Back from the other side of the world

Since my last post my whole world has changed and literally turn upside down. You may recall that my husband, two children, and I sold practically everything we owned, sew machine excluded of course, to follow a dream and move to Beijing China. We set up shop just in time for for the arrival of baby number three, but due to a few question marks in our baby's health I flew back to the States with our nine day old, expecting to return to China with a wonder drug in about two weeks. Oh how wrong we were.

An MRI, 8 hour sleep study, and nasal scope later we learned baby Maaike was host to un--numberable cysts. Starting in her lower lip and tongue and following all the way down her trachea the cysts leave her only about 10% of usable airway. In a matter of days we found ourselves at our last resort and in the operating room.

At one month old Maaike had a tracheostomy. Because of the locatation of Maaike's cyst's they are, for now, inoperable. With a safe airway via trach we hope to push out any proceedures until she is 3 or 4 years old, but only time will tell.
I spent a very long month in the states caring for Maaike and learning all the ins and outs of trach care while my husband and two other kids tried to maintain a life of work, school, and play without a mom in China. After 33 days my husband sold almost everything we owned again, sewing machine excluded again, and flew with our 5 year old and 2 1/2 year old over the ocean and back to me.

As long as Maaike has the trach we will be here in the States making new dreams. Just this week I turned on my sewing machine for the first time since her birth, 5 months now. I made Halloween costumes. It was wonderful and therapeutic. My sewing projects for the foreseeable future will probably be more on the simple side, so I hope you can be patient with me. We are carving out a whole new life, one stitch at a time, and I hope you will be along for the ride.