Another year, another animal

It's been five years now. I'm so glad I have this on line journal to look back on. Even if I only write once or twice a year, it's perspective. Looking back on last year's sharing, it was very heavy. 

Thanks to this little guy, this year feels a lot lighter.

We'll be celebrating the one year anniversary of his unexpected arrival in a couple weeks. He showed up one night hungry and scruffy. I looked for his owners. I looked for a new home for him. Lots of people said he was meant to be mine, but financially, even just a cat is a frivolity. But, potential owners didn't work out, (I made a new friend though!), and I just could not bring myself to give him up to a place where he'd be in a cage or a small room until adopted. He'd been living on his own outside and that just seemed cruel.

So, Houdini the little escape artist became a part of our family. I'd shared about him on social media. The first night we noticed him, he was so hungry, and I'd later discover injured. It was dusk and he scampered by me as I was walking up the trail and sat down a few feet away. He just sat there lifting his head to smell the breeze. He seemed completely unbothered by his hunger or his wound. He just enjoyed the night air. He made his way down to the barn and stayed the night there. He lived in the barn for a while and it took a bit of maneuvering to make the barn secure. He was so independent, he would push his way through the doors we'd barricaded to keep him safe at night and dig his way out. He wanted out. And he wanted in. I can really relate to that. We want what we want. 

My working class Brit teased about him getting his boots planted firmly under the table. This is true. He charmed his way right into our hearts. Over time, his wound healed and his coat became soft and glossy. And he makes us laugh and smile all the time. He's bright, friendly, and curious; he wants to know everyone. I guess, in some ways, he reminds me of Dom. Life has been pretty precarious for Dom, but he'll still walk outside, lift his head into the breeze, and just take it all in. He too is healing from his wounds, and he's been taken in by all of you. You've fed him and cared for him. You've made it possible to get treatment he needs and continue to cheer him on as he faces the lifelong disease of gvhd. 

Sometimes, we're hanging on by a thread.

But we are hanging on.

Last year, I was so exhausted. I had actually found myself crying uncontrollably the entire month of June. I felt alone and in some pretty deep despair.

July was a game changer. I shared here that Dominic was able to be fitted for contacts that protect his eyes. He was going blind and in constant pain. We had to get them, and if you remember, a group of artists had decided to give him the remainder of some funds they had which amounted to almost the exact amount necessary for the contacts. We still live on that divine grace.

The pandemic shifted things for us and for me. It made it easier to let go of some things. It is the strangest thing to be on the cusp of normalcy only to have the whole world shut down and then try to find a new normal and actually there is no such thing. I realized, what we all crave is not normalcy, but comfort and adventure. 

Our adventures remain our trips to Sacramento. We go every 2-3 weeks for Dom's treatment. He's kind of at a stand still where we still hope for forward progress. He's still on large doses of anti rejection medication, which should have been over by now. He continues to suffer a laundry list of ailments that we treat like whack a mole. Oh that some wet cat food and a safe home could cure him. We balance hope for progress with cheerful resignation. He is alive. He is able to help where he can. We have Houdini. All is well.

Thanks to the contacts, Dom is also able to drive a little. It was not a possibility last year at this time. We make a stop on the way home from Sacramento to pick up paperwork for my job and he drives the final leg home. It's been so good for him to be behind the wheel and taking back more of his autonomy. He's also been on the tractor as we have acres of fields to mow. This year, he's been able to help me more. This is good for both of us! We spend lots of time outside. This is one of the gifts of Covid, I think. Since we knew we'd be spending a lot of time at home, we've done what we can to make it a happy place. We don't own our home or the property, so everything we do is mindful of that detail. We're also mindful of fire danger. But, in between all that, we've planted a garden again this year and to plant a garden is to hope! We did a re-haul of the chicken coop, hopefully protecting them from bobcats and foxes, and started a new flock. (Thanks to my anonymous helper and Charlie G and Bob for their help on the coop.) And just to add to the poultry farm, we have a resident Tom. We call him Turkey Lurkey, and since I started feeding him leftover grains, he's not going anywhere. He has a damaged leg and limps around grazing on the last bit of field we've left untouched for him. We eagerly look for him in the mornings.

These things all give us life. Just being and helping in small ways where we can and breathing in the air.

