Please ...

I don't ask for prayer much on this blog, but I have two significant requests to share with you. First is for Lia. Those of you who were reading here a year ago will remember Lia was rushed to the hospital shortly after birth and spent two months in NICU before heading home on oxygen. She's done far better than most of the experts predicted and recently celebrated her first birthday! However, she's been having trouble breathing again and her diaphragm has moved back up, compressing one of her lungs. Her family is heading down to Twin Falls today and they are looking at surgery perhaps as early as tomorrow. You can follow Lia's story on her blog or her medical updates on her CaringBridge page.

The second request is for me, well, for us. If you knew me when I had my daughter, you may remember we had some struggles with breastfeeding that led to Rosi nearly being labeled with Failure to Thrive as an infant. We're having some similar feeding issues with the new baby--only we're working on them at three weeks rather than three months. Just this evening I began to face the heartbreaking truth that, even though I'm doing everything "right" like I'm supposed to, I may still not be able to exclusively breastfeed my son. This might not seem especially significant; I know a lot of mothers easily use formula from birth or wean at a very early age, but for me, for reasons I'm not entirely prepared to share with the internet at large just now, it's a really big deal.

Thank you.