My heart is in pieces:

My mom passed away this morning just after 11h30.  She was sleeping peacefully and one moment she was still breathing and the next she stopped.  My sister and my cousin J was with me when it happened.  My dad was on his way with my 2 uncles and only arrived about 30 minutes after she passed.

I miss her so much already!  I loved her so much!  But I comfort myself that she is in heaven now with my grandparents and our little babies.  She missed out on meeting her first grandson, but now she gets to meet her other grandchildren before us…  She is in a better place now…

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More on my mom:

Yesterday morning when we got to the hospital, my dad got a message that the oncologist wanted to see him immediately.  So he went to the consulting rooms while I waited with my mom in her room.  She was asleep and not aware of me at all.  When my dad came back he was quite upset.  The doctor told him that they are giving up with all treatments as there is nothing they can do for my mom anymore.  He said that they will keep her comfortable, but they cannot give her anymore chemo or radiation because she is just too weak.

My cousin J was also there and she wanted to know if my mom could get a different drip that would feed her as my mom was looking skeletal and since she was just sleeping she could not eat at all.  The sister came to talk to us to explain that the saline drip is sufficient for her in her state and that we must basically must make peace with the fact that is going to get worse and worse and that we must start thinking of letting her go.  She said that she will be home with Jesus soon.  After hearing that so soon after my dad’s news all of us were quite emotional and upset.  So the nurses and doctors have given up all hope of her recovering from this.

A lot of family came to visit and among them my one cousing T who is a medical trauma doctor.  She said that my mom will go into a coma and that she will soon just slip away painlessly.  That was so hard to hear!  She also said that my mom will not wake up again.  I did not like hearing any of these things and I just said to myself that I will not accept that as a final decision!

Moments later we went back into my mom’s room and guess what happened!  For the first time yesterday she actually woke up!  She looked around at each one of us in the room and I could see her recognising each person!  My cousin was speechless, but I’m sure very glad to be proven wrong.

Today she was awake a bit more than yesterday and although she still looked very weak and asleep most of the time she did look a bit better to me.  When she woke she again looked at everyone and she even smiled a little once, and seemed to be interested in some of the conversation in the room.

My mom is one of 8 children and the third youngest, and all the others are still alive and well.  Her 2 sisters live in the Netherlands so they cannot come and visit, but all my mom’s brothers live here in South Africa.  All of my mom’s brothers came to visit her except 2 who live in the Cape, but they will see her tomorrow.   The one is flying in tomorrow and the other one apparently drove up today – I hope they came here safely because I heard a lot of roads and mountain passes were closed due to snow.

A lot of my cousins also came to visit and some of them I haven’t seen in years, so it was so good to get to see them again!  But like my DH says it’s sad that we get together at terrible times like these and not in happy times.

Although a lot of people think my mom is dying, I just cannot accept that at the moment.  I still have hope that my mom will recover.  I believe in Jehovah Rapha, I have experienced one miracle already so I know another is totally possible!  I know it’s not God’s will for her to be so sick, and I know its not His fault or that He caused it.  I also know Jesus paid the price a long time ago already so I will anticipate things to get better and better and that she will be healed.  Some people say I must get realistic, but I just cannot give up on my mom!  With God nothing is impossible and I will rejoice and praise His name, because I know He is faithful!

Thank you all for your prayers and messages of support – I realize that I have made some absolutely awesome internet friends who are such a great support to me!  You have really helped me over these last few days and I needed it soo much!  You are all awesome!

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What a terrible weekend:

My mom has deteriorated so much in 2 days it’s unbelievable.  On Friday I spent the whole day with her, my sister and my cousin J were also there with my dad, and although she could not walk much she could still talk to us.  Thursday night two ureteric stents were placed between her kidneys and her bladder and she got a catheter in the hope that it would help with the swelling.

This morning my mom could not speak anymore and she can barely move her arms.  She cannot feed herself anymore and they took out the catheter and she’s on adult nappies now.  When I said earlier this week that my mom was thin I could not believe that she can get any thinner, but at the moment har face is so sunken in that you basically just see eyes and teeth when she opens her mouth.  I was able to encircle her upper arm with my thumb and index finger, so thin is her arms.  She looks like she is just skin and bones in her upper body, yet her abdomen and legs are more than double what they normally were.  She needs oxygen to help her breathe and later in the day it even seemed she could not swallow her food anymore.  I cannot explain to you how drastic she has deteriorated in 2 days.  It is incredibly scary, and my poor dad could barely sleep last night because he kept on expecting the hospital to phone with bad news.

