Well, friends, do you want to guess what has kept me from my blog these five months? I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t the first time that I’ve been quiet because I’ve been sitting on a secret.

When my sister was expecting her last baby in 2021, she joked that I needed to jump on the bandwagon with her. I joked back that at my age I couldn’t keep up with her, but I’d catch her on the next lap. By then, we reasoned, my other sister would be about ready to have her second baby, and all of us could be pregnant together!

Then in early 2022, I suffered an early miscarriage (my 4th in total, with the first being 20 years ago, before Pippa). With that loss, I grieved not only that precious little one (we had imagined, specifically, a baby brother for Milo), but the end of an era. At my age, it seemed very unlikely that we would have another baby, and although I was (and am!) so thankful and blessed with the children we have, it felt like a hard way to end things.

In late September, we were absolutely thrilled to discover I was expecting again! But I dared not trust it this time. A few weeks into a very panicky first trimester, a dear friend who works at a pregnancy center offered to do an ultrasound for me. She found, to my surprise and relief, a perfect little beating heart in a tiny human that was a FULL MONTH older than what I had calculated! In an instant, I went from a very shaky and uncertain 8-week pregnancy to a well -established, almost-second-trimester 12-week one. I was overwhelmed by the Lord’s kindness, but it wasn’t going to be the last time this pregnancy.

Let me just jump to the spoiler here:

What a gift to be sharing my last pregnancy with both of my married sisters! Paige (in the middle) is due the day after me in May (although if our track records are anything to go by, I will likely go a couple weeks before her!), and Chelsea (on the end) is due in July. We are all so excited to meet these dear little cousins!

And now for the last miracle (so far) of this pregnancy: about six weeks ago we found out through NIPT bloodwork that our little one has Down syndrome. Earlier bloodwork had given us about a 1 in 10 chance, but then our ultrasound showed none of the physical markers for Ds, so I put it out of my mind.

The day I got the call that the diagnosis was (almost) certain, I would like to tell you that I was completely unfazed, but that wouldn’t be true. The diagnosis didn’t scare me. How could it when I have seen first hand what a blessing that extra chromosome is?

But the pregnancy/birth/baby part of the Down syndrome journey is new to me. I knew there would be medical uncertainties. And I knew one thing that would be a certainty was appointments. Lots of them. And therapies. And things that have become a normal part of my life, but that I didn’t know would be part of my life for this baby. I had a weepy, overwhelmed few days of sharing our news with close friends and family. I knew I would be okay, but I wasn’t okay yet.

On the Monday after the Wednesday that we got the news, I had a fetal echocardiogram to take a look at baby’s heart, since about 50% of babies born with Ds also have some type of heart condition. I had said to Trevor back when the diagnosis was just an outside chance that if we did find out the baby had Ds, I would want to know the gender as well, so that we could pray for baby by name. I’m not sure he remembers me saying that, but I did, and he agreed, and it was binding! So going into this ultrasound, I had decided to ask the sonographer to take a peek at the gender for us as well, if she was able to do that.

This whole appointment was so healing and wonderful. Baby’s heart looked absolutely perfect, as far as we can tell so far, and the sonographer also took a peek down below and sent me home with a secret envelope so that we could all find out together as a family at home. The doctor I consulted with after the ultrasound was herself the mother of a child with special needs, and she was able to answer so many of my questions and put my mind at ease about so many things.

That evening, when everyone was home, Bea and Junie built a gender reveal Lego fortress, which we asked my mom to fill with the right colored Lego baby based on the contents of the secret envelope. And what do you think?

It’s a boy!!! I was flooded with an overwhelming sense that everything about this baby is exactly as God intended it, that He still hears and answers my prayers, and that He is writing an amazing story in all of our lives. I cannot wait to meet this boy!

Today is World Down Syndrome Day (3/21 for 3 copies of the 21st chromosome), and I feel privileged, chosen, and blessed to be the mother of three boys with that miraculous extra chromosome. Stay tuned for more miracles!

