Thankful

This year has been extremely hard for me, but as it is coming to close I have so much to be thankful for. John and I decided to test out the housing market to see if we could sell our home in Tennessee and move closer to John’s work across the border in Virginia. Within 2.5 weeks we had a contract on our home and closed the sale and purchased our new home on October 30th. Whew!!! It certainly was a crazy, stressful time! But now John’s commute to work has shrunk from 40 minutes to just over 10! And our new home is PERFECT for us! There is so much more living space and storage, it has everything that we wanted. We are very blessed.

John’s parents were such a huge help by taking the older kids while we moved everything in ONE weekend! Haley, of course, did her part to help unpack in the new home 😉

**This section may be a little TMI for some** A week and a half later, I had my surgical procedure that I had been attempting to have all year. This was the third attempt due to COVID and it was finally accomplished. As many of you know, I have been dealing with ovarian cysts on and off through the years. I had a large one present during my pregnancy with Angela and I had another one burst at the end of my first trimester with Haley. Ouch! I had no idea why I was nauseous for so long into the second trimester until the technicians told me during my ultrasound. So along with having my tubes removed after Haley was born, I wanted to have my left ovary removed since that was the one that had almost all of the cysts. But as my procedure kept being delayed due to COVID, I was starting to have some strange cycles. And low and behold, after yet another ultrasound it was discovered I had yet ANOTHER cyst (4 cm) on my left ovary and endometrial thickening on my uterus. Even though having my procedure delayed was frustrating and stressful, I consider it also providence because I was able to have everything taken care of at the same time. On Wednesday, almost 3 weeks ago, I had a total hysterectomy, my left ovary and both tubes removed, and a 5cm cyst removed (yes, it had grown). I cannot express how thankful I am to be able to have that all taken care of. And believe it or not, besides being a little sore, I feel so much better now than before I had the surgery. God is good.

I am also extremely grateful to all my family that helped out during my recovery. We had my parents, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews stay with us over the course of 2.5 weeks to help take care of the baby, watch and play with the older two kids, cook and clean for us. We couldn’t have made it through this time without you all.

This has certainly has been a hard year with all the changes regarding COVID and on top of that all of our own personal changes. But we have so much to be thankful for this year. A beautiful new home, wonderful friends and family, our and our kids’ health and our loving Savior.

I have so much more to share with you. This past month has been packed full of big events for us. In the next few weeks I plan to share Haley’s 11 month pictures and Jackson’s 6th birthday party! Love and hugs from us all!