No one can ever convey the intricacies of their life to another. My own mother who I speak with every day is continuing to learn and understand how we are situated, so I realize our own odyssey can be difficult to wrap one's mind around. Life as we knew it has changed irrevocably. Our goals and dreams have changed. But the one thing that remains is love. I shared a book page of the The Boy, the mole, the fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy yesterday, I'll leave you with it:

"We don't know about tomorrow," said the horse, "all we need to know is that we love each other."

 

 

 

 
 

The Winds of Change?

The wind was howling last night. I'd fallen asleep early, like any good stodgy 40 something year old should do on New Year's Eve. The air always feels different to me on this once a year day. Though I resist the notion that the day is any different than the other 364, resistance alone says this day is different.  I don't make resolutions. I don't come up with a word. I don't know why not. I just don't.
Well. I do know why not. Because life happens in ways we cannot predict. I know now better than ever that any resolution I made on the eve of 2017 or 2018 would be miniscule in the face of the resolve I would have to muster to just exist.
I was grumpy last night. Out of sorts. I'm struggling to transition from Red Alert to hopeful.
The wind howled.
I'd put some of Christmas away yesterday, and it sat in bins on the back porch just outside the bedroom. I wondered if I'd snapped the lids, or if three generations of ornaments and ephemera would be flying through the field behind our house.
I'd remarked earlier how we'd spent last New Year's Eve in the apartment beneath elephants wearing cement shoes. We thought we were safe as we nestled asleep by ten. Only to be awakened when the bars closed and the elephants came home and trumpeted through the night and almost up until our doctor's appointment at 8 am.
I thought this year would be different. On so many levels.
But the wind howled.
Someone suggested yesterday, as I closed the year with an afternoon yoga class, that we not spend our last hours of 2018 pressing early into 2019, but that we look back over the year and acknowledge our accomplishments.
I survived?

I listed my accomplishments over dinner, but they came out more as frantic arm waving.
How does one quantify the accomplishment of spending the greater part of two years in a hell not of one's own making? And surviving.

I'm so shortsighted as a person though.
There just didn't seem to be enough time in December. I had it planned one way, and then some things came up and I spent a great deal of time doing things I did not expect to be doing. You'd think after 18 months being on the crazy roller coaster schedule we have been on that I'd roll with it. But, I spent most of December feeling a frenzy. Feeling like I couldn't do it all. Feeling defeated. When will I learn that life is all the days before and all the days after that one moment? I would tease people when they'd ask how are you in the thick of our crisis. "Living the dream," I'd say, Dominic in a hospital bed and me heartbroken for him. It was a sarcastic stab at humor. But it was more than that. It was truth. He and I had had many happy moments before, and will have many to come. Things may be difficult, our struggle may be extra, but we're not limited to living in the worst of those difficult moments. Tomorrow is here.

A friend gave me daffodil bulbs.  The first flowers of spring, I heard. They are my birthday flower. When I see the daffodil, I know both that spring is coming, and that I am older. But the daffodil is magic. I don't feel older. It doesn't bring with it the baggage of aging that humans have built an industry around resisting. It simply affirms to me that I exist. It speaks to me that there is beauty. There is spring. There is hope.
Wikipedia says the narcissus has conspicuous flowers.
If I must be conspicuous in anything, I should hope I could be as affirming and magical as a flower.

I'm sitting with my back pressed against the wall heater. Dominic is still sleeping, still mending. We're both on bridges right now. He's coming back to life. What has he accomplished in 2018? Basically, a life time.  He reverted to a sort of infancy in the ravages of the disease and has fought his way back to standing on his own. It takes newborns several years to accomplish what he has in 5 months. He has walked down our little hill to the car and back to the house and uses only a cane in the house now. He's very hopeful for the year. He's eager to work and travel.

I'm not there yet.

Aside of the fact that I'm a home body, we were away from home nearly 6 months just this year, the idea of making plans, of being out and about scares me. I need stability to seep into my bones a little more. My accomplishment for 2019 will be steeping in goodness. There. I've blogged my way into an intention for the new year.

But how?

2019 came in like a lion. I lay awake wondering if the venerable oak trees book-ending our house would topple in on us. The wind howled and I could hear things crashing and banging outside. One thing that banged a lot is one of those curtain screens with magnets to hold it together. The magnets rhythmically hit the wall and I think one of the first things I will do in 2019 is get rid of it. I'd left it there through other storms thinking it would be of service in the summer. Perhaps I will get rid of it, and something better will appear at the right time. It will be the first of many things I will let go of to make room for what is to come.

