Forrest Family Blog: First of October

So this month has already been busy. Here are a few highlights:

-Still learning a lot about myself and things I haven't seen before. I am right now struggling through the reality that I have always considered myself perfect and when I fail I beat myself up so I am working, along with some great friends around me for support, how to break this mentality and see that I am not perfect and in need of much grace.

-We found a family for Jachin. Starting today we will begin the slow transition of passing Jachin off to another foreign family on our team. We are really excited about it and better yet when we move we will be right downstairs from them. This is a huge answer that we have been seeking. We will miss the little guy lots but know this is best for him. Our last day with him will probably be his birthday, October 24th. We will celebrate the big 3 years with him and say goodbye. Thanks for all your support as we have loved on this little man. Continue to lift him up as he is still not growing as they hope. He is growing in height, 2 cm. gained in 3 months, but he is still not gaining weight. The doctors are looking into if he may have some infection thing going on.

-At the beginning of October I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes which has been another blow to that perfection thing. I think it is harder knowing that before I got pregnant with this one I had lost 20 pounds and was exercising 3 times a week and in better health than ever. The diagnosis came out of nowhere and was really disappointing. My doctor is working really well and helping me to keep encouraged and so far my scores have been good. I am just trying to balance decreasing sweets, decreasing carbs for breakfast, and increasing water.

-The beginning of October we went to the teachers conference in Beijing and it was a mini-vacation for me and Maddy since all plans of one later were kind of set aside because of the arrival of number 2. It was so fun to spend quality time with her. She is doing so many new things now. She is saying "shoe, baby, amen, uh oh" and so much more. I feel like everything there is something new so it was nice to take her on walks and snuggle while watching a movie. We had a good time. It was also good to take Nate out for a big birthday dinner with so many good friends from other cities and our own city as well. I was also able to have breakfast every morning with my hubby and our good friends the Roberts from Wuxi.

-Now we are still waiting on moving. We have an apartment to move into which is only in the next stairwell. We wanted to move this week since it is the holiday vacation but our landlord isn't giving the school the money he owes so we are the chess piece waiting for things to be handled. On top of this we have our 1st floor neighbors coming often to knock on our door because our apartment is apparently leaking and that same landlord that won't pay isn't showing up to fix the problem so we get stuck in the middle. Yesterday she came while Maddy was in the middle of throwing up everywhere and was getting angry at my husband when he explained that he didn't understand what she was saying. We hope to move next week but we shall see.

-Lastly would be Maddy. Yesterday she threw up most of the day but was still a happy little girl. Today she got up around 8:30 and was super hungry. Then Nate snuggled with her on the couch to watch "Snow White" and she fell alseep. We tried to give her lunch but she didn't want it and only wanted to sleep instead. She is currently asleep and it is 3 o'clock so she is one tired little one. No throwing up today so far, which we are grateful for.

-In future events - MOnday we plan to tour the hospital where we will be giving birth and signing contracts. We also just found out that in the even this baby comes early there is a hospital here that has a NICU the only downside would be that Nathan would not be able to be in the room when I deliver. Continue to lift up the baby and me. We are both doing well but all are unsure what this gestational diabetes could mean or what lies ahead. We are asking for healthy baby, mommy and delivery.

Ok, now here are some pics: