Unknown Diagnosis

After many attempts at diagnosing our baby's symptoms the results are officially in and she has an unknown diagnosis. All they can really tell us is that it is not genetic or chromosomal and they have ruled out all trisomy's and tubal defects. Unfortunately the testing raised more questions than answers and we are at a dead end.

The plan is to continue to do ultrasounds every 3 weeks to monitor the progression of her hydrocephalus and single umbilical artery. If she makes it to the third trimester, they may attempt to do shunting while she is still in utero to give her more of a chance at life. The prognosis is still very poor, but they can't give us much to go on.

So with the very few details I have let me tell you what I do know. We have our daughter right now and for now we are happy. It doesn't mean we are are ignoring the future, we are just content with what we have now. We will deal with whatever comes our way when it is time. And at that time, Travis has promised me a puppy so I know it will be ok.

We will keep everyone updated and thank you for your prayers. Also, if anyone has any great suggestions for names we need one asap!

Edward's Syndrome

Well we finally have something concrete to share, good news and bad news. Good news is:

IT'S A GIRL!

Bad news is our baby most likely has

Trisomy 18 or Edward's Syndrome.

We will know preliminary results from the amniocentesis by Tuesday and final results by Saturday. What we do know is our baby has increased hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain), a missing vessel cord, a deformed right wrist (which she may or may not have her hand or fingers), a clubbed right foot, suspected rocker-bottom left foot, and her nose is still on or near her forehead. That's actually just silly, that's not where your nose belongs. She does however have a strong heart beat and a healthy body weight- just like her parents.

Edward's syndrome has a very high fetal fatality rate. If she does make it to term it's most likely that she will be stillborn. And lastly if she does survive the birth, her life expectancy is a year or less, usually 15 days or less.

We are in the midst of testing, genetic counseling, and processing what all of this means. We have big decisions to make within the next few weeks. If we can ask you to continue to pray for our baby we would really appreciate it. Also, if you wouldn't mind praying for us we would be eternally grateful. We feel very confident that Heavenly Father will answer our prayers in regards to what we need to do.

We are of course devastated and yet we are still proud parents. We choose to believe that our daughter is so righteous that she just needed to come for her body. She's made it 17 weeks so our goal is just to be able to hold our daughter, preferablly in this life, but we can settle for the next. We somewhat feel like dead beat parents knowing that our Grandparents will be babysitting our child in the next life for a while until we get there, but all of our Grandparents are great people so we know she will be well cared for and loved.

Again, thank you for your prayers and concern. We are just going to lay low for a while until we get our feet under us. We'll blog again when we have a complete diagnosis. Until then please know we have absolute faith in our Heavenly Father's plan and feel peaceful knowing that we have been entrusted with such a special girl.

We Need a Miracle

I have quite literally had years to think about how we would announce this to all of our friends and family, but it never occurred to me it would be this way. So...you guessed it.

WE'RE PREGNANT!

We were ready to begin fertility treatments in the fall and it turned out that our "vacation insemination" aka trip to Europe worked. You can only imagine how thrilled we were after trying for so long. We thought our only hurdle would be hearing a heartbeat due to miscarrying in the past. We never even considered there might be other things to worry about.

As it turns out our baby has some abnormalities that are very concerning to the Doctors and us. It has too much fluid on the brain which isn't draining. Right now the specialist has said it is too early to know anything conclusively. In 3 weeks the baby's brain and skull will have developed enough to have a better picture of exactly what's going on. However if the fluid does not drain, this could be very detrimental to the development of the baby's brain and spinal cord.

We are very hopeful with the Doctors reassurance that this may still rectify itself and the fluid may drain. This is probably really bad but if not, our house came with a great wheel chair ramp. Sorry, we really have to keep a sense of humor about some of this.We are just asking people to pray on behalf of our baby, that the fluid will drain and that the baby can have the best quality of life possible. On the 10th of October we will be fasting for our baby's health and would really appreciate it if you could join us.

Thank you again. We are so blessed to have friends and family we can count on when we need them.

Our House!!!

We have a home!!!

We just began the process of house hunting last week and we quickly learned that Travis and I have different expectations and needs. But after some weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth... we walked into this house and knew it was OUR home. Apparently so did three other couples. So we did the dance. We engaged in a bidding war and just found out WE WON!

http://www.zingding.com/6227170

So we are getting our inspections done this week and should hopefully close by September 22nd! Pray for us.