We still don’t know what is going on – why she is so sick and deteriorating so much.  I don’t even know if the doctors know, and they don’t really tell us much.  As far as I can tell they have only given my mom some pain medication, some more blood and some medication for the swelling, and she is still deteriorating.  I cannot see how they can save my mom’s live with what they are doing.

My only hope is with God – I know He can and wants to heal my mom.  But it is so hard to believe for healing if you see your own mom looking so bad.  I need help here, please, please believe with me for healing for my mom.  That is all I can trust in at the moment…

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18 Weeks pregnant:

I can’t believe how time is flying! The first 12 weeks went by so slowly, but from about week 13 the weeks seem to fly by.

DH felt our little one really kicking for the first time earlier this week. It was late one night while we were in bed already with the lights out. Our little Nunu gave one hard kick and I asked DH if he felt that and he did! Then shortly after that there were some more kicks but a bit fainter. All DH could say was, “Wow!… Wow!” Unfortunately I could not see his face as it was dark, I would have loved to see his expression too.

I’m still feeling very good – what they say is true the second trimester is a lot better than the first! I have a little heartburn at times, but it’s really not so bad! I love feeling our little Nunu kick and he does it so often now. What a difference from a week ago! He seems to be most active during the afternoon and early evening. But I do sometimes feel him at other times too.

My baby bump is getting bigger and I must say bending over is getting difficult. My body does not want to bend at the waist anymore. I’ll have to get used to altering the way I do things as it feels mostly stiff around my waist and I see I have crease marks under my boobs where my upper body is trying to bend.

I cannot describe to you the joy I feel most days when I think about this pregnancy or our little Nunu. Even though I am going through a difficult time now with my mom’s illness there is a part of me that is just so very happy and it’s because of my pregnancy. I am getting excited now – no more trepidation or worries; I’m actually looking forward to the birth and meeting our son! I’ve been dreaming about our baby a lot recently, like giving birth and holding our little one, and every time it is just the absolute best feeling!

I’m starting to think about the baby room, and how we will decorate it and what we must buy. We are moving at the end of the month to another house and then there will be a dedicated baby room, so we will probably start to get things ready then. We want to go to a few antique shops and look for an old wooden cot, a rocking chair and a chest of drawers. Something that looks like it has character. I hope we find something that is not too expensive!

I’m still in my usual clothes. I’m quite surprised about that. My bump is getting bigger but most of my pants still fit and comfortably, those that don’t fit were too tight before I got pregnant, so I don’t take them into account. I have had a look at maternity clothes in 2 shops but so far I haven’t needed any, so I haven’t bought anything yet… I fitted one pair of jeans but it was so big around the tummy area that I decided to only buy those when I need to since I’m not too sure which size to buy.

I know I need to post a belly picture, I’ll see if I can get DH to take another one so I can post it…

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News on my mom:

Well, we still don’t know much about what is actually wrong.  On Monday my mom first saw the radiation oncologist.  He said her body can’t cope with the Chemo and that they should rather go to plan B which is radiation.

They also did an ultrasound scan on my mom on Monday, as they cannot do a CT scan so soon after the last one.   There they saw some extra spots on my mom’s kidneys and some in her abdominal area. They also looked for blood clots in her legs as my mom’s legs are really very swollen and they were a bit dumbfounded as to the origin of the swelling as there weren’t any blood clots.  

Yesterday my mom saw the Chemo oncologist and he said that he thinks that she should continue with the Chemo as it seems like the cancer is spreading and spreading fast because of the new spots they picked up on the ultrasound.   The problem with radiation is they can treat specific areas, but if the cancer is spreading then you will miss it if it’s outside that area, but Chemo will kill any cancer in your body no matter where it is…  He intends to monitor her blood more frequently and apparently my mom’s blood platelets are nice and high after the transfusion.  We don’t know when she will get more Chemo, since she was supposed to get the second one today, but I guess they first want to get her better and then they will decide.

