As the deadline for abstracts to be submitted to the PASS Summit came due, I made the hard decision not to submit any. I was holding on to a secret, waiting for the right time to share it. My wife and I made the decision yesterday after another well baby visit. Yes, you read that right. 🙂 We are expecting again. There's just one baby this time and everything looks fine. The due date is set for late December, and though the Summit is at the beginning on November, I want to stay close to home those final two months, especially after we lost the twins last time.

One of the things the doctors assured us about Twin-to-Twin Transfusion syndrome (TTTS) is that it's one of those rare occurrences and that there is no known cause. It's something that, as far as we know, "just happens." Ours was an especially severe case, as we learned when they did testing afterwards, and that's why we lost the twins. It's interesting that one of my wife's best friends from school (starting in the 6th grade) also had twins that suffered from TTTS, however, hers made it to delivery. However, you can definitely tell a difference between the two in size, even though genetically they are identical.

We're looking forward to another addition to our family and I know our children are excited again, too. I know with 3 rambunctious children in the house, those last few months are going to be more tiring in pregnancies past. I saw this very clearly with the twins. So it's important for me to be around, to shoulder more of the load with respect to the children, the housework, and the homeschooling. Given all of that, I may make day trips to nearby user groups, but the last time I'm likely to travel for any length of time will be in August when I head up to SQL Saturday #51 in Nashville. That's partially a personal trip, too, as I have a cousin who just graduated from college and two more who just graduated from high school that we haven't seen (along with the rest of my Nashville relatives) in 11 years now. So we're looking to be up there for about a week with family visits and then attending SQL Saturday.