or tomorrow morning. In fact, I still have a fairly lengthy list of things that I need to buy before I can even start to pack. I’ll get there. I’ll be leaving Dallas Saturday evening around 7:30pm and arriving in London Sunday morning, about 10:30am. I am going to try and fit some tourist activities into the trip; however my primary focus will be work. I am going to see the Tower of London on Sunday and I am also going to check out Buckingham Palace and a few other palaces while I am there. I contemplated going to Stonehenge and I still might; however it is approximately 1 ½ hours from London. I return to Texas the following Saturday afternoon. I ask all of you to say a little prayer that I have safe travels.

There are still many of you that inquire daily as to how I am doing and I am very grateful for your concern. I still think about Ethan many times each day and I still mourn the fact that we will never get to know him here on Earth, but each day brings me a bit more peace that this just simply is the plan for us, the perfect plan for us. I know that the time will come when I can look back on this time and everything that happened and know that we are better off for this. My chief concern right now is getting me physically healthy again so that Jason and I can start trying to conceive again.

On to other things… anybody that knows me really well knows that I am a blog-oholic. I have many, many blogs that I follow and read weekly; however I have taken a serious break from all those blogs lately as most of the blogs I follow were about pregnant women or women with young babies. I did take a minute last night though and catch up on a few of my favorite blogs and I came across a story that touched me more than anything I have heard in a long time. It is about a young woman that after many miscarriages, including a loss at 21 weeks (exactly how far along I was when we lost Ethan), who finally delivered a healthy baby boy in early September. ONE VERY SHORT WEEK after birthing her baby boy Matthew, she passed away in her sleep from some unknown heart issue. The really touching part of the story is that a campaign has now been mobilized to provide this Dad and his baby boy Matthew with breast milk for the next year. It was this mother’s dream to be able to breastfeed her child someday and although she is no longer here, young mothers across the nation are spending time pumping, storing and shipping their breast milk across the country so that this young mother’s dream is realized, even if she isn’t here. Here are a few links to the stories- http://mycharmingkids.net/2010/09/the-post-in-which-i-ask-you-for-your-breastmilk/, http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/blogger-helps-with-breast-milk-sept-16-2010. I know that most of us do not have any breast milk to provide; however if everyone could take just a few minutes and lift this little family up in prayer. I CAN NOT imagine what that would be like to go through something so terrible and even with everything that has happened to us over the last 6-8 weeks at least I still have Jason here with me and I am very thankful for that. This new Dad finally has realized his dream of having a baby, but it is without his partner and best friend next to him.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and hopefully the next post will be full of some pictures of London. Chow!