This morning suddenly there was a new theory surrounding the swelling (which has reached my mom’s body now and she is swollen from just below her boobs all the way to her feet).  They suggested my mom see an urologist, and because of that she had to be transferred to a different hospital.  They think that maybe there is some kind of blockage somewhere around her kidneys or bladder and that is causing her to swell up.  Apparently she is drinking more fluids than she is urinating out of her body.  That can also be the cause of all the pain she’s had recently.  I can tell that my mom hopes that this diagnosis is the right one and not the one of yesterday.  She does sound a bit more hopeful and positive today. 

Last I spoke to her, my mom was still waiting for the urologist, so we don’t know if there is indeed a blockage, and if so where, or what the treatment will be.  So we are still waiting to hear what exactly the diagnosis is, but my mom does feel a bit better and the pain is better, but I suspect that is because she is getting pain medication, although she says she is not getting any.  The thing is when I saw her yesterday and every time I speak to her on the phone she sounds drugged – her speech is a bit slurred and she sometimes says weird things that have nothing to do with the conversation or she gets some facts confused. 

It’s been hard these last few days, but once more I know all I can do is trust in God and that I must keep my eyes on Jesus.  He will carry us all through this difficult time!

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My mom is in hospital again:

When I phoned my mom this morning she told me she is being admitted to hospital again.  She was in a lot of pain over the weekend and last time I saw her she complained of pain in her liver, so I assume it’s the same pain…  She’s been looking very ill during the last week or so and it seems she just feels worse every time I see her or speak to her.

I don’t know much since she hasn’t seen the doctor yet and apparently they are going to do more tests, but I’m not sure what they will be testing.  All I know is she does not feel good at all and she actually cried when I spoke to her.

She was supposed to feel much better by now.  The oncologist said that the Chemo would only make her feel sick for about a week and that the other 3 weeks would not be so bad.  Well, it’s almost 4 weeks since the chemo and she just feels worse as the time goes by and this is the second time since the first Chemo that she’s been admitted to hospital…

We also don’t know what the POA is for further treatments as the doctor did not want to commit to anything until this coming Wednesday…

So all we can do is wait and see.  I hate that!

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Our first visit to a midwife:

Today we had our first visit to the midwife I’ve chosen.  Actually I’ve chosen 3 midwives that work together, and there is always one available.  That is very important as our due date is 22 December and it seems we fall in the most difficult time of the year to have a baby, because of Christmas time and the fact that most people take vacation then.  As it is we will have trouble getting a  back up obgyn that will be available through the whole of December, as the midwife said we must know that our little baby can come anytime during December.

DH has some misgivings about using a midwife and would prefer it if I just went straight to an obgyn, but I really would love to try a vaginal water birth.  If it’s not possible I would off course follow the midwife or obgyn’s advise.

The midwife is generally very happy with me and our little one – everything was perfect, my iron levels, my urine sample and my blood pressure.  I’ve gained about 2.5 kg from my pre pregnancy weight, and I’m happy with that.  Also only about 0.5 kg’s since my last FA scan exactly 5 weeks ago.  I’m quite surprised since I didn’t really watch what I ate last week on holiday, and I had a lot of stuff that I would not usually eat.  But then again, I don’t own a scale and the two measurements were taken at different places and I don’t know if they are both accurate, so it could be a bit more…

Our baby’s heartbeat was 148, 155 and 158 when measured and that is apparently perfect.  They want to see 3 different readings because that indicates good blood flow through the umbilical cord.  I did miss not seeing our little nunu on a scan though, but I must go at 20 weeks and that is only 3 weeks to go!  With our FA scan our little nunu was sleeping all the time and since I don’t feel him much yet, I was under the impression that he sleeps most of the day.  Well not today when the midwife tried to listen to the heartbeat with her Doppler – he moved around so much that she had trouble measuring it.  Every time he moved it made a specific sound, and he moved so much that the midwife said we have a little busy body in there!

Speaking about moving – yesterday afternoon I felt movement without holding my hand on my tummy, exactly 3 times at the same spot.  It was a feeling I’ve never felt before so I’m sure it was our baby.  Since then I’ve felt it one more time at different places and I love, love, love it!  I actually can’t wait for the kicks to become more pronounced so that DH can feel it properly too!

