Lots of you have asked whether you could bring us a meal when we get home. That would be awesome — the perfect gift for us. Katie Fox is organizing the meal calendar, so if you’re interested, please email her to let her know. And thanks!

Thanks again in rejoicing with us in the expansion of our family. We are blessed!

My blood pressure’s still high, but nothing else seems to be the problem.  They held on to me for monitoring for a couple hours, but I don’t have any signs of preeclampsia, praise God.  They did an ultrasound, and baby’s doing great.  So…  I go back in on Tuesday, and if my blood pressure is still high, they’re moving up the delivery date to this upcoming Friday.

Kabob would love this, since it’s June 11 — his birthday is July 11, and Chick’s is February 11.  He thinks that’s cool.  I think it leaves Garbanzo and I out in the cold.

The doc said there was actually even more fluid than he originally thought, and that it was really old.  We talked about probable causes, since Garbanzo has hardly had any ear infections or even complained about ear aches.  One idea is flying.  We fly a lot (and far distances), and there could have been one occasion where his ears just never “popped,” and they’ve been building up fluid ever since.  It would have been quite awhile ago, since it seems like it’s affecting his speech — possibly back in October ’08 when we traveled to the States.  My ears are horrific when we fly, so who knows…

Either way, the little guy should already be hearing much better.  He is his normal sweet self — just a bit groggy after first waking up from anesthesia, but then hungry, happy, and ready to play.  It was really cute seeing such a tiny guy in a hospital gown, waiting on a hospital bed.

From his surgery, we went straight to my weekly OB appointment.  Everything’s fine, except that my blood pressure’s kinda high.  I’ll go in again this Friday to get my blood pressure checked, and if it’s on the high side again, he said he’ll move up the delivery date.  That would be awesome.

My blood pressure’s normally on the low side when all is normal, so even a bit on the high side is kinda unusual.  But nothing to worry or panic about.

Chickpea and I had a much-needed mother/daughter date yesterday. We joined some friends at Sweet Berry Farms for berry picking and a picnic.

The pros: Good time chatting on the road just us; a basket full of blackberries – more than we know what to do with.

The cons: 90+ degree weather while 37 weeks pregnant, in direct sun, with lots of bending down, heavy lifting, and swollen ankles.

We had a great time, but by the time we got home, I was so tired I was literally shaking. My feet were unrecognizable and I was dizzy with exhaustion.

Yeah, that’s the last time I pick blackberries at 8 months pregnant.

It was a total shock to us, since he can hear us and respond accordingly (not with words, but with responses in some form).  But apparently, his eardrums aren’t moving at all, and in studying the results of his test, the audiologist looks as though his hearing is basically “Charlie Brown teacher style.”  This explains a lot of his speech delay.

The ENT said that the correlation with muffled hearing and language all has to do with his specific age and developmental stage, where his language acquisition skills are at their peak.  If Chickpea was hearing this way at her age, it wouldn’t be as big a deal, since she’s already mastered language skills (and then some, in her case).  But the combination of him being at the age where one learns to talk, plus really muffled hearing, means that he’s not mimicking because…  well, he can’t hear anything to mimic.

The other piece of good news to this is that it looks like the main plausible cause of the hearing loss is nothing more than a serious backup of fluid in his ears.  The ENT guesses by the look of things, this fluid has been there at least six months, probably closer to a year.  It’s so built up that it’s making his eardrums not move at all.

So Garbanzo is getting tubes, which will immediately show results since that will drain his ears.  His speech should improve within two weeks of this surgery, should this be the cause of his speech delay.  He will get his hearing rechecked then, and the speech therapist will do a whole new evaluation on him.  We’ll know how to proceed from then on.

So we’re really excited!  It’s great to get a specific answer to Garbanzo’s rather serious speech delay, and to have a game plan that will hopefully give us some quick results.  He’ll probably still need speech therapy, since he’s pretty far behind, but once he can hear again, things will hopefully move forward instead of stagnant, as they have been.

Of course, we feel horribly that his hearing has been this bad for this long.  He’s such a laid-back, easy-going guy, he just doesn’t complain about anything.  We had no reason to think anything was up because, well, he was acting pretty much the same as he always does.  His hearing loss just coincidentally aligned right with when he should have started speaking.

Praise God!

p.s. – I went ahead and added back comments.  Not sure if I’ll leave it, but it’s there for now, should you be so inspired.