The last time we saw Trevor’s parents, Freya was not quite one year old, and Milo wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye. They had had a flight booked for May 2020 that COVID postponed indefinitely. We Zoomed often, and I’m thankful for the technology that kept them familiar faces to our kids, but it’s definitely not the same as real life cuddles.

This month, we’ve finally had that!

Starting at the end of October, we enjoyed a lovely visit with Trevor’s parents and brother. The last week of that we spent on a tiny island in Maryland, surrounded by water, a million miles from anywhere.

The kids kayaked in the bay right in our backyard. We played card games, went for walks, crocheted. We saw bald eagles in the wild, and explored the historical sites of the area. It was a full, lovely week.

Now we are home and settling back into school and routines. Gran and Grandad and Uncle Adrian have all gone home. Life is back to normal. But normal is pretty sweet, too.

Today was my birthday. It was a lovely day, if fairly ordinary. I opened a few presents from my mom and the kids this morning in my PJs, went for a (very slow!) 4.5-mile run in honor of turning 45 (!?) today, and did a science lesson with the little kids before lunch. Trevor called on his lunch break just to chat. After lunch we had a nice visit from a friend and the two little ones she nannies for. Romilly made me a delicious on-plan peanut butter cheesecake, and my mom brought me Chick-fil-A for dinner. Trevor and Niko left for our church’s men’s retreat while I did the AWANA run. We wrapped up the night with popcorn and a movie for the big kids. Sweet.

The fact that today is my birthday turned my attention to my blog for two reasons: 1. I was reminded that my last post was about Coraline’s 10th birthday, and that yesterday she turned 11! That’s a long time to not blog. And 2. Having finished Coraline’s birthday present, a crocheted backpack, I now have time to blog again! At least for a little while 😉

Time fails me to give a full update on everyone, but I thought I’d give the big updates and sprinkle in some new pictures of the gang.

I’ll start at the top: Pippa is in college. College! She is living at home and commuting to a wonderful Christian school 10 minutes away, where she is studying to be an elementary school teacher. She is thriving, and I am so excited for her.

She also has a boyfriend! She did not meet him at college, but has actually known him for more than half her life. Their story is sweet and amazing, but I won’t tell it just yet. I wasn’t sure what the kids-in-relationships stage would look like, but it has been such a pleasant surprise.

Romilly is also going to the same Christian college two days a week as a dual enrollment student, as well as babysitting for my sister’s two babies one day a week (Bea watches them another day.) She has an English comp professor that she loves, and I am loving watching her spread her wings and pursue her passions.

Delia and I have been pursuing a new therapy for a little over a year. It is called the Sonrise program, and I believe it is helping her. I wish I had more hours in the day to give to it, but I love the time we spend together in the playroom each day, and I think she does, too. We realized when ABA started back up after COVID, that it was no longer serving her well, so we let it go and took a different tack. We have stepped back from focusing on skills and are now focusing on relationship, which is perhaps what we should have been focusing on all along.

The boys are all still homeschooled. Niko volunteers at least once a week at my mom’s thrift store where he is well loved and known as a hard worker. Lewis and Teddy are both making progress, each in their own way.

The other big girls (I daresay I have to put Coraline in this category now, too!) are so independent with their school work now that I sometimes forget who is home and who is out on any given day. It is definitely a new season of everyone having their own interests and pursuits. It’s busy, but in general things are fitting and everyone is thriving.

It’s been a very full year. We went to Kentucky back in April with Trevor’s brothers, and the summer brought its usual assortment of camping adventures.

Last month Trevor and I and the original five girls got to see one of our family’s favorite bands, The Gray Havens, in concert. Like, we seriously love this band, and I think it had been well over a decade since I had been to any concert, so we may have geeked out over it just a little bit.

I will leave you with a few pictures of our littlest family members for now, or else I will never get this posted. My birthday ended a couple hours ago, and these cuties will probably not get the memo that Mommy needs to sleep in tomorrow because she stayed up too late blogging!

I promised myself I would finish these posts while it is still 2021, and I only have two hours left, so I’d better get a move on!

