“My home’s in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head”

My last day in Birmingham—so bitter sweet. Tomorrow morning my mom and I head to Gainesville, Florida where I will reside for an undetermined amount of time. On one hand, it is comforting to know I will be only a mile away from the hospital where I will deliver little Philip Andrew—our entire purpose for making this journey. But on the other hand—we don’t know what lies ahead in terms of outcome, time away from our friends and family, and of course, parenthood. Rusty will join me later—closer to delivery day (tentatively Nov. 6)—until then, my mom will be lounging with me on our “vacation”—which will consist of weekly doctors visits, bobbing in the hotel pool, manicures, pedicures and LOTS of Grey’s Anatomy. It will be worse than waiting for Christmas I’m sure—our 2nd wedding anniversary will be spent apart, I will miss Rusty’s birthday—and I’ll be waiting for the greatest gift ever—the birth of our little boy! For those of you who know me—patience is not one of my strong suits—so any sort of “waiting” is absolutely torture!!!! But I know that God is giving us this time to be fully prepared for Philip Andrew’s birth so I will try and not let the “waiting” get to me.





I’ve been mentally preparing for this part of the journey for months now-- so it is bearable—especially after all the wonderful gifts that have come our way in the past few days. We’ve (Rusty and I) been able to have special dinners with our family and friends, we’ve had perfect evenings in our back yard with just the two of us, we’ve had good reflections—and then we’ve had some miracles. About 9 days ago I had a friend call me to tell me that she would be saying a novena to St. Teresa of the Little Flower and that she had Rusty and I on her prayer list for the novena. I thought it was so sweet and thoughtful. A few days later, Rusty was out in the backyard pruning our pink rose bush and it reminded me about the novena and I told him then. I told him that St. Teresa usually sends a sign of her dedication of intercessory in the form of roses—although our roses were pink and there to begin with, I suggested that the fullness and fragrance of them could be her “sign”—and left it at that. Well, today my aunt came over to say goodbye and we went out into the back yard so she could identify some plants for us and I look over to the pink rose bush and standing with the pink roses was one strong lone red rose in full bloom. I looked at Rusty and he smiled knowing what I was thinking. I called my friend and asked her about the novena and she said it had just ended but that she had remembered us in her prayers—I then told her about our gift of a red rose. She agreed that St. Teresa had indeed sent that gift to Rusty and me—such perfect timing.


At our last ultrasound and doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, the ultrasound technician was sweet enough to do some special pictures of Philip Andrew. We hope you will enjoy them—his little smirk came just at the time when I said “Smile for mama!”—the ultrasound technician even seemed surprised when he did in fact “smile”!








I will be updating the blog more as I settle into Gainesville—so please keep checking. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers—we give all the glory to God for this baby and for all the support from our friends and family—we know that it is only through His love that we are able to endure His wonderful plan for our life.
Much Love, Liz & Rusty