How's it going?

That's a pretty standard question I'm getting lately. How IS the life of a mother of six? Well...let's be clear. Just because you travel half way around the world to adopt a new son, this does not mean that you life just suspends in time. Unfortunately for all of us, life moves on. I have been trying to run fast enough to catch hold and jump back on it's spinning. I am thankful for those who have advised me to just watch it all happen for a little while. Sit back, relax and just enjoy our sons. This is so difficult when you end up missing your other kids' events, special moments. etc. It was really hard to miss Homecoming. Now that we're back in town, the girl are head on into band competition season. I have seen one competition. Gregg witnessed one halftime show. That's it. We hope that we can get back into the swing of things and health and behaviors will allow us to enjoy our girls as well. The boys have been doing pretty well in adjustment. I am not sure I'm doing that great though. Adjusting to a new brother has been rough on Benjamin. He is not used to having anyone other than himself be the center of anyone's world! He has difficulty sharing toys. He hates it when Timmy is doing something he is scared to do. His competitive streak is coming out BIG TIME! I am praying that this will grow him in ways that will glorify His heavenly Father! :) Timmy's health has been a concern since the first time we met him. He has been congested for MONTHS to the point that I have worried about him even between trips visiting him. Now that he has been home a few weeks, we have begun taking him to doctor's visits, some planned, some not so planned. Our pediatrician decided that the first order of business was to address the supposed heart condition he had been diagnosed with in case this was the cause of his congestion. So the day after that appointment he had an echocardiogram. And guess what?? COMPLETELY NORMAL!!! No issues there! Surprised? Not me! God is BIG! Next order of business is a referral to a dermatologist to look at his nevus on his head and make sure it does not need to be removed. AND to deal with his breathing problems. He told us Friday evening he was going to schedule a sleep test to determine the cause of his snoring and congestion. He was thinking it was due to large tonsils and adenoids. Well the whole breathing problem thing came to a head by a silly little respiratory virus that reared its ugly head over this past weekend. Basically, the virus caused him EXTRA trouble on top of what he was already experiencing to the point that Sunday morning he was sleeping next to me on the couch and was turning blue around his mouth. I called the triage nurse at our pediatrician's office and she said, "Get off the phone and call 911!" Well we didn't call 911 because I knew that if we woke him up, he would be better. It was just very difficult to know that we had to worry about him if he was sleeping. I called Gregg and he came home from church and picked us up and took us to the hospital ER. They said it was totally the right call bringing him because he was struggling. They did a chest x-ray and soft tissue scan to see what the situation was there. Turns out his lungs were really not that bad but just showed he maybe had a virus. He had been coughing so hard that he was triggering his gag reflex and puking up mucus, which was the color that indicated an infection. They ended up putting him on antibiotics and gave him a steroid to reduce the swelling in his throat and such. His oxygen level was fine while we were there, but he was awake. They offered to let him stay overnight but were really not going to do anything for him. They would have just watched him. I figured we could do that (and I did). So we were released. I went to fill the prescriptions and found out that Timothy had not been added to our prescription coverage yet. THIS was very frustrating as we knew he should be covered by now. Then I began to worry that he was not on the insurance either (which was confirmed the next morning) and we had just had an ER visit!!! The next morning the Dr.'s office called to schedule his sleep study and said they had an opening that night but could not confirm our insurance coverage. We called the insurance company and got it all worked out (it was just a delay in paperwork) BUT that appointment filled up and now the sleep study is next Tuesday. He is doing better breathing wise which is good because I had a lot of sleepless nights in there. Please continue to pray that we can get this resolved so we can get on with all of our other responsibilities. I feel like it is an all encompassing job, unlike when Benjamin came home. I mean, he was a lot of work, but nothing like this. It's just totally worn me out. Unfortunately that has spilled over into pretty much every aspect of my life. But God has been faithful to carry me through that time. Only a few times did I let myself dwell in the negative and get down about it all. I know that He didn't bring us into this to sink us but to Glorify Him! God is good!