• CHICK: What is it that Garbanzo’s called?  He’s not quite a baby but he’s not quite a kid either.
• ME: You mean a toddler?
• CHICK: Yes, a toddler.  Okay, so what is it that I’m called?  Where I’m not quite a kid but I’m not quite a grown-up either.
• ME: Um…  (thinking)  Well, Chick, I’d say you’re still a kid.
• CHICK: No no, I’m past that.  I mean when I’m older than a kid but not a grown-up.
• ME: Lots of people would say that being a five-year-old means still being a kid.
• CHICK: Well, don’t I look all grown-upish to you?  I really am growing up a lot.
• ME: (hesitating, not sure how to answer without being offensive) … Yes, you do.
• CHICK: (silence, obviously thinking)
• ME: Chick, enjoy being a kid while you’re still a kid.  It goes by really quickly.
• CHICK: Mom, how old will I be when I’m allowed to go to a store by myself?  Seven?

Lord, save me now from the pre-teen years.

• Selling furniture, appliances, and other household goods from 6,000 miles away

• Slowly doing those easily-put-off things one needs to do before a baby’s arrival

• Organizing our travel calendar for the rest of the spring through the end of summer

• Deciding Chickpea’s education method for the fall (it’s kindergarten time)

• Visiting various farmer’s markets around town

• Tending a miniscule garden in the first yard we’ve had in three years

• Watching my ankles slowly disappear daily by 6 p.m.

• Sewing

• Reading

• Organizing guest posts for my blogging maternity leave

• Watching reruns of The Office and Scrubs

• Twice-weekly speech therapy sessions

• Twice-monthly date nights (ahh… the beauty of living near grandparents)

• Holding on to the last fledgling spring days and wincing in anticipation at the too-soon arrival of summer

• Avoiding the topic of why we aren’t currently getting Chick a kitten

• Convincing Garbanzo that with tri-colored pasta, the green ones taste the same as the others

• Relishing in public libraries with English books

• Missing our friends, home, and life abroad while trying to make a temporary-yet-pseudo-permanent life here

• Exploring the wide world of reverse culture shock (the adults) and culture shock (the kids)

• Praying about what’s next

• CHICK: Hmm. Looks like Rick is still here.
• ME: Who’s Rick?
• CHICK: The guy who drives that car.
• ME: His name is Scott.
• CHICK: Oh I know, but I call him Rick for short.

And in a totally unrelated note (other than that it relates to the same carrier of our DNA as mentioned above), Kabob and I counted to discover that Chick has been to nine countries and on 47 separate airplanes. Not too shabby for a five-year-old.

I can’t really go into too much detail, but in short — we’re currently in the States. We’ll be here for an undefined amount of time for medical reasons. Garbanzo, our second-born, needs rather intensive speech therapy, and my doc here recommended delivering baby #3 here.

So yeah… In the span of two months, our life has completely changed. We went from living in a high-rise concrete apartment in a city of 4 million people, to living in a little yellow house amidst three acres and a horse next door. And we have a minivan.

Kabob went back to gather our belongings a few weeks ago, which was really rough both physically and emotionally. It was a real trip being in our home, but solo (sans family) and with the knowledge that it won’t really be our home anymore for the foreseeable future.

Chickpea probably has the most adjustments to make, since our host country feels most like home to her (most of her life has been there). She frequently talks about missing her bed and our home, and wonders if we’re heading back there soon. Then again, she enjoys this little house, the grass, and the horse for a neighbor, so I suppose it’s typical for a 5-year-old.

Garbanzo is just a happy, easy going little guy, so he’s pretty content wherever he is. That said, he’s the age Chickpea was when we moved to the other country, and she had adjustments. So I don’t want to assume because of his laid-back nature (and his lack of talking) that nothing internal is going on. But in the meantime, he’s content being wherever the three of us are.

Overall, we’re well. I hope to start updating this place again with random little updates and snippets. I’ve also been crazy busy launching a little company, and of course, regularly writing on Simple Mom. I love it, and I love my team of editors.

In February I spoke at Blissdom again, had a great time, and made some solid connections.

Today, I spotted this on Amazon, and freaked out just a little bit. (As of this writing, a lot of info is actually incorrect, so I submitted a request for change. We’ll see how long that takes.)

Baby #3 is doing just fine. He’s a wiggle worm, and is crazy active. I’m entering that fun “all heartburn, all the time” stage that I just love, and it’s getting harder to simply move. Ah, the joys.

Anyhoo… Our life goes on. Everything’s good. Just different than it was two months ago. Last weekend we had a great photo shoot with our talented friend Caryn, so hopefully we’ll get a slew of new photos soon.

More later.