Our third little angel, Ewan Peter, was born on the 6th of August 2014. I was very reluctant to write about my pregnancy on this blog, for fear of judgement. After everything we went through with Gemma, and already having 2 perfect children, I thought people would wonder why were having a third. I was, however, very wrong. We have had so much love and support directed towards us since his birth. Everyone we know has only expressed happiness, love and kindness towards us and our growing family.
I wanted to share our experience over the last 9 months, and the faith we had that God would bless us with a healthy baby. For the past two years Michael and I had been wanting a third child, but kept telling each other that it wasn't a good idea because of the risk of having another child with Hyperinsulinism. Although life for Gemma has improved dramatically since her last surgery, we didn't want to put a child through that same pain and suffering she went through during her first few years of life. In early November, last year, Michael and I went out for dinner and during the course of the evening both started talking about having another child. A few days later, we again said to each other that it probably wasn't a good idea, and just let it be. However, in early December the signs were all there. I did a pregnancy test, and to our absolute delight, found out we were to be expecting another child. According to our workings out, the due date for our baby would be exactly 9 months from the date of our discussion. To me - that is a miracle. We prayed throughout the pregnancy, and trusted that God would give us a healthy baby. If there were one or two moments where we doubted that he would have the HI gene, that would have been a lot, and those doubts were soon overridden by a positive knowing. One of the most touching things throughout, was that often Gemma would say that she wanted her brother to "be like her", but during the children's bedtime prayers, Gemma would pray that her brother would be healthy and not sick like her. Bryce too, would pray for a healthy brother. Some may think that a 25% chance of a child having a defective gene is not very high, and that it's a coincidence that 2 of our children are healthy, but I truly believe that it was the faith we had, as a family, that God gave us what we asked for. GEMMA'S PROGRESS. It's a year since I wrote about Gemma. Once again no news has been good news. Since her operation, her low blood sugars have been almost non-existent, with the exception of one or two over the last year. Her sugars are tending to be much higher, and there was a phase she went through when they were reaching up to 16 on a daily basis. It was therefore, no surprise to us, when we did her last HBA1C test, and the result was 7.5%. This is now in the diabetic range. We did this test 4 weeks ago, and since then have cut out the carbs in her diet drastically. We are seeing better results, and will do her HBA1C test in another 2 months, and we really hope that the percentage drops. If not, we will have to consider using insulin. She is really starting to understand how important it is for her to not eat high carb meals and sweets, etc, and if anyone gives her something she asks our permission first. WIth the approval of her endocrinologist, we would like to carry on controlling her blood sugars with diet for as long as possible, before starting on insulin. Bryce continues to do well. The homeschooling is still going well. We are a bit behind now, as we've been in Bloemfontein for the last few weeks waiting for our little boy to be born, and now that Ewan is here - this mommy is a little bit on the tired side. We have been taking them on outings to Museums, and fitting a little bit of school in between. We hope to be heading back home within a week, and so we will then be getting back into a routine. We look forward to that.
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