What we knew but didn’t know.

I was a hospice nurse for years. I think I will always be one at heart. Maybe one day when all of my kids are out of the home and I have the time to dedicate myself to it, I will be again. Hospice nursing was my best nursing. I was consumed with it, I wanted to be there for every moment for my patients and their families. I know, that sounds crazy to say out loud. But it taught me so much, about life, and importance. About God, and His grace. Death is as beautiful as birth if it’s allowed to be. To be with these people in their most precious moments. It’s a gift. To be able to be present. To hold a hand. To listen to stories of a life. I loved hospice nursing with my whole heart. I can walk into a stranger’s room to this day and tell you how close they are to dying. I know the symptoms. I know the process. I can see it months in advance. I saw it with Ky before everyone else did. I saw him smile a little less. I saw him sleep a little more. I saw him stop tolerating all of his sisters at once. I saw tiny drops in numbers. Nothing that alarmed anyone, but I saw it.

In October it became more clear. He stopped tolerating a lot of things. We tried two more outings. Halloween and Farmers Day. I needed him to experience those with us. His tolerance was not there. Farmers day we got stuck in traffic trying to get back home and Matthew and I both were in a panic because he just was so off. When we got home, we settled him. Matthew said, he’s done going. That’s it. And I knew then, that he saw it too. On Thanksgiving we hosted. We had to keep his room closed and quiet. Matthew stood guard. His heart heavy. The next day I called the doctor. I explained the last few months, and I told her it was time. We were ready for hospice. Thankfully she had my same experience with hospice and she knew I wasn’t crazy. She was such a comfort to me that day.

Even when they came out, they didn’t see it. They see medically complex kids all of the time. And they bounce back, believe me; they are the most resilient humans to ever live these medical kiddos. And Ky has been too, for so long. SO many times I have just known, the RSV, the Covid, the Flu, the pneumonia, was going to be it, that was going to be the end. Only for him to wake up days later right back to his bubbly happy little self. This time was different. I kept telling them that. We knew something wasn’t wrong. We knew this was him saying goodbye.

A couple weeks into December he stopped tolerating his feedings, then he stopped tolerating water, and Pedialyte. Again, we knew.

The week of Christmas it was evident our time was drawing near. He was so tired. And he worked so hard to be alert and with us. We made it to his birthday a week later. We celebrated quietly. All of his siblings and us. We were selfish. We wanted to have him all to ourselves.

The next few days were a blur. But I want to share some of how GOOD God was to us. There were so many God winks and moments over the next five days. So many prayers said, so many answered. But the vent prayer, that one was so big to us.

Our anniversary is the same day as Ky’s birthday. I had bought Matthew and I a spot in a glass blowing class in Pittsboro for Christmas for the day before anniversary and his birthday. I had lined up Kinnley, Tate and Parker to help watch kiddos. We almost didn’t go. I knew Ky was bad, and I was terrified to leave him. The kids convinced us to go. On the way we had an hour and a half of uninterrupted time to talk. We said what we had both been feeling for weeks. We knew the end was near. We talked about everything from how we wanted that to go, to how we would handle the kids, afterwards, anything and everything. We were able to lay it all out, out loud. We cried all the way there. We did the class and loved it. And we talked and cried all the way back. I know now God knew we needed that time to sort it all out and prepare ourselves for what was to come. And we knew it was coming fast.

That night Ky started having pain, and he cried. He never cries. I had to call the on call hospice number. The medical director called me back. We talked at length about everything. She saw what I saw. She coached me through being a mom and balancing that with the nurse in me. I asked her about his vent. I had never done pediatric hospice as a nurse, and I most definitely never had someone die on a vent. She said “you will come to a point where you decide to take him off that vent. You will know.” I cried so hard after that call. Ky didn’t really need his vent before the last weeks. It helped him with pressure but he breathed on his own. I could see in those last days that it was breathing for him. I knew what taking him off meant. I told Matthew I didn’t want to be the one to decide that. Hospice is supposed to be peaceful. It’s supposed to be comfortable. It’s not supposed to be us deciding to stop the thing that makes him breathe. I remember rocking him that night and praying about that vent over and over. How would I make myself take him off of that.

The night before Ky died, Matthew and I were standing over his bed. He had not been awake in a little over two days. He had not eaten in over two weeks. He had not urinated in days. His little face was swollen, and his eyes, actual eyes were starting to swell. Matthew said, Jennifer, if this were you, I would never let you lay here like this. I knew what that doctor meant in that moment. It was time. I told Matthew when the hospice nurse came that next day, we would talk to her and take him off the vent. I cried all night at the thoughts of removing that vent. I held him and we rocked in his rocking chair and I just kept crying to God, knowing it was the right thing but in anguish over doing it. I still didn’t want to do it, even though I knew it was time. The next morning Ky’s nurse came in. We told her about the night before. I told her I wanted to shower before the hospice nurse came, Matthew took the two little girls to school. I told her I wanted to bathe Ky, but Matthew wouldn’t let me during the night because bath time was his and her thing. So, I jumped in the shower and she bathed him. During my shower Dillon came and got me. Again, I knew.

