so many sweet blessings

I've been *gone* for a while - my apologies.

I'm back now, and I want to share a few stories blessings with you.

First ~ I was contacted by my friend Marilyn again.

You may remember her from this. 

Anyhoooooo.....

She recently ordered one of Dennis's fabulous churches for a Mother's Day/"Homecoming" gift for her friend Candy's daughter. She said a group of friends (they call themselves the Ya-Yas) were going in together on this gift.

Within hours Candy contacted me about ordering one of my nest necklaces for the same daughter.

Candy told me that the moment she saw the necklace on this blog she thought of Sara, her daughter.

 

So I got to thinkin'....what's so special about this young mother?

I'll let Sara tell you in her own words:

"After struggling with infertility for many years we went through 2 rounds of IVF and finally became pregnant with twins. One twin died very early and then I carried our first biological (I have step children, too) child – a daughter named Isabelle. At about 29 weeks into my pregnancy we learned that she would probably die. I carried her to full-term and delivered her joyfully surrounded by family and friends. She was beautiful. She died about a day later shortly after being removed from life support. We never learned what was wrong with her. She was and is a huge blessing in our lives. We try to incorporate her into our family life as much as possible. One thing I have started to do is collect her name written in the sand from places all over the world – as family and friends and friends of friends travel they have sent photos. I am going to put a little book together when I get a lot of them.

I ended up getting pregnant with twins through another transfer of frozen embryos from Isabelle’s IVF cycle. I went into premature labor with them at 22 weeks. I stayed at Sacred Heart for 99 days (with multiple complications) and delivered two boys (Micah and Liam) on Halloween – two years to the day that I found out I was pregnant with Isabelle. So my three very precious eggs are Isabelle, Micah and Liam. Every time I see three things I think of the three of them – especially eggs!"

Then I asked Sara about her relationship with Marilyn.

And who in the world are the Ya-Yas?

 This is what she told me:

"A group of women ‘doing life together’. Named after the movie the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. They are lifelong friends. Some of them like my mom and Marla have been friends since childhood. Some of them like my mom and Marilyn have been friends since I was a tiny little girl. The other three – Joyce, Eunice and Bridget lived in the neighborhood I moved to in the 5th grade and had been good friends for years. It was the type of neighborhood you dream of living in where the friendships grow deep, there were progressive dinners, street dances, neighborhood parade, etc… and everyone becomes like family to each other sharing in the beautiful times and the tragedies that always seem to unfold."

Interestingly enough, of the 6 Ya-Yas in the photo 4 of them had experienced great loss with their own children – miscarriages, stillbirths, 3 month old death and the death of an 18 year old. Some of them have had multiple losses – not just one. They were a huge support to me during my pregnancies and even relived some of their own journey when I was living the worst of mine. The difference was that some of them never got to hold or bath or name or bury their babies or talk about their losses all that much.

And what's this "Homecoming" all about?

We live in an old 1926 house and it was in great need of repair. We were doing some restoration projects and I was concerned about lead in the house with our babies. I had them tested and they had been exposed to lead already. We moved out of our house within 5 days to an apt with these two precious little 18 month old guys to do some safe restoration on our home. One thing lead to another and we restored everything! We were living in the apt for almost 3 years! We just moved back on December 18th of last year! So the homecoming was a celebration of us moving back to our home!

Sara ended our cyber *chat* with this:

Blessings,

Sara – mama to 6 children – 3 by birth, 3 by choice – Meggan, Beth, Evan, Isabelle, Micah and Liam

The mention of my child’s name might make me cry. Not mentioning my child’s name will surely break my heart!

 Author unknown.

I just love that through this little business I am honored to meet such wonderful women and to hear their stories.

I am blessed.

Finally, I am pleased to announce the birth of.....drum roll please......

Corban Sebastian Lewis

Born: 5/10/2010

9lbs. (!!!)

22" long

PERFECT!

I am told he loves his new room.

Now it's time for me to pack my bags and go meet this new little bundle of joy....

...and to return to my attic where I am working on some fun, NEW designs that will be going with me to this:

The Vintage Barn Show

22277 N. Ramsey Road

Rathdrum, Idaho

July 10, 2010

DON"T MISS IT! 

Thanks for stopping by - stay tuned for more about those new designs....