The Puzzle by Lew

The Puzzle -

In recap, The Puzzle is meant to give others that may find themselves in a situation similar to ours insight on what we are doing to prepare ourselves for taking a family of 4 to a family of 8 (if that thought doesn't give you the chills...). That situation is a two income family, with two youngsters, that live a more than comfortable, yet completely normal life. Then one day, some dude with a magic wand (Dr. and his ultrasound thingy) tells you that you are pregnant with QUADRUPLETS and BOOM, life seems not so comfortable and soon to be far from normal.

The Puzzle is also meant to entertain family, friends, and others, yet keep it real, as spewed from the mouth, er fingers, of Lew. The seriousness of our situation is just that - very freakin' serious. But, we love life and I am going to have some fun with this...but this is serious shat!

Sidenote: I am planning on corning our doctor soon, so I will know what we are having. It will be the ultimate secret. But I need to know. I cannot explain why. I don't have a reason other than there are FOUR BABIES IN THERE! So...no bribes, no getting me really drunk and grilling me. I will keep this secret and I won't regret finding out. For the record, it's 3 boys and 1 girl - I am like 6 for 6 on baby predictions to this point...

Another sidenote: We LOVE where we live. BUT, Bellaire is not an option to us. It could be to someone else that lived here and was prego with quads, but not us. We need Traverse City for doctors, hospital, help, friends, etc., the list is lengthy. We will not go downstate or to a big city. No offense, but the big city life is no longer in us.

So, without further adieu, drum roll please..........Paint this on a board and cut it into pieces:

Our current house that needs to sell, a new house, a means of income in Traverse City for Lew, The Babyliner (our boat, formerly known as The Babeliner, that needs to sell), Kia for a Bus (my vehicle that needs to go for something that can accomodate 8 with all sorts of baby seats and stuff), typical baby stuff (which we have, just we need 3 more of everything), I think THE QUADS fall in around here, and most importantly, help raising Aiden, Caleb and THE QUADS.

And that's The Puzzle. It is very serious to Tonya and me. With each passing day, yeah, stress rising with belly growing!

We just recently got a bit of a corner started with The Puzzle - I start a new job in Traverse City on June 9th. In consideration of the timing and necessity of this puzzle piece, Tonya and I feel this must be a really good opportunity for me. However, I know for a fact that the tears will be flowing when I walk out the door of Sagasser & Associates, Inc. for the last time after 9 truly enjoyable years there. There are 2 people there that I owe so much too, I mean so very much, it's just gonna be one tough damn day, I'll leave it at that.

Pregnancy Update -
As I previously mentioned, Tonya has an ultrasound appointment tomorrow then we meet with Dr. Jelsema on Wednesday so expect some good bloggin' from Tonya in the next couple few days that will no doubt include some ultrasound photos, baby lengths, weights, etc., and etc., etc.

So that's that. We are really hoping for the next puzzle piece to be the sale of our house - Tonya's doctor told her she needed to be in Traverse City like 2 weeks ago and here we aren't. Plus, who the f%$k wants to move when your wife is 20whatever weeks pregnant, espcially with quads! Heck, who wants to move ever? Moving blows! Mostly, if shit goes bad, we just want to be close to the hospital and again, here we aren't. There are other options, but this would make everything a heck of a lot easier down the road.

Also, I will provide additional insight on items that relate to The Puzzle that aren't, or weren't depicted as puzzle pieces as these instances arise...for instance, our budget. Yeah, it's personal, but you know what, if someone else is in a situation like ours 10 years from now and is somewhat relieved to know that we did it, then that will make us feel real damn good.

So, from the start Tonya and I fell back on a couple sayings:

1) God would not give us more than we could handle.
2) We will figure it out.

And we now know that God wanted to bring out some traits in some people, for whatever reason we do not know yet, and probably they do not know yet either. But there are some people out there that are doing some amazing stuff. Some stuff that we do not know about beyond this website and blog. But our situation, decisions we have made, are impacting people in ways we never thought would. We underestimated the impact our situation would have on others. There are some damn good people out there and we love all of you.

Love,
Lew