I must say the midwife was shocked to hear about my gynaecological history, especially about the cysts, polyps, endo and adenomyosis.  She obviously doesn’t often get former IF patients.  She was incredibly sympathetic about it all though and said that she can believe that I was depressed with all that happened.  It seems mental state of mind is also important to them.

This morning I’ve officially graduated again to a bigger bra size.  I started out with 34B before I got pregnant.  At 5 weeks I was already in DD’s and those have been very tight since a few weeks ago.  Now I’m wearing 34E!  For someone that never had big boobs that is very nice!  I never would have thought that my boobs would get so big so quickly, especially since my sister only got a bigger size bra for the first time around 30 weeks of pregnancy and she wore 34E while breastfeeding.  Makes me wonder where I will end up…

I must say I’m enjoying this pregnancy so much, especially now in the second trimester.  I feel great and I don’t worry so much anymore.

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We suffer because we are deceived:

Hosea 4:6 (NIV):  “⁶ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge…” 

It has become so evident to me lately that most people have a completely wrong perception of God and what He can do for us.   The problem is that most people and especially Christians are so convinced of what they believe that they are not really open to hearing the truth.  I cannot really blame them, because I was also one of those people for so many years, and a lot of the time they believe something from experiences in their own lives that they cannot help but believe what they believe.  Let me give an example:

About three weeks ago I spoke to my friend “G” about his cancer, and he said that he truly believes God can heal him, but he doesn’t think that in his specific case that it is Gods will to heal him.  Why did he say that?  Because he has believed for so long, and yet he is still not healed.  The problem is he doesn’t know everything about healing, and he doesn’t believe in the laying on of hands, as a friend of his went to a healing service and she did not get healed – she passed away as a matter of fact.  So he is not open to discussions like that at all and he doesn’t believe that God can do miraculous acts of healing because he hasn’t seen it.   But he is a Christian and he loves the Lord with his whole heart, and he wants to help others in pain.   He doesn’t know the full truth and he just doesn’t want to listen to anything I have to say about  healing.  That saddens me, so much – I have tried everything from talking to him, to giving him books to read and CD’s to listen to, but I know he hasn’t done any of that because he still  believes that it is not God’s will to heal him.  I can only pray that the Holy Spirit will show me or him a way where he can learn the truth and be healed…  So I want to write this for those who don’t know the truth yet, and I hope that at least one person will be helped with this.

The fact is that Jesus is the key to our healing.   John 14:6 (NIV):  “⁶Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life…” and John 10:10 (NIV):  “¹⁰ …I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  I think one of the reasons I could accept the teachings about healing so easily was because I wondered so many times about all the healing Jesus and even his disciples did in the New Testament and why it doesn’t happen today anymore.  And those teachings that I studied explained it so well – we aren’t doing it right today, we don’t know what Jesus did for us, and we are not following Jesus’ example.

Just look at what we do when we hear that someone is ill or has a physical problem – we start to pray to God and ask Him to heal that person in Jesus’ name, or if it’s for yourself or someone really close to us we might resort to begging God to please, please heal us or our loved ones.  I think that is the most common approach isn’t it?  I know that is what I used to do!  Then we wait for God to heal that person – we might even pray many times, but is that what Jesus did?  No!

Jesus told his disciples in Mark 11:23 (NIV):  “²³I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw  yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.”  Jesus told them to speak to their problem – not to God, and what they say will happen, OK they have to believe too, that is also very important.  If you look at the healings Jesus did – what did He do? Let me give you a few examples:

Matthew 8:1-4 (NIV):  “The Man With Leprosy. ¹When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.  ² A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.  ³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, he said. Be clean!  Immediately he was cured of his leprosy.  ⁴ Then Jesus said to him, See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Matthew 8:5-13 (NIV):  “The Faith of the Centurion.  ⁵When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ Lord, he said, my servant lies at home paralysed and in terrible suffering.  ⁷ Jesus said to him, I will go and heal him.  ⁸ The centurion replied, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it. ¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.  ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.  ¹² But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  ¹³ Then Jesus said to the centurion, Go! It will be done just as you believed it would. And his servant was healed at that very hour.”