Last but certainly not least, happy belated 10th birthday to Coraline (on October 13th)!

“Coraliney, sweet and tiny, glad you’re miney!” is a little song I still sometimes sing to my middle baby. Indeed, although there are now four Youngs tinier than Coraline, the nickname Tiny will forever be hers. She is the quintessential middle kid: respected by and often allowed to tag along with her older siblings, and but also much in demand by her younger siblings as a cool big kid.

She cheerfully gets up before me and most of the kids every morning, pours everyone’s breakfast juices and lays out the bowls for cereal, then she gently wakes me up with a baby or two in tow. I’ve never asked her to do this. She just saw a need and quietly started to fill it. She is a natural servant.

We chose Coraline’s name in part because of its connection to “cor”, the Latin word for heart. And does this girl ever have heart! She loves hard and unconditionally. When we moved to our new home two years ago, she asked if she could share a room with Delia (who doesn’t sleep all that well, and is sometimes loud while she’s not sleeping!) She still happily shares a room with her, and she had never once complained. Delia is just her sister, and she loves her.

She is fierce and fiery, quick to react to any injustice (real or perceived). She is arguably Niko’s best friend and his worst enemy. They make each other laugh like crazy, but they can’t sit next to each other in the van without fighting the entire way to church 😉

She throws herself wholeheartedly into everything she does: running, learning to play the guitar, crocheting, writing. I know this determination will serve her well in whatever she decides to pursue in life.

But oh, this girl is sweet, too! She gives me the best hugs (and her favorite kind are what she calls “eternal hugs” – you know: the really long ones!) She is always ready to help anyone, and she’s quick with a word of encouragement (especially to her weary mama at the end of a long day). She has an infectious smile and a million awesome faces. I just love her to pieces!

Coraline Audrey, I am so proud of the young lady you have become. I still think of you as little sometimes, and then I catch you out of the corner of my eye, and you are so grown and beautiful. May the Lord bless you in all that you do. Congrats on double digits, Tiny!

A belated 5th birthday to Verity! On the day of her birthday, October 5th, we were 9 miles away from the nearest internet access staying in our beloved Twin Fawn Cabin, so I wasn’t able to get her post done on time. As for the nearly three months since then, I have no excuse!

On little Vezzy’s birthday, we went on what was a much longer hike than we originally set out to do. She was a trooper, but a few miles in, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, “Mommy, I thought we said a short walk!” Bless!

Miss Verity has increasingly become a big kid in a little kid package. Her sweet round face and little lispy voice make her still seem little, but she can hold her own in card games designed for kids 8 and up, and she’s picking up math and reading at an impressive pace this year as she works through kindergarten.

She loves to “help grandmom babysit” and has been known to make comments like, “Grandmom, could you keep an eye on Pippa for me while I go potty?”

Pippa has been Verity’s person since she was teeny tiny. She came out looking just like her biggest big sister, and still does today. She adores doing crafts and playing games with Pippa, and in the months since her birthday, Pippa has even taught her to knit! We love hearing her sweet voice recite, “Into the forest, around comes fox, out pops rabbit, and away they run!” again and again to remind herself of the steps of each stitch.

Her funny, sometimes irreverent commentary on life keeps us laughing but pretending not to. Recently my dad and step-mother stopped by our house as they often do. My mom was sitting in the living room, and Verity quickly ran to her and said, “Grandmom! One of your husbands is here!”

Our happy girl faces each day with a smile, and she keeps us smiling, too. She is helpful and kind, and loved by us all. Happy (very belated!) Birthday, Verity Laine!

Seventeen. Friends, this beautiful young lady, the one who made me a mom, is almost an adult! If you had asked me just a few years ago if I was ready to be a mom to an almost-adult, who would be doing things like driving and having a job and taking SATs and thinking about college, I would have said absolutely no way. This is my baby we’re talking about!

