O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Lamentations 3:22-23, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." In the upcoming week I will be surrounded by my family, but half of me has left. Noah is on his way to Colorado with the youth, and I am here missing him. So that I can rest well at night I am leaving to stay with my parents, and I am sure there I will have a ton of fun with them, but there is nothing like having your hubby around. When we were spending some time together yesterday I realized how much I was dreading him leaving me. We have been separated before; when I went to Mexico on a mission trip and for other various things we spent nights apart, but I was truly dreading being apart from him. Yet, this is the first time we have been apart since Magdalena has passed. Noah and I have talked about how much harder it is to be at home without the other one here because we think more about her, and it makes our ...

Last night I woke up in the wee hours of the morning desperately needing some water for little Walt, but then, I could not go back to sleep. I laid there for the longest time just thinking, and of course, I was thinking about Magdalena. Being at home this summer makes missing her even harder because I end up thinking about what I would be doing if she were here with me. As I was thinking about her I somehow remembered that I started posting videos, but then, I never finished. And so many of them are too cute. I just wished that I had taken more, and this does get me frustrated at myself, but I am thankful for the ones we do have. I will work on getting them up the rest of this week. Here is Loli feeding Magdalena on December 3, 2008!

It has been awhile since I posted last. Although I had the intention of posting at least once a week work, pregnancy, and life kept me tired. Finally, summer has arrived! I spent my first day enjoying a cup of coffee and a muffin in the quiet while Noah slept a little more. My body is used to waking up as it normally does, but there is something wonderful about spending extra time in p.j.s while watching the news with a cup of coffee. My goal for the summer is to finish/begin/work on Magdalena's scrapbook. Ideally I would love to have it finished before Walt arrives, but it will be interesting to see how that plays out. I am not an artsy person at all, but none of the baby books quite fit Magdalena. She needed something special to keep her memories in, and I want it to be perfect. In the past month work has gone well, and I am blessed to be around people who have the patience to deal with me each day. Caroline, my oldest niece, received an award for having the most AR (A...

Well, Noah and I had ideas about what we wanted to name baby boy, but we both agreed that it must mean something. For this reason, he will be called Walter (Walt) Douglas Roberts. Walter after baby boy's Great-Granddad, who passed away in January, and his Papa (Grandfather); and Douglas puts his amazing daddy (who was named after his own beloved grandfather) in there too! Three of the most amazing men in my life! I know that many of you may be wondering where the silent "g" is in the name. Well, you can put it right before the "t" in Walter! Just kidding!

Today the doctor had positive things to say about Baby Roberts. Although his examination is not a 100% certain, he did not see any marks that would raise concern about a chromosonal problem. All of the measurements put him at the 19-week mark, and I am officially 19 weeks and 1 day, so that is good news! He weighs 9 ounces! Also, this gave Noah and me a great opportunity to tell the doctor about Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep ( http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/ ) for more mothers to benefit from. And of course, we showed him our sweet pictures of Magdalena as most proud parents would to their doctor. Overall, the experience was great, for which I am so thankful. We are continuing to cheer Baby Roberts on!

Please begin praying for Baby Roberts, Noah, and me. Our high-risk doctor's appointment is this Tuesday morning at 8:30. Of course, we are extremely nervous about this appointment. The doctor will spend time looking very closely at the ultrasound to see if he sees any marks that could mean possible chromosome or health issues. This is a highly trained doctor, so his view of it weighs heavier than those ultrasounds done at the regular doctor. For this reason, we will have our 20-week ultrasound with the high-risk doctor instead of how it is normally done. Because of the risks involved in getting an amniocentesis, we only want to get one done if the doctor sees multiple marks. When we chose to have the amniocentesis done while I was pregnant with Magdalena, the doctor saw three marks that let us know that there was a possible problem. She had a short femur, extremely low weight/size, and a heart problem. There were small things too that were associated with T18, but I don...

Congratulations to Tim Shumaker for winning the Serta mattress! Thanks to a donation by Mattress Direct, we were able to give away a queen size Serta mattress. I like for everyone to win, so I am sorry for those who didn't, but thank you for buying raffle tickets to support the March of Dimes!

Thanks to all of the teamwork this year we had an incredible time at the March for Babies! So many people donated time and items to help make everything so special for sweet Magdalena. People in different parts of the U.S. joined our team, and then, walked in their own state. And together we raised over 15,000 dollars to help all babies. How amazing! Thanks so much for all of the hard work, guys! Also, these pictures were taken by Yohan Pamudji, who was so kind to offer to take these for us. He ran up and down the walk the entire time, and I am positive he got more than 3 miles in! Look how great our tent looked! Thanks, Laura, for letting us use your tent and having this sign made for us! Look at the size of our team! Wow! We won the best t-shirt award, the most walker award, and Lori won the prize for the individual who raised the most money! Next year we are going to have to share the awards! Our family getting ready for the big 3 miles! It was such an emotional day ...

First, I want to apologize for not recognizing the amazing March for Babies team we had this year before now. I cannot wait to tell you all about it! As you can imagine it was an emotional event for my family and me that we poured our hearts into, and by Monday I really had a breakdown. I didn't want the walk to be a sad event, but an amazing one in which we celebrated the amazing 167 days that God blessed us with, and also, give us a chance to share Magdalena's life with others. So I kept inside the tears, but they were bound to leak out at some point. Once they started there was no more holding it in. I just needed a few days to regroup and gather my strength up again for other battles that await. I didn't want to write about my anger and sadness because I know that those are not my true feelings. They only come around when the devil does a sneak attack during an emotionally tired time. My anger for a few days made me act as a child does when they are mad, not ta...