Matthew 8:14-16 (NIV):  “Jesus Heals Many.  ¹⁴When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.  ¹⁵ He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.  ¹⁶ When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.”

Matthew 8:28-34 (NIV):  “The Healing of Two Demon-possessed Men.  ²⁸ When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no-one could pass that way.  ²⁹ What do you want with us, Son of God? they shouted. Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?  ³⁰ Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding.  ³¹The demons begged Jesus, If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.  ³² He said to them, Go! So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.  ³³ Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men.  ³⁴ Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.”

Matthew 9:1-7 (NIV):  “Jesus Heals a Paralytic.  ¹ Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.  ² Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven. ³ At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, This fellow is blaspheming!  ⁴ Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?  ⁵ Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?  ⁶ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . . Then he said to the paralytic, Get up, take your mat and go home.  ⁷ And the man got up and went home.”

I want you to see that I took the first few examples of Jesus’ healing in the New Testament – I didn’t pick some specific cases because of the wording – it’s not necessary.  You can go through the whole New Testament and read up on all of Jesus’ healings and you will see that He did not pray to God in for people to get healed.  Jesus just said, “be clean,” to the man with leprosy and he was healed.  Jesus just told the centurion, “Go!  It would be done just as you believed it would.”  He touched the hand of Peter’s mother- in- law, no mention of any word said, and the demon possessed were healed with a word in Matt 8:16.  The other demons were driven out with one word, “Go!” and the paralytic man was healed with the words, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”   In this last case Jesus gave the paralytic man an instruction and in that way He required some act of faith from the paralytic man.

Why was Jesus able to do this? Because He had the authority to do it, just like the centurion explained.  The good news is that we also have that same authority now, because (a) Jesus paid for it when he was whipped at the whipping post and with His sacrifice on the cross (Isaiah 53:4-5 (NIV):  “⁴Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.    ⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”  And 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV):  “²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”), but not only that, (b) His last instruction to His disciples was in Mark 16:15-18 (NIV):  “¹⁵He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.  ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.  ¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

It is Jesus’ will for all to be healed – He told us to heal all!  Look at the man with leprosy – He asked Jesus to heal him if it was Jesus will and Jesus answered him, “I am willing.”  Look at all the other instances in the Bible where Jesus healed people – nowhere does it say that Jesus did not want to heal any person that came to him.  There are many instances where it is mentioned that “all were healed,” like in Matt 8:16 above.

Now some might say that Jesus did not heal all because of what is written in Matthew 13:54-59 (NIV):  “⁵⁴Coming to his home town, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? they asked.  ⁵⁵ Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?  ⁵⁶Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?  ⁵⁷ And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, Only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honour.  ⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” 

It says here that Jesus did not do many miracles because of the lack of faith of the people in His hometown.  It never says that Jesus did not want to heal them.  These people could not believe that Jesus was the Messiah because they saw Him grow up between them – they thought He was just another ordinary human being like the rest of them and that is why they could not believe.   I also think we can assume that some miracles were done in Jesus’ home town, because the above verse says, “not many miracles were done,” that does not mean that there were no miracles, just not many.  There was definitely one and that was the paralytic man because Matthew 9:1 (NIV) says:  “Jesus Heals a Paralytic.  ¹Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.”

I want to challenge those that still believe that it’s not God’s will to heal everybody to give me a New Testament scripture (because of the New Covenant – if you don’t understand that, please read this post) that proves that God does not want to heal all.  It is so important that we start to question our beliefs and cross check it with scripture – there are so many sacred cows that we just mindlessly believe in without ever questioning it, and I really hope that every single person who reads this will start do just that if they haven’t already!

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So what have we been up to lately?

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, but with good reason.  We went away for a week on vacation, and I must say it was a much needed vacation.  We went to Zin.kwazi on the Na.tal north coast and although it is winter the weather was not too bad!  The temperature there is quite a bit warmer than here where we live and that suited me fine!  This winter I’ve been cold all the time and I just needed a bit warmer weather for a while.   My sister told me that when she was pregnant she was hot all the time and she felt like she had a heater in her tummy, but I certainly don’t feel like that!  I cannot wait for spring to come and for the weather to get warmer.