I will continue to be grateful for all we've been given and all the love we've felt.


A friend suggested last night's winds are the winds of change.
I hope so.
I hope they have thoroughly cleared out anything that is keeping me from letting goodness seep into my bones. They have shown me I must make way for the new. Though the winds howled all night and stole my sleep, they left the gift of hope.

I am hopeful for us all this new year. Hopeful we will all find goodness to seep into our bones. Hopeful we will all make space for something better. Hopeful I can be part of the goodness in my own life and yours.

Happy new year to all far and wide.

Christmas Lights Hope Lights

I think we're going to drive through and see the Christmas lights on the Fab 40's in Sacramento tonight. We have a very early appointment for a pulmonary function test and decided to drive in tonight and stay in a hotel. Not the place we stayed that terrible week straight out of the hospital. Not a glamorous hotel either. Just a nice place where I got a nice discount with a special code for transplant patients. We have lovely friends we can stay with, but we're setting out almost with a little holiday in mind, and a hotel for just one night on my terms sounds a little dreamy.
 
And this day, this is Dominic's birthday. Not his actual birthday, his second chance birthday. The feelings all pulsing through my heart are palpable. One year ago, we watched the bright coral colored stem cells flow into Dom's body, and we went to bed that night in the glow of my battery operated Christmas lights with the knowledge that he'd made it through that first big hurdle of accepting the cells. We fell asleep feeling like our whole lives were before us.

It really felt like an actual shift. All the chemo is behind us. All the anticipation.

Well. Not all the anticipation. We still anticipate what is next. But the donor had been found, and the job was done. So now, we hope. We persevere.

After almost exactly a month in the hospital, we were free to move into our temporary place. After a month of being in an enormous room with people peeking in the door out of curiosity, people walking through the door to work, and the lights and beeps, we were released, and though where we moved was not literally quiet, in my heart it felt like the quietness you feel in a snow fall when sound is muffled by snow flakes falling and collecting all around.

With Christmas just days away, and our newfound freedom, we bundled up and set out to see the Christmas lights.

Which is the same place we're heading later tonight. I'm also jumping out of my skin because after the appointment  in the morning, we're meeting with one of our most favorite nurses to catch up. It's been too long and we're delighted to finally try and meet up. Well....we tried before, but timing thus
far has been off. Fingers crossed, because we really miss her. And there's some synchronicity both in seeing the Christmas lights and seeing our nurse.

We'd see this nurse throughout the months of chemo, waiting in agonizing anticipation for a donor. In the middle of the night she'd come in to make the beeping stop, but she was never our nurse. We immediately liked her, and I'd wonder out loud when she'd actually be assigned to us. I later realized she only works with patients after transplant. So finally, after months of visits to the hospital, she would actually be the one to carry Dom through the night. And tomorrow again, after months of agony we will get to connect with her. Even though she was our nurse again during the very difficult time, I don't think about that. I associate her with being part of the other side, the other side of transplant, the other side of gvhd. We are being ushered beyond these milestones.

And the lights. Last year, we drove through feeling a deep kinship with Christmas and new life and the wonder of it all. Tonight, we'll have this whole year behind us. And though the whole year is behind us, it almost felt like a wrinkle in time, where the past 6 months of the horror of gvhd are in that fold, and we can meet again the feelings of hopefulness we had a year ago, the feelings of being in a cocoon in the hospital and in our apartment in Sacramento. While we always longed to be home, we also felt so safe being in the hospital or so near the hospital. And while I greeted that old feeling of security again, that I associate with that time in anticipation of driving through a twinkly wonderland, I also feel like we're truly being deposited on the other side. I finally have a sense of relief that this time, Dominic's new immune system is going to kick into gear and do what it is supposed to do. What better bookend to this year than sparkling lights and sparkling friends? Dominic is getting his sparkle back every day. Our ground zero now is a little more ground zero than last year, but we're more resilient, more tenacious, and more experienced. 2018 threw us a sharper curve ball than 2017. As I think about all these comforting things on Dominic's first birthday, I am convinced that 2019 will lob an easy home-run to us and we'll look back on his second birthday with even more joy and life to celebrate.

No news is good news.....

Dreaming of trifle, we'll get here again soon.

We've been home for almost two weeks now.