Erin Go Bragh!

I have avoided wading through our vacation pictures long enough. I am going to try and post pictures that everyone can find interesting or that I look good in, let's be honest.

We began what we have fondly named the "You're Welcome Europe" tour (more explanation on the name later) in Dingle, Ireland. Dingle is the western most point of Europe and is fairly rural and very authentic. As witnessed by what we saw out of window from our B&B.

We rented a car because it's the best way to get around. TINY streets. Not wide.

Odd feeling driving on the wrong side of the road. It definitely takes conscious thought to stay there. Luckily, the rental car was nice enough to post this sign in the driver's side window. Obviously this must be an issue for others also.

I would definitely move to Dingle. It had an adorable harbor and was near the beach. It also has an albino dolphin named Fungii. Just a fun fact.

We drove the Slea Head Loop which has some amazing views. This picture was taken at 11:00 pm at night. The sun finally set about 20 minutes later. That was crazy to me.

Token animal picture: Just in case you were wondering how you would tell your sheep from your neighbors the answer is paint. You color code your livestock. Fabulous idea. We should do that with children.

If I could have remained on this cliff the rest of my life, I would have been happy. It was absolutely gorgeous. Ireland has the best grass I have ever! I could have made a small bed of grass and dried twigs and been very satisfied.

After Dingle we headed to....

Al-lo!

We're two weeks in and I don't have pictures to post, but it feels like it going fast. I have found my true calling in life. I was meant to be Euro trash. I am so good at being a vagabond. Kinda scary.

We loved Ireland, London, Rome, Florence was ok, the Cinque Terre is amazing, Nice is a lot of fun if they didn speak that dirty pig latin aka french, and Barcelona is turning out to be great. We're going to watch the Tour de France tomorrow and check out some flamenco dancing and tapas.

Will post pictures when I can. Feeling just a little to old to be staying in a hostel, even if it for the night. I'll explain later.

Chao!

"Summering"

It all started with a promise made 4 1/2 years ago. When we became engaged I asked two things of Travis. 1) He would get me a baby dog and 2) He would take me to Europe. Fast forward til March of this year...

We received an invitation from some of our favorite people, the Flowers.

Laura, Brice, Megan, and Jackson

are in our ward because Laura is going to law school here. She is doing a summer internship in France where she served her mission and invited us to spend some time over there with them.

Things began to snowball from there. Travis is making good on his promise. Our travels will take us to:

Ireland, the UK, Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

We've are blessed to be able to stay with friends in the UK, France, and the Netherlands. We'll be staying in hostels or sleeping in parks the rest of the time. I am so excited to sit at the beach in the south of France and run with the bulls in Pamplona! We'll be gone for a whole month. Does it get better? I feel like a person who is rich enough to verb the word summer as in, "we are summering in Europe."

In order to be able to make this adventure a reality these gracious people, aka Mom and Dad are letting us move back in for a few months so we're not paying bills when we're gone. They just look like good people don't they?

And once we're back even bigger things are happening.
Travis will be performing his first wedding for none other than Anders and Nikki, also known as my brother and his girlfriend. Anders will be joining the Coast Guard soon and they're finally making things official. Brocky is excited. Everyone will be coming into town so it will be fun. Everyone including Brie and Russell. I'm pretty sure they are family.

So last part of this plan includes becoming home owners. When we get back from Europe we are beginning our search for a place to call our own. I guess we can admit we'll be here for at least 4 more years. Maybe more if we end up getting our Doctorate's out here. We'll see.

So that's our life right now. I'm really excited to be us. Thank You to all those people who have helped make this happen. We heart you!

La Bo Bina

This is a little PSA to one special reader

Dear Gina Bo Bina,

NOSY!

Mind your business.

Love,

Ms. Reed

Groundhog Day

Sorry I have not updated the blog in a while. Bet you been wondering what we've been up to... so pretty much the same. Do you ever feel like you are in the movie Groundhog Day? I have felt trapped in that movie for a few months now. Seriously, routine get's unbearable for me. Everyday goes something like this...

I get to work and have mountains of paperwork to catch up on that I didn't get to the day before.


Then I'm off to grad school or a professional development workshop for a few hours.



Throw in a church meeting or two or something church related.


And you've got my life. Ta-da!