I’m 16 weeks pregnant now and DH thinks he can see my tummy get bigger by the day.  I can’t believe that I was worried that I was carrying too small only two weeks ago, although most people won’t guess that I’m pregnant – I feel that I just look fatter than I’ve ever been in my life, but not pregnant yet, so I’m actually quite self conscious about how I look now.  Funny enough my clothes still fit me, especially my pants, so it seems I’ve not picked up much weight around my bum area, just around my tummy.

My sister and her family also came with us and we had a good discussion about her pregnancies and how she carried, gained weight etc, and it seems that our bodies react totally different, which was a surprise to me as we are very similarly built and I always assumed it would be the same for us.   They lived in the UK when she was pregnant with both her daughters, so I really don’t know much about her pregnancies.

My sister said she always gained weight in her bum first and she was in bigger pants before the end of her first trimester.  She also didn’t really have any morning sickness and she was hungry all the time, so she ate a lot more than usual.  I think I eat only slightly more than what I was used to, and up to 14 weeks I was so nauseous that I really only ate what I could.

She also said that her tummy only popped out much later and with her first baby, she didn’t have much of a bump, but that was because the baby was breech and couldn’t turn.  The second pregnancy I saw her for the last 4 weeks or so when they came back to South Africa for good and although she had a good sized bump it wasn’t huge – as a matter of fact she was the same size at the same time as my SIL who had her first baby (a boy) exactly 2 months after my sister had her second.

So, I guess I won’t be able to compare myself to her, as it seems my pregnancy is already so much different than hers.  I wonder if the fact that we are having a boy has anything to do with it?  One of my previous bosses always had a theory that with boys you carry most of the weight in the tummy area and with girls mostly in the bum area…  I always thought that was an old wives tale, but now I’m wondering if there is some truth to it?

I’ve been feeling some more movements, but not very often, not even every day.  I’ve been hoping that DH can feel it too, so often when we lie in bed he lies with his hand on my tummy.  The other day he told me he felt a very faint movement under his hand and when he described it to me it sounded exactly like what I’m feeling so I believe he also felt our little nunu!  That was an incredibly special moment!

On a different topic:  My mom was admitted to hospital earlier this week.  It seems that the chemo has once again destroyed most of her blood platelets and this time also her red blood cells.  Her colon started bleeding again, and because blood doesn’t clot well with low blood platelets she lost a lot of blood and had to get a blood transfusion.   She got one bag of blood platelets and one bag of red blood cells, and she was kept overnight in hospital.  The oncologist said that he will let her know in a week and a half’s time what he intends to do about this problem.   My mom really doesn’t want anymore chemo, but the oncologist didn’t want to commit to a specific POA for her.  I can tell that these last few weeks were incredibly hard on my mom and for the first time she really did sound worried about her health…   I’m currently clinging to God’s promises about healing and I try not to worry too much.

Talking about worry – this morning KT had us worried.  We saw her last around breakfast time and then it seemed that she had disappeared.  DH and I went looking for her around lunch time and eventually I saw her in one of our neighbour’s house.  I knocked on the door and I realized that there was no one at home and that KT was locked up inside.

At first we didn’t have the cell number of the lady that lives there, fortunately someone gave it to us, but then she didn’t answer her phone.  Eventually we realized that we would have to try to break into her house, because KT was starting to get anxious in there.  Fortunately DH was able to open her garage door and get into the house from there to let KT out.

A little bit later this lady phoned back and DH explained what happened, and she thought it was hilarious!  She told us that KT visits her and her teenage son a lot and that KT woke her up yesterday morning by giving her a lick in the face.  Apparently she had opened a door for her dog and KT, who can jump over walls of about 4-5 foot high, got into her garden and into the house.  When her son comes home after school in the afternoon’s he wrestles with KT on the living room carpet so KT is quite at home with them in their house, and I think that she just didn’t realize KT was still in the house when she left this morning.   Her only worry was her cat, that only stays indoors, but when she came home he was OK so obviously KT didn’t harm him…  KT was also waiting for her when she came home and went straight back into her house with her, so she obviously hasn’t learnt her lesson!

We are just so relieved that KT and the cat are OK, and that KT didn’t damage this lady’s house trying to get out…  DH loves to say in times like this, “Must love dogs…”

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