It's such an odd feeling as I process all the different times I've shared we're home. And what it means to be home. Overall, we're glad we made the decision to come home, and heal and get stronger. Even if the doctor asked us to stay in Sacramento a little longer yesterday. I think he's very out of touch with the emotional healing process. Science can only get you so far.....then there's healing emotionally and spiritually.


I have one less blog reader today. I just want to take a moment and share that. The mother of a very dear friend, who I know followed along with our journey has transitioned on her own. She was a wonderful woman who touched so many lives, including my own. She will be greatly missed, but never forgotten, and not gone from us.

********

Though Dominic's numbers are looking good, he is still quite underweight and weak, I think that's why the doctor wants him nearby. And I'm not 100% convinced the Cyclosporine is on track. Yesterday, the number was too high. Of course they had to call and ask if we were taking as directed. Thankfully, the doctor was in a much better mood than the last time he was out of town. The last time he was so cranky a big black cloud of smoke followed him out of the hospital room. This time, he was chatty and something Dom said reminded him of a movie, which he then quoted and we laughed at just how unprofessional he was in his choice of dialogue....And after he went over all the numbers and made ready to leave, I asked about the biopsy. You know, the one where he pokes knitting needle into Dom's back....and Dom is pain for weeks. And though I know in my heart the Leukemia is gone, I still want it confirmed... He was confused and asked if we needed to set up an appointment for one. No, I reminded him he'd done it before his vacation, and we'd been waiting for results. Oh. Well. He didn't have the results with him, but, no sign of Leukemia. I guess he also was so confident that would be the case, it just wasn't top priority to tell us. (He was confident the day he performed the biopsy and mentioned it was only routine.) So, we take each thing in stride. And press on.

This past week was difficult in other ways. And I am a little mad at myself for not just relaxing into the bumps. I should know by now that we always get through. We do. Even if through is excruciating, even if it means loss, we get through. And we are never alone. Ever.

Dominic looked at me this morning and asked in a knowing way if he's getting his sparkle back. He knows he's getting it back. He actually held conversation with me on the way to Sacramento yesterday. That's kind of a first in a long, very long time. It's taken all his energy to just be for a while now. Yes, he is definitely getting his sparkle back.

We were still scheduled every day this week, as the doctor had not said otherwise, and not been in town to say otherwise. We'd get a day off by the office nurse texting him Dom's numbers and getting approval. We couldn't get a day off Thursday as we were scheduled to meet the doctor that day, so, we only had Tuesday off this week, and now today. Monday, about a half an hour from our return home, I smelled something at first like paint thinner. My first thought was that Dominic was suddenly very ill. Only for a moment. But then, it smelled like fuel. Strongly of fuel. I'd been remarking that I felt like our little mini was a little hungrier than usual for gas/petrol when we got her back after our weeks of borrowing a larger car and after our amazing friend Craig gave her some new brakes. The next half hour, she indeed was so hungry, she ate about an hour's worth of gas in 5 minutes, and I white knuckled it all the way home. We rolled the windows down in 90+ degree weather and made it home.
Can I just make a public service announcement here? I am not a willy nilly person. At all. When I make an observation, it's usually one based on as much observation as possible. Dominic suggested when I first observed we were going through more fuel than usual that perhaps we were using more AC. I reminded him that I'd done the drive all last summer and though we used the other car for 2 weeks, I could still remember how far we could go on a tank of gas. Sometimes, I can get pedantic. But my superpower is observation.
But back to the more mundane. We had a gas leak. I lamented how difficult my life is. I moaned. Even though we have a back up car. Even though we're not stranded. Even though this day of the gas leak, we actually made a half hour detour to pick something up for a friend...and that detour may have saved us from discovering said gas leak a half hour driving IN to Sacramento, rather than arriving home.
Craig came the next night and looked under the hood/bonnet. The leak was easily spotted and much less dramatic than I anticipated.
The next day, Dom and I drove to Sacramento in the other car and made our plan. We called a couple mechanics from our little cubby in the Infusion Center. We lined up a tow truck. We arrived home, settled in. Tow truck driver was a peach. It's usually quite difficult getting people out here, there was a possibility he'd be so late I'd have to follow to the mechanic on the other side of town. But, he met me, glanced at my card, loaded up the car and was on his way. Easy peasy.
And I reflected on how all of the ease of this is possible because we are so cared for and taken care of by so many people.  And felt a fool for moaning.
After all that, I set Dominic up with everything he could possibly need, and nipped out to another dear friend Barbara's who had made Dominic a very special chicken dish that I could just pop in the oven. It was so gratifying to come home and see him devour chicken and rice. And then homemade plum jam on toast for desert. Not only did this friend nourish Dom, but she met my heart right where it needed to be met and I felt so much more normal after visiting with her.
There will always be setbacks in life. Even when we think we've had all the setbacks we can tolerate. I thought I reached the end of my tolerance even before I met Dominic. Was I in for a surprise! But, with all the setbacks, kindness abounds. 
We are ever so grateful, as this will be a much longer road than we bargained for. Dominic makes baby steps. And we celebrate every one: A walk down a long hall way, eating an entire meal, his body making his own Platelets and Hemoglobin and White Blood Cells. Every day, he feels a little stronger and better.
To go through such a thing as we are going through is no easy thing. He relies on me for his every need. Every need. And I rely on him to see past my weariness and grumpiness and lettingmyselfgoness. Just getting us both out of the house is a massive feat. But, when I see that sparkle coming back, the hope in my heart grows stronger. And. He and I are finally able to dream again.

