Recent happenings:

Went to Shriner's to give little Alejandro a birthday present- he was so precious- Micah came with me- and the gift was a little transformer toy- car to robot and back again- well the little guy had just had his last surgery and was kinda groggy. But he liked the feel of the toy in his hand, one of the few parts of his body not covered by gauze.

That's his last surgery and in a couple of weeks is going back home to N. Carolina. And will be running around again like a typical 4-year-old boy. He is precious.

Josefa had her baby, the one with multiple anomalies, most of the brain outside the body. They held the baby as it lived, about 10 minutes until he/she died. I'm sure it was scary for them. I talked to the doctor who delivered this child but she could not divulge all the info to me. But of course there was no way the little one could have survived. But in Heaven this child will be made perfect.

Nathanael's starting his t-shirt business, and one is about the coming ice age, which he is a die-hard, well, either believer, or fan, whichever way you want to look at it. He has several t-shirt designs and is selling them online, I guess. But he had to acquire the right to copy a picture from the cover of an ice age book, and he took the trouble to contact the artist, etc., and get her permission. :)

I'm psyched to go to Japan. It will be so much fun! You want to know what the best part is? That none of the days in Japan will hit any of those "special" days...I'm so anemic I just don't want to be tired there...I'm so tired of being old and yet not actually being old enough to, well, not have kids. (good split infinitive) I just have sooooo much trouble now with the associated PAIN....PAIN....PAIN....nothing that Advil won't cure, mind you, but when the pain hits it is SO ACUTE. It is NOT a dull ache, it is a sharp, stabbing pain in either ovary, and yes I already know what is causing it but there's nothing to do about it right now since it's nothing serious enough to do anything about. I've had a doc suggest hormonal treatments and that it won't interfere with the Effexor, but I'm sort of apprehensive about the weight gain if I did that. And another suggestion about this operation where they scrape the lining out of the uterus, but what would that do for the ovarian pain? I always figure the healthiest thing is to do whatever causes the least interference in my body so I guess tolerating it for the time being is all I can do.