We went to visit my mom for her 80th birthday. While visiting, she asked us to go with Dad to see the traveling Vietnam Memorial with my Dad. He had wanted to go, but didn't want to go alone. Mom felt it would be too much walking for her. Amazingly, we were able to find Mom's first sousing James R (Ronnie) Speller, who died during the war.
When we got back home, we celebrated Mom with a birthday cake.
Our other October birthday(until this year) belongs to Evie Claire! Beth was expecting the baby boy to come around Evie's birthday, so she scheduled Evie's painting party on the 20th. Evie's birthday is the 28th. The night before the party, Beth called and was having problems with vaginal prolapse. She went to the Dr. and they wouldn't let her go home, yet wouldn't break her water to make labor begin in earnest either. She stayed overnight and finally, at 11:45 they broke her water, Mr. Gregory Jude Hessler came into the work at 12:00 pm on Oct. 20th, 2020! John, Kelly and I hosted Evie's birthday party at a painting studio.
Finally, Evie was able to go and meet her little brother. Aunta and her girls went also.
The next day, the nurses felt like Jude was having difficulty breathing. They took him to NICU, he stayed there for a little over a week. It was a horrible time for Beth and Greg. I felt like I was reliving Beth's birth. She was born early and was in that very same hospital in the very same NICU. God used this experience to minister to a new mom. As I was washing my hands before visiting Jude, a new mom was showing me how to find Beth and Jude. I shared Beth's story and the new mom was so relieved and said she was so happy to hear that a baby such as hers could recover and lead a normal life. I really feel like this was God making beauty from ashes!
Beth made a sign to go on Jude's isolette....
We stayed with Evie for a few days, until we knew that Jude was out of the woods.
She gave me a manicure.
Jude finally came home and has never looked back. He was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, but we are hoping and praying that he will out grow it.
Coming home...
I ended up with Shingles and couldn't go back to Beth's for 2 weeks. After the two weeks, I went back and stayed 4 days to help out.
This is what my shingles looked like....
I didn't have a fever, just fatigue, headache or the rash burned/itched like crazy!
