Hi everyone,
I was all excited to tell you all about our Hallie today, but time is just not allowing it. Exactly 5 months ago today, our sweet Hallie went to be with Jesus and her big brother in heaven...it seemed a perfect time to tell you about how amazing our little girl was and about how we saw God so much through her life. (Incidentally, I was never a girl that liked pink - too frilly for me and I told everyone Hallie wouldn't wear a lot of too cutesie pink stuff. Well, almost every blanket she had was pink, I bought pink things for her, and I LOVED to see my pink baby in pink - she was so girlie and I LOVED it!! I chose the pink backdrop on this page in honor of her.)
Today is also my Mom & Dad's 44th wedding anniversary, and Reagan and I are getting ready to pay them a visit. (They are vacationing in Port Aransas, about a 4 hour drive from us.) We are leaving in about an hour and I have laundry to get ready and packing to do, so I will keep this short today and hope to get back to share about Hallie on Sunday.
I want to share three quick notes on this day - the first is one of the main things we learned from our precious John's life. We really saw that you never know what life will bring and you have to treasure each moment you are given and make the most of your time with those you love. John's short life had a tremendous positive impact on the quality of our time with Hallie, and we are forever thankful for the influence that he had over us. We interacted with her so much more, and we have so many positive memories to hold on to thanks to John.
The second quick note is when I think about Hallie's last day, I am overwhelmed by the peace God gave us, by the truth in the Scripture that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, and by the joy I now feel knowing that Hallie is whole and healthy in the presence of God. There is just too much to share here and I will try to do it justice in a few days.
The third is a 'moving forward' note - the genetic variant that Hallie had showed up in Reagan's chromosomes as well, which means it was probably a normal variant and not the reason she died. We are meeting with a genetic counselor on Feb. 18th to find out more, but right now, it looks like Hallie's condition was not genetic and that is GREAT news!!
In the meantime, please pray for Sam Owens and Kayleigh Gurzinski. Hallie was on a prayer list with these two precious ones. Sam appears to have some internal bleeding and his parents may have to make some difficult decisions if his condition does not improve. Judging from her mother's posts, Kayleigh would have been Hallie's best friend - they would have danced together and partied in pink all the time...she is having a lot of GI problems and may have an infection to deal with on top of all that, so please pray for these two precious children of God and their families.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
A look at the life of John Andrew :)
Okay, Day 2 just happens to be what would have been John and Hallie’s 9 month birthday, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about my sweet babies today. Most of you will know all of this but take a moment to remember them with me if you don’t mind.
I had a very difficult 2nd trimester, bleeding on and off. Nearly every week, I had an ultrasound and was comforted to see that my babies were looking beautiful, very active in the womb, and developing right on schedule. Well, John apparently didn’t think he needed to wait to come into the world. Hallie had always been the leader baby (low one that would come out first) but in April, John started trying to switch that around and I think that repositioning is what caused the preterm labor. I started having contractions around April 21st. I was sent home with a contraction monitor and my mother came down to take care of me, but a week later, the contractions weren’t slowing and when we went back to the hospital, I was dilated to 5 cm.
On April 28th, at 1:37 a.m. and 1:38 a.m., John Andrew and Hallie Sara Kinser came into this world. They were so tiny and yet so perfect. Both had Apgar scores of 7 at 1 minute and 8 at 5 minutes. I heard that and felt very hopeful about their health. John didn’t cry, but Hallie had quite the squall even with her undeveloped lungs. It was her way of letting us know that she was NOT happy with her brother and she would have been very content staying inside Mommy for another 4 months. I was just amazed – you see these 2-D black and white, grainy images on an ultrasound and wonder what in the world the babies will look like coming out so early. They looked perfect and so beautiful. Perfectly formed little hands and little toes just amazed me. I was concerned as I saw their little eyes and ears were not fully developed, but was reassured that would happen in time. They were each 1 pound, 6 ounces (well, Hallie was 6.5 ounces) and just now in getting their medical records, we found out that they were 12 inches long (technically, John was 31 cm which put him a little bit longer than Hallie). They were so beautiful…and so scary. I mean, they were so tiny and looked so fragile and so vulnerable for this big world.
