So, it's been awhile. Sorry. Our life has been extra crazy. I'm actually writing from our new home in Pennsylvania! But I guess I'll start where I left off.
Maelyn's MRI went really well. She recovered well and they did not end up having to do anything but take measurements. The results came back great too. We were thinking that the MRI and her oxygen level would make her need to have her Fontan surgery sooner, but when her results came back her doctors decided that she did not need surgery right away and her surgeon wants to wait until she is closer to 3 years old if possible. So we were told to just keep monitoring her at home and come for a 6 month follow up!
In the mean time, while we were waiting for MRI results, I found out that we were pregnant! And Tim officially started working from our basement. With Tim working from home and another baby on the way our house in Colorado was closing in on us and we were trying to figure out how to make it work for our family. We looked at moving locally but they real estate market in Westminster was just too crazy to afford it. We looked into adding on to our house but the cost and the idea of living through major construction was daunting. So at some point Tim brought up the idea of selling our Colorado house and moving back to more affordable and closer to family Pennsylvania. My response was literally, "don't tease me". But he was serious. He just had to clear it with his boss (who is in Germany) and we had to wait and see what was going on with Maelyn and surgery. My first thought was that we couldn't move until after surgery because I really wanted her same surgeon to do it. But the idea of waiting over a year to move and to have 4 kids in that house was also not fun. Tim went to Germany shortly after we discussed the idea of moving and talked to his boss who gave him the green light. Eventually I got over the idea of surgery in Colorado and realized that if we moved to Pennsylvania, Maelyn could have surgery at the #2 hospital in the country for her diagnosis. Both kids could transfer to specialists at CHOP. But for some reason we didn't want to make a decision, I think we didn't want to rush it... But then we realized that if we were going to move, we needed to move before surgery, before baby comes, before Ben starts school, and for that matter before our vacation to the east coast which was already planned for May! By the time we sat down and looked at the calendar we realized that if we were going to do it, we needed to list our house for sale that next week. I called our realtor and we scheduled it.
Needless to say the last four months have been insane. We in one week we had our house listed for sale, sold it in 4 days for over asking price, moved out 4 weeks later. We drove to NY and moved into my parents house. Tim went back to CO and packed up our stuff and drove it to PA. We had a weekend in PA to look at houses, put an offer on one, countered once and got under contract. We went to Myrtle beach with family, Maelyn turned two, we spent over a week at the family lake house, then went back to my parents house to pack up again and move again, this time into our new house in PA. So after six weeks of moving around and being homeless we are finally in our own home again! We've been here for five days and you would not believe how settled we are and how much we have done! Thanks to friends and family we got everything moved in quickly and my parents in law painted three large rooms in two days. We've already changed out light fixtures and unpacked almost all of the boxes! I still have a room to paint and we are looking for a couple of furniture pieces but we are pretty much settled. And we are back in Mechanicsburg. The whole time we lived in Colorado we knew we wouldn't be there forever and so we had several conversations about, 'if we could live anywhere, where would we go?' And my answer always came back to, I would move back to Mechanicsburg. For several reasons, I love it here. And even though Tim has dreams about living off the grid in the middle of nowhere on a lake with 20 acres of woods... realistically he realizes that Mechanicsburg is where we want to raise our family. But when he retires and drags me to the middle of nowhere to live off the grid, don't be surprised.
Of course this all happened while I am pregnant. This pregnancy has also just been the hardest physically yet. I also got the worst cold that has ever happened right as we were packing to move. I am still struggling with sinus issues two months later and was no help packing. My first prenatal appointment was a high risk assessment. We had some early DNA testing done which came back as not even able to be tested or something super weird and rare which is actually the thing that is now still making this pregnancy high risk. We have had a lot of ultrasounds and the baby looks good but because the test failed my already elevated risk is even higher. We have had one fetal echo but will be having another to double check for another congenital heart defect. But here I am, going on 24 weeks pregnant with a seemingly healthy baby girl! We are planning on her coming in early to mid October! Her room is the only room that has not been unpacked because, well, I have some time.