But this girl: she’s more adult than I am some days. She is fast becoming one of the people I go to if I’m stuck on something. And if she doesn’t know how to do it either, she will pursue it until she figures it out. Whether I can’t figure out something on my computer or phone or I don’t know what book we should be reading next for school (more on that later), Pippa is my person.

Pippa’s diverse interests include: LM Montgomery books, running, heavy cream, bento lunch boxes, the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan, knitting and crocheting, and anything purple (Violet is her middle name, after all). Calling these things “interests” doesn’t really do it justice though. When Pippa takes up a new interest, she does it with gusto, researching it and steeping herself in it until it becomes a part of who she is at the very core of her being. When I say she likes LM Montgomery, I mean that she reads blogs about her writing and books about her life and has favorite cover illustrators. When I say she runs, I mean she sets goals for herself and has a chart hanging on her bedroom wall with an intricate set of rewards for reaching different milestones. When I say she loves heavy cream… Well, that speaks for itself really, doesn’t it? She doesn’t do anything half-heartedly.

She is also our resident expert on homeschool curriculum, and “Box Day” is one of the high holidays of her annual calendar. Each summer when we order our curriculum for the coming year, it is Pippa who creates a chart of what everyone needs so that we make sure to get everything ordered. I just do as I’m told now. One year, just for fun, she mapped out exactly which set of curriculum we would need for every year until Verity and Freya are in high school. For. Fun! (She might try to tell you it wasn’t really for fun, but that it somehow affected decisions that we needed to make right then and there. They were 3 and 1 at the time, so I’ll let you be the judge of that!)

Pippa started working at Wendy’s about three months ago (in addition to babysitting for her little cousin Brooke one day a week). I think we were all holding our breath a little. (It’s a funny thing with homeschooling: you spend so many years sheltering your child from the world, but at some point, you just have to sort of toss them out there!) There was definitely a little bit of culture shock that first week, but she very quickly became known for being dependable and kind. She has met so many people from walks of life very different to hers, and when I hear her talk about her shift as we drive home from work, I can tell she just genuinely likes them all. (And I can tell they like her, too!)

Pippa wants to be an elementary school teacher, and she will absolutely rock it. To look at her Pinterest account, you would think she already is one! She’s constantly finding new creative activities for her littlest siblings (and cousin) to try out. She has fully embraced her role of big sister extraordinaire. She loves her little siblings well, and they are so blessed to have her. We all are.

Philippa Violet, happy last birthday before becoming an adult! I would love to hold onto you forever, but you are so ready to fly. Keep living your life with the same joy, enthusiasm, and love for God and others that you have shown so far. I love you, Pip!

Happy 15th birthday to Thaddeus Merit!

Oh, this boy! He is equal parts sweet, cuddly teddy bear and fierce, ninja-dragon-robot! He loves to put on a tough guy act, but he is also the first to hop up and refill someone’s drink or soup bowl, and he gets Daddy’s cereal for him almost every morning. He is thoughtful and sweet, but with a definite dash of naughty!

Teddy joined our family four years ago at 10 years old. He was our 4th and final adoption, and came to us in the thick of a crazy season, during which it may not have seemed wise to add just one more. I remember sharing the secret fear of my heart with a dear adoptive Mama friend just before Teddy came home: “What if he’s hard?” And she replied, “He could be hard!”

Well it turns out, by the grace of God, he’s not! He still struggles with some of the effects of years of fending for himself (in particular, he still has a hard time not helping himself to other people’s possessions, sometimes even hiding them in his bed or backpack). But he is always so genuinely sorry and so endearing to all of us that no one seems to be able to stay mad at him for long. We say, “Teddy, have you seen Annis’s Legos?” and he immediately hops up and brings it to us, yelling “Sowwa (Sorry)!” all the way.

Teddy is an expert at occupying his time. He spends parts of every day building elaborate Lego structures (usually creatures), drawing increasingly detailed and diverse pictures, building with cardboard and tape and scissors, and rocking out to music on YouTube. He is always busy and never bored.