Anyway, let me start by telling you about our precious John. He proved why he was ready to come into this world by moving so much quicker than Hallie that first week. Before we knew it, he was peeing up a storm – nurses would roll their eyes about how much he was peeing, and everyone told us what a good sign this was. He got off his blood pressure medicine in a few days, and we all loved to go visit him and see him flail around – arms and legs going everywhere…I loved it until I started worrying about him pulling out his wires and tubes, but he never did. We were sure he would be coming home long before Hallie because his lungs appeared remarkably strong. He was breathing so well that after just one week, they took him off the ventilator. He had some apnea and bradycardia episodes, but for one day, he did as well as anyone could have possibly expected, and we were all amazed by him. Both Reagan and I got a little nervous to watch his little body take the breaths – he was just so tiny and it looked like such hard work to breathe. Nurses who had Hallie would shake their heads about her but try to make us feel better by talking about how well John was doing. We took one picture of John, but we just stood back most of the time – excited about how well he was doing and assuming we would have lots of time for better pictures and to touch and hold him.
And that was Week 1. I sang “Happy 1 Week Birthday” to Hallie, but I forgot to with John and figured I would do it when I visited him at night. Mom got a real kick out of the fact they put John on a CPAP machine…just like his grandma, to help with the breathing. About 5 pm, I got a phone call from the surgeon that John was going to need a routine surgery where they take out a small section of intestine. Remarkably, I remember not worrying too much. I loved the surgeon and had such faith any time he was involved in something with our children…Dr. Bloss is clearly a strong Christian and I just always felt that God was with him in all he did with our babies. Well, we didn’t hear anything and Reagan and I headed back down to see the twins that night when we get a call that the surgery had gone well, but they discovered that John’s liver was bleeding and there was no way to stop that – it wasn’t like they could stitch it up or anything. This was serious and prayer was the only thing we could do…so we prayed there in the car and texted/called/had mom e-mail everyone we could think of to pray as well.
We spent an hour with Hallie and then the doctor came over to talk with us about John – it was serious and much to be concerned about. They were giving him transfusions and did not think the bleeding had stopped. His blood pressure had dropped dramatically and heart rate skyrocketed, and he had stopped making urine. The next 48 hours were critical in terms of kidney function and if he did not start peeing by then, there was no hope. Dr. Thompson is a wonderful, brilliant woman, but there is no mixing words with her – she tells you straight what you have to be concerned about and she did a good job making us realize just how serious little John was. She let us go back to see him and it was a horrid sight, and yet, the doctor was encouraged because his blood pressure and heart rate were much more acceptable than they had been when she had started talking with us. He had 11 blood transfusions in the next 8 hours and fairly steadily needed some sort of blood product for the rest of his days. He was put back on paralytic medicine, and we really never saw him active except for a few moments every now and then when one dose of the medicine was wearing off. We were kind of okay with that since we knew he must be in some pain.
The next morning when Mom and I went to visit him, our beloved nurse, Cassie, simply told us that he was a very sick boy. He was not peeing and they were not sure about how his liver was doing. Next day, still not peeing, and we started to see the effects of this – he was beginning to really swell. We kind of knew that the bleeding had not completely stopped internally because we also saw his color start to change, and over the next week pink became purple became this ghastly dark color. Since he wasn’t peeing, fluid was building up in his body tissues as well, and you tried to find the easiest places to look each day – hands and feet usually didn’t look quite as swollen and were kind of pink, even if it was just the glow of the pulse-ox monitor. Reagan called him the Incredible Hulk, and I teased him about being ‘swol’ and we just tried to keep the mood positive when we were with John. That Friday, I came in and started crying as the nurse said he had some pee in his catheter. I really hoped this was the beginning of a miraculous turnaround and he would start peeing rivers, but that day didn’t come. The next few days were filled with everything from a horrific scare where the doctor called us at home and told us to get there as soon as possible because John was bleeding from his abdomen and they couldn’t stop it (thank you prayer partners, because by the time we got there that day, the bleeding had stopped) to a wonderfully peaceful first Mother’s Day – and each day he was just a bit more swollen, a bit more discolored, but still peeing just the tiniest amounts and still fighting as hard as any parent could ever ask their child to fight. We believed that he would be one of those miracle babies and hoped each day to see a dramatic improvement in his condition.