The wind that made the snow flamed the fires

This morning, I was awakened to text and voice messages asking if I was okay. Rubbing my eyes as panic began to set in.
Currently, one of the most destructive fires is raging in California and my town is being decimated.

I immediately tried to call my mother, to no avail. She's in an evacuation zone. She is a ludite. No way to call or text.

I responded to the safety inquiries as efficiently as possible.

And cried.

I got my neighbors to gather Dom's equipment in case of evacuation. And my kitties.

I frantically tried to call my mom again.

Finally, a call came through and she is safe. My mother is safe. And that is all I know. That is all she could tell me on the borrowed phone...I burst into more tears. She is safe.

I've been glued to social network sites for news, inklings if my Mom's house is still standing. Inklings if my house will make it.

I've been in love with everyone. Every check in of safety. Every post of fear, agony, relief all of it. Everyone in my circle after circle after circle is my people. A nurse's aid came in and suggested I step away from the computer, but I couldn't. I needed to see my people. I needed to see people were okay. I needed to share in people's grief and fear. 

I've been thinking of how we live from one tragedy to the next. Even before today, even before my town is the one in the news being declared a State of Emergency, I'd been thinking of this. And now the tragedy is mine. It's right here. Literally in my back yard. And hopefully, no closer.

When your husband's life is on the line, the husband you've waited way too many years to meet, when he's giving all he's got to ride each wave of nausea and fight this beast, and we wait and wait and wait for a donor who will mean the difference between life and death, other people's tragedies are different. They're not less than ours. They're fuller. More robust.

Even before this diagnosis, our hearts would ache for others. I was just the other day thinking of the devastating fires a year or two ago, and how I gathered some of my nicer things for a family and was wondering how they've managed since their great loss.  I had no idea what I could be facing.

Since the day our world turned upside down, we've watched many tragedies. We've struggled to comprehend how one day Dom could just be humming along in life, and the next day flat out. But still alive. While others experience the same humming along....and their life is over in an instant. There's no rhyme. or reason. One house is burned to the ground, the house right next to it is standing. It makes no sense. The fire doesn't judge. It just consumes.

We've looked at each other with a sort of incredulity as police officers are gunned down. Fires rage. Legends die. Hurricanes and floods and earthquakes take and take and take without giving back. Motorcyclists and bicyclists are taken out like flies under a swatter. A man stands in a window and shoots at people for no apparent reason, yet his bullets rain down and arbitrarily snuff out precious lives.  Wars and rumors of war. Angry mother nature.

And heroes are everywhere. They're in great big trucks plowing through floods. They're in fishing boats and canoes. They're laying over their wife protecting her from the spray of bullets. They're standing up to hate and choosing love. They're inviting people over to dinner. They're fighting fires. They're calling. They're bringing diapers to an evacuation center. For floods or fire. We all have the same needs. To have shelter. To have food. To have water. To have sanitation. Or, if you're my husband...and so many other people,  you have extra needs. Right now, he's receiving blood, finally sleeping after an agonizing morning of nausea. Somewhere, there's a hero who sat in a chair for an hour watching their own blood drained for another to have life.

And I couldn't hate a single person just now.