I walked in and his little alarms were alarming, all of them. Everything was bottoming out. And in that moment, there was no decision to make. I pulled them all off of him. I picked him up and we went to our rocking chair. I turned on our worship playlist, and I sang. Buffy had stopped by, came in while I was in the shower, I didn’t know she was coming. God knew she was though. She started making calls.

Over the next hour, Ky would keep breathing. Peacefully, slowly, until he wouldn’t anymore.

It was almost out of body now that I write it down. The room kept filling. His sisters. My sisters. His Grandma and Meme. His nurse and her daughter. Our Pastor. My best friend. Then Karen and Quint. And we sang. We all sang. We sang our beautiful boy to the entrance of Heaven. Heaven came right down to earth. We watched it. In our little house. The Holy Spirit was so tangible. And our baby’s eyes lit up, they weren’t swollen anymore, and his little smile cracked for the first time in days. And he stopped breathing. God spared us. We didn’t have to make any hard decisions. We didn’t have to hear a struggle to breathe. We didn’t listen to the familiar death rattle for hours. We just watched the beautiful boy we loved stop existing here in this broken little body, and we knew he immediately ran to the arms of Jesus.

What I didn’t know, was how much it would hurt after. I have dealt with death for so many years. Even with family. While I love and miss them, I have never struggled with it.

It’s been a month. A month since that day, and while it seems like yesterday, it seems like forever ago all at once. I miss him with every fiber of my being. It’s like a heavy cloak I can’t take off. I don’t have a thought that he is not in the back of. I miss kissing his sweet little face. I miss going in his room. I miss pulling up meds and folding a million loads of his laundry with Matthew in the evenings. I miss hearing the girls play with him. I miss watching Matthew flit around his room cleaning and organizing and saying- what’s he got up next to do? I miss his nurse being here every morning. I miss every single thing about our lives before. I don’t know how to move forward. I stare at his empty bed and sit beside it. I need to take it down. But the thought of it gone seems so final.

I also didn’t know that the foster care and adoption world would get one final jab. That the body that we loved with all we had would go back to the family it was born into. That we would be left empty handed. I should have known. It’s the literal definition of the foster care world. Foster parents love with everything they have to give, and they are the ones that matter the least in the story. And truthfully, I am almost always okay with that, as long as the best interest of a child is at heart. We did not foster or adopt for our glory, we did it for His glory. Because James 1:27 says so. We wanted to make an eternal difference here in the lives of those God placed in our care. My faith tells me that it’s just an earthly body, and I know that. I know where he is. I know that I will see him again. And I keep praying that those ashes bring that eternal glory to that family, and that they are healed, that his little life keeps on affecting others for God’s glory. I don’t want to pray that. But I do. The human side of me though, is so angry about it. And I wanna scream about it. I wanna spill all that anger somewhere. There is no where to spill it, so it stays here, and I stay quiet, just sitting in it, trying every day to give it to God, but I can’t seem to let it go.

In the same breath I am so so so grateful that he is healed. That he is breathing, running, singing, and dancing.

Talk about complicated grief!

At the end of the day, I am so thankful for what we knew. We were given such grace and mercy that we didn’t deserve. We cherished the last few months. Every moment. Every memory. I am thankful that all those years ago I learned to be a hospice nurse. I am thankful for the gift of time. Thankful for five short years with the sweetest boy around. And I will go to my grave being thankful that I didn’t have to make a decision about that vent. I have had a lot of prayers that I watched God personally answer exactly how I needed him to over the years. But nothing has ever, and probably ever will be as personal to me as the gift He gave me of not having to make that decision. He loves us so much. And even though sin and destruction are all around us, He wins in the end. He personally knows and loves His children, and He will show you that if you open yourself to Him.

2025 A Time for Everything

Ecclesiastes 3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

2025 has been officially the hardest year of our lives, of our marriage, of our parenting journey. Having a 2 year in your mid forties ain’t for the weak!!! Having a severely medical complex kid in a nursing shortage, is exhausting. Living with four children born in and from trauma is hard. Parenting adult children while doing all of the above…let’s just say the mom/dad guilt is real.

None of our reality has been easy in this season.This season has brought us to our knees. The weight and depth of our calling is heavy, and the “I can’t do this on my own” is so real. But this has also been the sweet spot. This is where we have been able to see God work. He’s worked through words of encouragement from our friends. Meals brought to our house. Tears in our nightly prayer times. And in the vulnerability we have shared with our people lately, that we aren’t it, we can’t do it all, and praise God we have a savior that carries us in these times! 2025 has brought so many highs and lows.

Kinnley and Parker celebrated Eben’s first birthday in 2025 AND brought him home TWIN brothers!!! Watching our girl be an amazing wife and mommy is the biggest blessing. She is such a good mom. And still manages to be the BEST big sister to all her siblings. She and Parker help Matthew and I constantly and consistently, and we are so thankful for them. Eben, Cannan and Abram are the presents we get for parenting. I love each one of them so much. Eben is old enough to want to hang tight with his Nan and Pop and it is unexplainable the gift he is!