That final day when we called in the morning, they told me that Reagan should come down with me, and we knew things weren’t good. We got there and his blood pressure mean was only 6; they wanted mid 20s for a low reading, so he was really bottoming out. The swelling was so extreme that he was oozing fluid out of his skin, and it was making no indent in his swelling. We got there around 11, and we spent the next six hours watching the blood pressure slowly drop and his heart rate slowly drop until a little after 5 when the heart rate plummeted from the 130s to under 100 beats per minute. The doctor came and gave him an epinephrine shot with no effect, and we all agreed chest compressions would just be cruel.
This is when I got to hold my son for the first and only time in his life. It might be one of the most beautiful, yet saddest, moments of my life. They told us that often, a baby’s heart rate will rebound when being held by the mother, and I hoped my bond with John would have that effect. It did, and we had this wonderful moment of holding him and seeing a good heart rate, even though we knew it was his final moments. Reagan and I both gave him a kiss on the forehead, and Reagan told him that he was going to be in a better place and with God and all the grandparents he was named for…you know, at the time, it was such a sad moment – we were praying for a miracle and this was not what we had in mind. Looking back on it, it was such a beautiful moment because it was the one time I got to hold him.
THREE POINTS as I’m going to have to wrap-up story time for today and talk about my sweet Hallie tomorrow.
1 - The amazing thing I realized with both my children is how beautiful they were to me – that all I saw was my child that I loved. That love colored my vision and even when they were at their absolute worst, I found their beauty and was filled with love. I have to believe that’s how God feels about us. We all have our ‘discolorations’ and we all swell up with awful sinful thoughts from time to time, but God still sees His beautiful children when He looks at us. I had a Sunday school teacher a few years ago who talked about our “Jesus suits” – we all wear them all the time and God just sees perfect Jesus when He looks at us – how awesome is that! The love a parent has for their children must just be a fraction of God’s great love for us, and the greatness of that love is just beyond my comprehension.
2 – For anyone who has lost a child and suffers from the thoughts that no person can possibly understand what they are going through, I’m going to say you are right. I have found each person handles this experience completely differently and you can find comfort in knowing that there are others like you, but you also can feel isolated because the experience is unique for each of us. HOWEVER, one thing that brought me tremendous comfort when we lost John was knowing that GOD KNEW my pain – God lost his son as well, and when you lose a child and cannot make sense of how an innocent life is taken, KNOW that God also lost an innocent child and He knows your heart and is loving you through it.
3 – Even though John’s little life was so short, please see all the miracles that we see within that time frame. There was a first week full of success stories and positive reports and a mom and dad beaming with pride. Every good thing was a gift from God. And then there were the absolute miracles – the answers to prayer giving us time to come to grips with the best thing for John being for miraculous healing that took him to heaven. There was the night the bleeding started and clear doubt that he would make it through that night. There was his ability to start peeing again even with all that his little body was suffering from. There was the call that he had started bleeding from the abdomen, only to arrive and find out a clot had come loose and he was doing better. There was a peaceful Mother’s Day where no one said anything negative about my son to me and let me enjoy what little successes he was having that day. There was the day before he passed when Mom and I saw his blood pressure plummet only to be brought back up and have him hang on. And there was the ability for Reagan and I to be there with him when he passed away - and to not have to make a decision to take him off machines or anything – God took him and it was obvious that was what happened. It may seem so odd that I felt such peace and also such love from God at that time; I knew God was doing what was best for our son.
More tomorrow - like I said, I apologize if I start out rambling away…I just love to share these stories because I so clearly see God in each one of them. John was only 16 days old when he passed away, but each day of his life was a statement about the power and glory of God – how many of us can pick 16 days of our life and say that about them? He inspired me to want God to show in every part of my life story.
Thanks for reading and letting my children live on not just in my memory, but now in your memory as well.
I had a very difficult 2nd trimester, bleeding on and off. Nearly every week, I had an ultrasound and was comforted to see that my babies were looking beautiful, very active in the womb, and developing right on schedule. Well, John apparently didn’t think he needed to wait to come into the world. Hallie had always been the leader baby (low one that would come out first) but in April, John started trying to switch that around and I think that repositioning is what caused the preterm labor. I started having contractions around April 21st. I was sent home with a contraction monitor and my mother came down to take care of me, but a week later, the contractions weren’t slowing and when we went back to the hospital, I was dilated to 5 cm.