Today is very possibly the most anticipated birthday in the history of our family. Ever since Niko and Lewis had their birthdays back-to-back in March, Teddy has reminded me daily that he wanted “oh-shay fru-frot” (crochet robot) for his birthday. There have been many, many trips to the wall calendar to show him the weeks and months that he still had to wait. He even tried crossing out a sibling’s birthday and writing his own name in a month or two ago, to no avail (Again: so naughty, yet so endearing.) Today was finally the day, and it was filled to the brim with robots of all shapes and sizes, including a crocheted one. I think it was a good day. Let’s hope it lasts him till next year!

Teddy’s speech is improving all the time thanks to his hard work and that of his friends at Theraplay. He now often strings two or three clear words together to express himself, and his confidence is growing accordingly. His receptive language is through the roof, and he can pick out words he recognizes from three rooms away. (Indeed, many a night after we think he is asleep, he hears his name in conversation all the way from his room and yells, “me?!”)

Speaking of Theraplay, just about every time we go, Teddy makes a card for his lady love, Miss Alison. She isn’t usually the therapist who works with him anymore, but she holds a special place in his heart, and whenever he catches a glimpse of her he calls, “Alison! Miss you! Heart!” She is one of a very select group he refers to as his “new friends”. He has one at Awana and another at church, and he is fiercely loyal to them. It’s tough to convince him that some of them are already married 😉

Teddy keeps life interesting and adds so much fun to our home. I am so thankful we said yes!

Our tiniest little miss is three today!

Goodness is this girl fun! She has a great sense of adventure, and bears the distinction of being our *only* baby to take her first steps before her first birthday. She had places to go then, and she still does now!

Although her preferred mode of transportation nowadays is definitely big sister! From as early as she could speak to ask for it, Freya has regularly requested “circles” (being carried in laps around the big living room sofa) from her sisters, especially Romilly, who happily indulges her. Apparently three is the official age of no more circles, but we’ll see about that: I daresay she has the whole family wrapped around her little finger!

Freya’s clever and creative use of language has been such a hoot to watch. Before she turned two, she began using the word “heeny” fairly regularly. As in “Mommy, can you open this heeny?” At first, its meaning stumped us. She used it so often and in such varied contexts! Then it dawned on us. It’s “thingy”. Our toddler is saying “thingy.” The pronunciation has evolved since then, but she still uses it regularly. I don’t feel like any of us uses the word often, but she picked it up somewhere, and we absolutely love it.

She calls the dog and her baby brother “bossy bossy” if they get in her personal space. Her perennial threat, whenever something she doesn’t like happens, is “then I am NOT going to sleep with Verity, ever, never again!” (They are room buddies, so she does, in fact, sleep with Verity ever single night without complaint.)

For all her feistiness, she is also sweet and thoughtful, and is generally very reasonable for a toddler. After a season of naptimes being a bit of a struggle for her (she thinks she’s big and suffers from major FOMO), she now tells me *almost* every day, “Today is a happy nappy day!” and goes down with a smile.

It’s certainly too early to pin down, but I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, and she replied, “Mom!” Verity suggested, “l think she means, ‘A mom’.” But Freya pointed at me and said, “No. YOU!”. Well, shucks. Okay <3

Happy birthday, my beautiful, squishy, hilarious Freya Poppy! We love you, baby girl.

Oh, Miss Delia… What can we tell our friends about you?

This girl is the great puzzle of our family, a puzzle we’ve been trying to solve for seven years now.

We first met Delia, as long-time readers may remember, on our first trip to meet Niko in 2011. She was just shy of five years old, and she charmed her way right into Trevor’s heart. He came home from that trip convinced that she was our daughter, and never once wavered in that hope. Even when I resisted the idea, even when another family committed to her before us, even when we finally read her daunting medical file. And he was absolutely right. She is ours and we are hers, whether she likes it or not 🙂

But this girl is a tough nut to crack. We know that she is a treasure, but boy does she ever resist engaging with us and living up to her potential! Delia has baffled every “expert” we have taken her to since she came home. We’ve tried traditional speech and occupational therapy, neurodevelopmental therapy, special online speech therapy for kids with autism, play therapy, ABA (behavioral) therapy, and we’ve dabbled in even more. Her autism isn’t quite like anyone else’s, and no one knows quite what to do with her.