I am so happy tomorrow is the first day of spring. Hopefully I can get over being bored with my life by getting outside. If not, Travis is going to get a phone call from me stating I have decided to run away to Greece and I am never coming back. If anyone would like to join me that would be great, just let me know.

Meet the Press

So now that we have a new President I am trying to take more of an interest in politics. I'm hopeful that we will see positive change in America. In order to keep up with everything going on I have decided to become a fan of Meet the Press now hosted by David Gregory. I don't know if I can take my man that seriously though after seeing this. I do respect that he has good taste in music, but the dancing...suspect.

Just your regular Brick Tamland

So if you haven't heard yet it's cold right now. Like really cold.

Back here we have our own weather jargon to determine how cold it is. It's pretty close to science. Each expression is assigned a temperature range and everybody gets it.

Example...

It's cold. (40's. I need a sweatshirt.)

It's wicked cold. (30's. Where is my winter jacket?)

It's butt cold. (20's Message received. Winter jacket on.)

What the hell? (10 degrees. Aka what the hell-it's 10 degrees.)

And the temperature for this weekend...

WTF!!! (Negative temperatures. As in why did we move back to New England?)

Hope that was educational. If you have anymore questions just let me know. I'd be happy to explain how things work.

Step bump bump

I witnessed something similar to this the other night. I had no idea Travis was so agile. Why is this so funny because it shouldn't be. Thank You Reno 911. Buckle up.

Holy Rollers

Tithing settlement is finally over for 2008 which basically means I get my husband back. YEA! I still think it's funny that Travis is the Bishop, but the Lord has definitely qualified him for this calling. (Ps how old do I sound saying that?)

But seriously, look how cute he is when he's serving. The Young Women decided to heart attack his door and bring him some goodies. Absolutely the best part of his calling is the immense amount of treats we received this Christmas. Way to go Ludlow ward, keep up the good work.

Not to be outdone, we got a visit from the Stake Presidency a little while ago with a new calling for me. Apparently I wasn't working hard enough. I am now the new 2nd counselor in the Stake Young Women's Presidency. It's amazing that they still haven't caught on and continue to let me influence young minds.

I have been spending a ton of time online digging up all sorts of stuff that's young womeny. I am trying feverishly to memorize the new theme for 2009. Side note- it should not be this hard to memorize. If anyone has any great Young Women ideas for activities, tracking charts, youth conference, girls camp, dances, blah blah blah, please email me. The upside is I have been promised that the glory to work ratio is wonderful.

Reed Rendezvous

Ok just wanted to toot my own horn here for a second, I am the best wife in the world. Toot toot! Why? Because I got my husband the best Christmas gift in the world, a plane ticket home for a week! He was able to surprise his entire family by showing up unannounced at midnight.

Of course the kids all threw a dance party to celebrate his return.

House was a little crowded, 14 people. Drew ended up sleeping on the dining room floor which is awesome. Probably the best sleep he'll ever get.


Lindsay slipped into her party outfit to join in the festivities.
I don't know how she's still single.

Travis was able to be in present when his sister, Holly, and her family were sealed in the Sacramento Temple. It was a great trip overall and he was back in time to spend Christmas with me. Thanks Reed's for taking good care of him!

The Hills Are Alive

I was looking at our calendars and I noticed that Travis and I really weren't going to have a free weekend until about April so I decided to book us a weekend getaway. Thank you priceline.com Anywho since I got to pick where we were going I thought why not go some place that Travis would never take me on his own aka Stowe, Vermont.

Home of the Von Trapp Family!

We visited the Trapp Family Lodge which was beautiful in the snow, but unfortunately it was FREEZING

and we only made it a few minutes before we got back in the car.

So what else do you do when it's below zero? Visit an ice cream factory. It's science. Ben & Jerry's was close by so we took the tour and luckily they were handing out my favorite flavor as the free giveaway. I might have had more than one. Travis was shivering so bad in this picture, but he was really trying to be brave and smile. Thin blood- he wasn't ready for the snow.

On the way home we stopped at the birthplace of Joseph Smith. That has been on our list of things to do for so long that I was just happy to cross it off. We took this picture as quickly as we could because it was butt cold. My face was about to fall off.

It was a short trip, but one that was needed. It was nice to have a weekend where we didn't think about homework or callings. I've been given the ok to book a trip in the spring. Any east coast suggestions on where to go?