On April 28th, at 1:37 a.m. and 1:38 a.m., John Andrew and Hallie Sara Kinser came into this world. They were so tiny and yet so perfect. Both had Apgar scores of 7 at 1 minute and 8 at 5 minutes. I heard that and felt very hopeful about their health. John didn’t cry, but Hallie had quite the squall even with her undeveloped lungs. It was her way of letting us know that she was NOT happy with her brother and she would have been very content staying inside Mommy for another 4 months. I was just amazed – you see these 2-D black and white, grainy images on an ultrasound and wonder what in the world the babies will look like coming out so early. They looked perfect and so beautiful. Perfectly formed little hands and little toes just amazed me. I was concerned as I saw their little eyes and ears were not fully developed, but was reassured that would happen in time. They were each 1 pound, 6 ounces (well, Hallie was 6.5 ounces) and just now in getting their medical records, we found out that they were 12 inches long (technically, John was 31 cm which put him a little bit longer than Hallie). They were so beautiful…and so scary. I mean, they were so tiny and looked so fragile and so vulnerable for this big world.
Anyway, let me start by telling you about our precious John. He proved why he was ready to come into this world by moving so much quicker than Hallie that first week. Before we knew it, he was peeing up a storm – nurses would roll their eyes about how much he was peeing, and everyone told us what a good sign this was. He got off his blood pressure medicine in a few days, and we all loved to go visit him and see him flail around – arms and legs going everywhere…I loved it until I started worrying about him pulling out his wires and tubes, but he never did. We were sure he would be coming home long before Hallie because his lungs appeared remarkably strong. He was breathing so well that after just one week, they took him off the ventilator. He had some apnea and bradycardia episodes, but for one day, he did as well as anyone could have possibly expected, and we were all amazed by him. Both Reagan and I got a little nervous to watch his little body take the breaths – he was just so tiny and it looked like such hard work to breathe. Nurses who had Hallie would shake their heads about her but try to make us feel better by talking about how well John was doing. We took one picture of John, but we just stood back most of the time – excited about how well he was doing and assuming we would have lots of time for better pictures and to touch and hold him.
And that was Week 1. I sang “Happy 1 Week Birthday” to Hallie, but I forgot to with John and figured I would do it when I visited him at night. Mom got a real kick out of the fact they put John on a CPAP machine…just like his grandma, to help with the breathing. About 5 pm, I got a phone call from the surgeon that John was going to need a routine surgery where they take out a small section of intestine. Remarkably, I remember not worrying too much. I loved the surgeon and had such faith any time he was involved in something with our children…Dr. Bloss is clearly a strong Christian and I just always felt that God was with him in all he did with our babies. Well, we didn’t hear anything and Reagan and I headed back down to see the twins that night when we get a call that the surgery had gone well, but they discovered that John’s liver was bleeding and there was no way to stop that – it wasn’t like they could stitch it up or anything. This was serious and prayer was the only thing we could do…so we prayed there in the car and texted/called/had mom e-mail everyone we could think of to pray as well.
We spent an hour with Hallie and then the doctor came over to talk with us about John – it was serious and much to be concerned about. They were giving him transfusions and did not think the bleeding had stopped. His blood pressure had dropped dramatically and heart rate skyrocketed, and he had stopped making urine. The next 48 hours were critical in terms of kidney function and if he did not start peeing by then, there was no hope. Dr. Thompson is a wonderful, brilliant woman, but there is no mixing words with her – she tells you straight what you have to be concerned about and she did a good job making us realize just how serious little John was. She let us go back to see him and it was a horrid sight, and yet, the doctor was encouraged because his blood pressure and heart rate were much more acceptable than they had been when she had started talking with us. He had 11 blood transfusions in the next 8 hours and fairly steadily needed some sort of blood product for the rest of his days. He was put back on paralytic medicine, and we really never saw him active except for a few moments every now and then when one dose of the medicine was wearing off. We were kind of okay with that since we knew he must be in some pain.