A friend of mine shared a photo of snow in Colorado this morning. A first snow of the season.  A lovely little sprinkling of snow that would be so refreshing in the North Bay. And just after seeing that photo, I read that the same winds that caused the snow in Colorado are the winds that whipped the fires to a frenzy in California.

I don't know what that means if it means anything at all. But I think it does.

The same winds that are responsible for frenzied fires in California brought a sweet little dusting of snow in Colorado.

My Husband's sister, my sister reached out to me as I was waking to this terrible news. From the other side of the world, before she went to sleep, she lifted prayers and love for us. She's praying for my Mother too. Because my mom is her mom. And she was like a sweet, refreshing snow from across the miles, across the ocean, across the globe. She is right next to us.

I don't want to mark my days by tragedy. I don't want to think about how we barely got over Texas before Florida before Mexico before Puerto Rico. I don't want to live in worry about my home burning down.  (Which is a worry I've lived with long before today.)

Another transplant patient calls this the year that wasn't. I'd fallen into that myself. But Dom stopped me. He doesn't want this to be the year that wasn't. He wants this to be the year that was. The year that he is reborn. The year that is. The year that the grass became greener and the sky bluer, and everything came into sharper focus.

And I get what he means.

And I agree.

With all that is going on in the world, I want to mark my days in love. I want to mark my days by heroes. I want to mark my days by sweet gestures of kindness sprinkling around like a refreshing snow fall.
I can choose to let myself be whipped up in a frenzy, or I can be a sweet snow fall.


Post Script~
One of my favorite hymns growing up has been on my mind and between my ears. Just the first refrain. Over and over. It is  the only way I can find peace. To know. In any case. That it is well with my soul.

When peace like a river attendeth my way.
When sorrows like sea billows roll.
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

What to expect when you're expecting or Gestation

I've teased throughout the course of this particular journey that Dominic is like a pregnant woman. It started with the watermelon. He had cravings.

Then, he had nausea. I'd lament to the nurses, all this nausea and no baby at the end?

Of course, I'm the one with the sympathy pregnancy. I'm stress eating and dutifully finishing up all the things he no longer craves. Oh, you're done with potatoes? I'll just go ahead and eat that five pounds of spuds. You're off cheese now? That's okay. I love cheese. Cheese is life. Bring me all the cheese.

I get so happy when he finds something that he really likes. I was well pleased the mornings in the hospital he started off his day with eggs, guacamole and the spiciest salsa. The white coat and company would enter what smelled like a taqueria and were impressed with his supplemented breakfast.

Dominic has been researching different diets and food sources, and on his good days, gets in the kitchen and tries new recipes. What a whole new world it will be when we're on the other side and he can eat raw food again. I think it will be a little like Christmas when he is free to dig into a bowl of blueberries. Or eat the honey harvested from the hives where we live. We look forward to these things like first steps.

I remind him there is a light at the end of the tunnel when the nausea gets intense. Some women are hospitalized due to severe nausea during pregnancy. And many choose to do it again!

We didn't choose to do this. And if we have a choice, we won't be doing this again. 

But, Dominic and I are intrigued by this process. When all is said and done, this process will be about the same length of time as carrying a baby full term. And there will be a new life at the end. Dominic will have a new life. And we will have a new life together seeing things with a perspective only borne out of a situation like this.

He has made a new friend; one of many. This friend has walked where we are walking. He has had the Leukemia, the chemo and the transplant. He is a survivor. There is a photo on our fridge with this man, as well as a transplant doctor and about six dozen survivors. We are not alone. Many have walked this path before us. And many walk with us now.

This man likes to remind Dominic that he is being remade on a cellular level. He will perhaps even have a new blood type. He will have a vaccination schedule like a newborn when we are released from the hospital. I've often dreamed of being a mother. I probably should have been more specific when I spoke with Santa when I said I wanted to experience all the new mom things.

Our bags are packed by the door. We're ready to go at a moment's notice.

For now, we've woven a cocoon around ourselves. In this sense he is both the baby in the womb and the newborn. We take all the precautions and seclude ourselves away for safety. But when the time is right, we'll fly the nest and adventures await.

The beauty of this experience, is that while Dominic receives new life, we are being better equipped to enjoy whatever life is to come. We are savoring moments. We're not even half way through this journey, but we've already come so far. We are looking forward to the new life to come, and celebrating a first birthday with all of you.