She would like us to believe that she just isn’t capable of any more than what she usually gives us. She’d prefer to fill her days with little more than stimming and waiting for her next meal.

But occasionally, she slips up and shows us that she’s really in there. We get glimpses of the real Delia. She shows us that she understands way more than she lets on, and that there is a cheeky, funny, sensitive, sweet girl in there begging us to find a way to let her out.

We see it when she laughs at a joke. We see it when she cries after someone makes an unkind remark about her that they didn’t expect her to hear or understand. We saw it two years ago after her birthday movie, when she tenderly kissed Temple Grandin goodnight on our TV screen. We see it when Milo climbs up on her, and she smiles at him in spite of herself.

And so we press on, trying every single thing we can think of, and trying it for longer than it makes sense to, just in case that breakthrough we long for might be right around the corner if only we persevere.

There have been gains followed by losses in every area. We have gained and lost potty training twice. We have gained and lost words, smiles, eye contact. We emerge from one grueling repetitive stimming behavior only to replace it with another.

And yet this one thing is always true: Delia feels safer and trusts us more all the time. Seven years ago, we brought home a little girl who was terrified of us. She lived in a permanent state of hypervigilance, alternating between manically “flirting” with us to win our acceptance and get her needs met, then lashing out at us if we got close enough to receive her affections. (So many of the old photos I look back on longingly of her smiling and laughing, were actually taken in that manic state rather than one of true happiness.) Instead of sleeping, she spent much of every night rocking, laughing, sobbing, screaming, grinding her teeth. We felt helpless and inadequate to meet her enormous needs.

Now, by God’s grace, she sleeps. Some 😉 She has much better self-regulation over her emotions. And this is huge: she receives comfort from me and Trevor when she is upset or overwhelmed. She lays her head in our laps and lets us hug her while she cries. In those bittersweet moments, I “tell her the things”: that she is loved, that she is safe, that she is made in God’s image and has infinite value. That even if she never learns to talk, or play, or engage with us, we will still love her forever. That she is stuck with us. And in those moments, my heart echoes what my head already knows: that I am her mom and she is my girl.

Happy birthday, Delia Mary! We see you in there, and we love you so much.

Happy 14th birthday today to our beautiful Beatrix Joanna!

Bea is a character. I’m feeling this acutely today because as I was looking through photos for this post, I found picture after picture of Bea making hilarious, ridiculous faces. I am not at liberty to share some of the more recent specimens, but it started young 🙂

Bea is our talker. She is the only confirmed extrovert in the family besides me, and from the moment she could talk she has kept us busy answering her increasingly complex questions. She makes us laugh with her crazy hypotheticals (“Grandmom, if mom had octuplets, would you move out?”), but she also makes us go deep with big life questions.

She is an animal lover to the core of her being. She volunteers at a local cat rescue, and begs us for a new pet almost weekly. Her future goal is to work with animals, possibly as a vet tech or a zookeeper, either way with a side of crazy cat lady. (She’s well on her way on that front!)

For all her silliness and fun, Bea has the tenderest heart, and desires above all things to do what is right. She is one of the most conscientious people I have ever known. As a little girl, she was always our safety warden and the Jiminy Cricket of our gang, often running to me from playing just to double check that whatever they were doing was okay. Her siblings may not always have appreciated this quality in her, but I have always been able to have confidence that if Bea is on the scene, things are never going to go too far south.

Bea spends her free time drawing, writing, crocheting, and playing Zoo Tycoon (because ALL THE BABY ANIMALS!) She is a hard worker and a willing helper.

She loves her siblings fiercely, and will always come to the defense of anyone who is being treated unfairly, even if it means (respectfully) calling me or Trevor out.

I can’t wait to see how God will use this uncompromising, outgoing, winsome girl. She is a joy, and I just love her.