The next morning when Mom and I went to visit him, our beloved nurse, Cassie, simply told us that he was a very sick boy. He was not peeing and they were not sure about how his liver was doing. Next day, still not peeing, and we started to see the effects of this – he was beginning to really swell. We kind of knew that the bleeding had not completely stopped internally because we also saw his color start to change, and over the next week pink became purple became this ghastly dark color. Since he wasn’t peeing, fluid was building up in his body tissues as well, and you tried to find the easiest places to look each day – hands and feet usually didn’t look quite as swollen and were kind of pink, even if it was just the glow of the pulse-ox monitor. Reagan called him the Incredible Hulk, and I teased him about being ‘swol’ and we just tried to keep the mood positive when we were with John. That Friday, I came in and started crying as the nurse said he had some pee in his catheter. I really hoped this was the beginning of a miraculous turnaround and he would start peeing rivers, but that day didn’t come. The next few days were filled with everything from a horrific scare where the doctor called us at home and told us to get there as soon as possible because John was bleeding from his abdomen and they couldn’t stop it (thank you prayer partners, because by the time we got there that day, the bleeding had stopped) to a wonderfully peaceful first Mother’s Day – and each day he was just a bit more swollen, a bit more discolored, but still peeing just the tiniest amounts and still fighting as hard as any parent could ever ask their child to fight. We believed that he would be one of those miracle babies and hoped each day to see a dramatic improvement in his condition.
That final day when we called in the morning, they told me that Reagan should come down with me, and we knew things weren’t good. We got there and his blood pressure mean was only 6; they wanted mid 20s for a low reading, so he was really bottoming out. The swelling was so extreme that he was oozing fluid out of his skin, and it was making no indent in his swelling. We got there around 11, and we spent the next six hours watching the blood pressure slowly drop and his heart rate slowly drop until a little after 5 when the heart rate plummeted from the 130s to under 100 beats per minute. The doctor came and gave him an epinephrine shot with no effect, and we all agreed chest compressions would just be cruel.
This is when I got to hold my son for the first and only time in his life. It might be one of the most beautiful, yet saddest, moments of my life. They told us that often, a baby’s heart rate will rebound when being held by the mother, and I hoped my bond with John would have that effect. It did, and we had this wonderful moment of holding him and seeing a good heart rate, even though we knew it was his final moments. Reagan and I both gave him a kiss on the forehead, and Reagan told him that he was going to be in a better place and with God and all the grandparents he was named for…you know, at the time, it was such a sad moment – we were praying for a miracle and this was not what we had in mind. Looking back on it, it was such a beautiful moment because it was the one time I got to hold him.
THREE POINTS as I’m going to have to wrap-up story time for today and talk about my sweet Hallie tomorrow.
1 - The amazing thing I realized with both my children is how beautiful they were to me – that all I saw was my child that I loved. That love colored my vision and even when they were at their absolute worst, I found their beauty and was filled with love. I have to believe that’s how God feels about us. We all have our ‘discolorations’ and we all swell up with awful sinful thoughts from time to time, but God still sees His beautiful children when He looks at us. I had a Sunday school teacher a few years ago who talked about our “Jesus suits” – we all wear them all the time and God just sees perfect Jesus when He looks at us – how awesome is that! The love a parent has for their children must just be a fraction of God’s great love for us, and the greatness of that love is just beyond my comprehension.
2 – For anyone who has lost a child and suffers from the thoughts that no person can possibly understand what they are going through, I’m going to say you are right. I have found each person handles this experience completely differently and you can find comfort in knowing that there are others like you, but you also can feel isolated because the experience is unique for each of us. HOWEVER, one thing that brought me tremendous comfort when we lost John was knowing that GOD KNEW my pain – God lost his son as well, and when you lose a child and cannot make sense of how an innocent life is taken, KNOW that God also lost an innocent child and He knows your heart and is loving you through it.
3 – Even though John’s little life was so short, please see all the miracles that we see within that time frame. There was a first week full of success stories and positive reports and a mom and dad beaming with pride. Every good thing was a gift from God. And then there were the absolute miracles – the answers to prayer giving us time to come to grips with the best thing for John being for miraculous healing that took him to heaven. There was the night the bleeding started and clear doubt that he would make it through that night. There was his ability to start peeing again even with all that his little body was suffering from. There was the call that he had started bleeding from the abdomen, only to arrive and find out a clot had come loose and he was doing better. There was a peaceful Mother’s Day where no one said anything negative about my son to me and let me enjoy what little successes he was having that day. There was the day before he passed when Mom and I saw his blood pressure plummet only to be brought back up and have him hang on. And there was the ability for Reagan and I to be there with him when he passed away - and to not have to make a decision to take him off machines or anything – God took him and it was obvious that was what happened. It may seem so odd that I felt such peace and also such love from God at that time; I knew God was doing what was best for our son.
More tomorrow - like I said, I apologize if I start out rambling away…I just love to share these stories because I so clearly see God in each one of them. John was only 16 days old when he passed away, but each day of his life was a statement about the power and glory of God – how many of us can pick 16 days of our life and say that about them? He inspired me to want God to show in every part of my life story.
Thanks for reading and letting my children live on not just in my memory, but now in your memory as well.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
1st Entry
I was getting ready to change my daughter’s diaper, and I had a moment of elation when I looked and saw she was peeing…nonstop urine coming drip by precious drip. I was so excited and put a little cloth down on her so that she wouldn’t wet her bed while I was getting the new diaper. I rubbed her head, that soft peach fuzz that is so precious on sweet babies. As sweet as it was, I could feel the swollen skin underneath. Reagan had shared his dream from the weekend – Hallie was dying and this time she was old enough to talk to him through it. Was my dream going to turn into the same? There was one way to tell. I put my finger into her tiny hand, and my heart leapt as her precious fingers curled around and squeezed with all her might…she was there with me and the tight grip simply meant “hustle up, Mom, and get that clean diaper.”
And then I woke up – the happy moment was just a dream. And I realized I would never feel that squeeze again or that soft peach fuzzy head, and then I cried and felt that feeling I get so often that something had been ripped out of my body. And then I took time to remember.
Hello everyone. My name is Kate Kinser, and I have been asked to start a blog for over a year now. I have put it off, sticking to e-mail to share the journey of the past year and where God is leading me now. But as I start to read more and more blogs myself, I realize that if I claim I have something worth saying to the masses, then this is as good a way as any to get it out there. I do hope to reach a publisher somewhere – or at least organize my own thoughts to present to a publisher someday. I’m sure it’ll take me a little while to get used to this, so bear with me if I start out a little bit rambly. There are really three things under an umbrella of one that will form the basis of this blog.
The first is to share about my children and all that happened over the past year. EXACTLY a year ago today, I had my first spotting related to my first pregnancy. Two months and a day prior to that, my husband, Reagan, and I had done IVF and were overjoyed to end up pregnant with twins. The first trimester seemed to be going fairly smoothly and then the tiniest bit of spotting. A year ago, we went to the doctor and the bleeding stopped, the ultrasound showed two of the cutest babies – one sleeping and one doing flips, and we thought we’d just had a little hiccup and everything would be fine…three months and one day later, I gave birth to our precious John & Hallie – at just 24 ½ weeks gestation. And four months and one day after that, Hallie went to be with her twin brother in heaven. I will be using this blog to share my reflections as this year progresses.
The second thing I want to share about is our continued journey to raising children. John & Hallie taught us how much we want to have babies in our home and raise them to be healthy adults. As we undergo the patience producer of trying to adopt, as we weigh our options with frozen embryos, fresh IVF cycles, and process genetic tests and tests on my body to determine if we are even able to successfully have full-term babies, I want to share this journey that more women than I ever would have expected go through. I wish someone had let me know growing up that having babies isn’t just something you decide to do and it happens, and I find one of the greatest things that has strengthened me in my own journey is hearing the trials and triumphs of others.
All of the things I share will have one common goal – to show God and His mighty work in my life and in the lives of my children. My hope is to draw people closer to Him – to show a good, loving God that will make others desire to know Him more. Through successes, through struggles, through the happiest times, through heartbreak, through His provisions and His taking away, I want to praise the name of the Lord and show His loving presence in every step of life. I love God so much, and since I can’t figure out how to get on my roof to shout about it, you’ll hear about it here.
I’d love to share a life verse of some sort in my first blog entry, but I don’t really have one – I have a life book which is the Bible. Scripture will definitely be a part of this blog, and so today, I’m going to start with something that jumped out at me as Reagan and I try to read through the Bible this year. We are up to the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and the people are afraid of the Egyptians closing in on them. In Exodus 14, God tells Moses that this is happening so that He can ‘GAIN GLORY” through Pharoah, the chariots and the horsemen. He allows His chosen people to be frightened, then kills thousands of people, and it is all for His glory. I’ve definitely had my share of bad things that I brought on myself, and I’ve had my share of bad things that fit into the ‘life isn’t fair’ category, and unfortunately, I’m pretty sure more will come through the years. The beautiful thing is that they all fall into the category of ‘things that can bring God glory’ based on how I handle them.
Please take a little time each day and I hope that as I see the blessings in my journey that you will see them too, and maybe it will help you see the blessings in your own journey as well. I have always felt we all have a story to tell, and I have realized this past year just how true that statement is – except our stories are all really God’s stories, and it is one of the best ways we can give back to Him – by sharing His work in our lives and praying and praising with one another each step of the way.
And then I woke up – the happy moment was just a dream. And I realized I would never feel that squeeze again or that soft peach fuzzy head, and then I cried and felt that feeling I get so often that something had been ripped out of my body. And then I took time to remember.
Hello everyone. My name is Kate Kinser, and I have been asked to start a blog for over a year now. I have put it off, sticking to e-mail to share the journey of the past year and where God is leading me now. But as I start to read more and more blogs myself, I realize that if I claim I have something worth saying to the masses, then this is as good a way as any to get it out there. I do hope to reach a publisher somewhere – or at least organize my own thoughts to present to a publisher someday. I’m sure it’ll take me a little while to get used to this, so bear with me if I start out a little bit rambly. There are really three things under an umbrella of one that will form the basis of this blog.
The first is to share about my children and all that happened over the past year. EXACTLY a year ago today, I had my first spotting related to my first pregnancy. Two months and a day prior to that, my husband, Reagan, and I had done IVF and were overjoyed to end up pregnant with twins. The first trimester seemed to be going fairly smoothly and then the tiniest bit of spotting. A year ago, we went to the doctor and the bleeding stopped, the ultrasound showed two of the cutest babies – one sleeping and one doing flips, and we thought we’d just had a little hiccup and everything would be fine…three months and one day later, I gave birth to our precious John & Hallie – at just 24 ½ weeks gestation. And four months and one day after that, Hallie went to be with her twin brother in heaven. I will be using this blog to share my reflections as this year progresses.
The second thing I want to share about is our continued journey to raising children. John & Hallie taught us how much we want to have babies in our home and raise them to be healthy adults. As we undergo the patience producer of trying to adopt, as we weigh our options with frozen embryos, fresh IVF cycles, and process genetic tests and tests on my body to determine if we are even able to successfully have full-term babies, I want to share this journey that more women than I ever would have expected go through. I wish someone had let me know growing up that having babies isn’t just something you decide to do and it happens, and I find one of the greatest things that has strengthened me in my own journey is hearing the trials and triumphs of others.
All of the things I share will have one common goal – to show God and His mighty work in my life and in the lives of my children. My hope is to draw people closer to Him – to show a good, loving God that will make others desire to know Him more. Through successes, through struggles, through the happiest times, through heartbreak, through His provisions and His taking away, I want to praise the name of the Lord and show His loving presence in every step of life. I love God so much, and since I can’t figure out how to get on my roof to shout about it, you’ll hear about it here.
I’d love to share a life verse of some sort in my first blog entry, but I don’t really have one – I have a life book which is the Bible. Scripture will definitely be a part of this blog, and so today, I’m going to start with something that jumped out at me as Reagan and I try to read through the Bible this year. We are up to the story of Moses parting the Red Sea and the people are afraid of the Egyptians closing in on them. In Exodus 14, God tells Moses that this is happening so that He can ‘GAIN GLORY” through Pharoah, the chariots and the horsemen. He allows His chosen people to be frightened, then kills thousands of people, and it is all for His glory. I’ve definitely had my share of bad things that I brought on myself, and I’ve had my share of bad things that fit into the ‘life isn’t fair’ category, and unfortunately, I’m pretty sure more will come through the years. The beautiful thing is that they all fall into the category of ‘things that can bring God glory’ based on how I handle them.
Please take a little time each day and I hope that as I see the blessings in my journey that you will see them too, and maybe it will help you see the blessings in your own journey as well. I have always felt we all have a story to tell, and I have realized this past year just how true that statement is – except our stories are all really God’s stories, and it is one of the best ways we can give back to Him – by sharing His work in our lives and praying and praising with one another each step of the way.
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