Our Tatiebug married the love of her life in 2025. And this mama WRESTLED with that! If you know us, you know Tate was attached at my hip. She left, moved to another town, another church, and started her very own life. BUT GOD. I have watched her in 2025 grow into the most amazing woman. She serves her church, her community, her husband, exactly how she was meant to do. She loves so big, and as selfishly as I wanted to keep that all to myself for all our days, He knew exactly what she was meant for, and He is walking her though that. I could not be more proud of her, or her husband Jace. He is the most amazing provider, and he is her rock. She doesn’t want for a thing and he loves her so big. She too is the most amazing big sister to her siblings. Her and Jace have shown up at school, at the house, and even a couple ER/hospital visits to make sure her siblings were okay!

Parker graduated a year early and started cosmetology school in 2025. She stepped ALL the way out of her comfort zone and has made friends and learned SO much. She is the baby and the last one standing so to speak of the first batch. She struggled finding her place without Tate home. But she too has eased right on in to that best big sister role, much to her little sisters distaste LOL. She is still our bold, outspoken, spoiled baby of the first batch, but also the jump in and help when mom and dad are drowning. She keeps Bryson around, and if you have seen us with him, or with her, you know she scored one a lot like her daddy. He jumps in and helps too. His mama raised him to be a wonderful big brother, and we get to share some of that at our house as well!

Dillon, who was supposed to be the baby has followed in her big sisters’ footsteps and stepped up. She has learned to help with the littles, she packs lunches, helps clean up, and in 2025 has learned ALL of Ky’s care needs. She literally has more experience with his care than any of the other kids, big girls included. She can hang with the best nurses and respiratory therapists and probably even give them a run for their money in the peds department! Ky ADORES her. He grins every time he hears her footsteps, and he melts when she climbs up in his bed. She is amazing.

It has taken Sophia three solid years to get 100% comfortable here, but 2025 was her year. She is hands down the funniest, and sassiest of the sister crew. She knows the world, loss and trauma in more ways than any of the others, and watching her comfortable in her own skin, home and community brings a pride I cannot explain. She is the best with Yana, and that’s a whole post in and of itself. She is our little popular one, she has more friends than I can count and she LOVES school. She does fine in class, but socializing is her way of life. I love watching her grow up!

Yana. 2025 brought us the terrible twos and whewwwww did she bring them. Yana is the most bull headed, assertive, independent, repetitive, and cute human I have ever known. She has more personality in her pinky than our whole family has put together. She may be the littlest and youngest of the bunch, but best believe she gets the attention. Her vocabulary is hilarious, and it’s obvious she has big age gaps in her siblings. She has more energy than anyone I have ever known. She LOVES being an auntie. Eben is her best friend, and she thinks Canaan and Abram are the best things on earth. She drives us NUTS, but she is so fun!!

2025 has been the year for King Ky as we lovingly call him. Matthew and I knew from the day we met Ky that his brain and body were not meant for a long life. We knew when we brought him home, that one day we would not have him anymore. We even prayed over and discussed at length how that would affect the girls. We still knew God wanted us to bring him home. Ky has changed the last two months. He has fought sickness after sickness and his body is weary. We can see the effects of his previous traumas and the exhaustion his brain is experiencing from sustaining itself. Right now, his future looks more uncertain that it has before. Winter is not a friend to medically fragile children. December has never been a friend to Ky. We know all of those things, yet watching them play out brings a fear and uncertainty that we aren’t sure what to do with. When there are other little hearts that love him with ALL they have, it makes it all even more complicated. In November while we played with Eben and rocked NICU babies, we spent days back and forth with our UNC team on Ky’s changes. We decided together that it was time to let Hospice come alongside and walk us through this next season. We have been blessed with a pediatric hospice that works with our local providers as well as our UNC team. Despite the decline, Ky has thrived at home. He loves having a house full of sisters. He has gained two nurses that are like a mama and grandma to him. He is SO spoiled. He is King Ky and our home is his castle. We are all so grateful to get to be that for him. He brings everyone such joy. I wish you could see us all when he gives us a smile. He melts you!

In all of this, we have seen our village step up and step in like never before. For the first time, well the first time we would admit it anyway, we have taken on more than we can do without help. Our church family, our family, and our friends have surrounded us. We have added in village members with Ky’s nursing staff, Parker’s family, Jace’s family, Bryson’s family, Karen and Quint’s village, our UNC and Sandhills teams and now hospice. We are SO well supported!!

We know that God called us to all of the above. And where He leads us, He will sustain us. We have to continue to lean on Him. To dig into His word. And to trust Him even when we cannot see what’s in front of us. As we end 2025 and look forward to 2026, we REST and REMAIN in Him. Thank you to those that love us so well, that pray for us on a regular, and that cheer us on. We are so blessed. When I look at the pictures and see what all God has brought to our lives, I can’t help but be filled with gratitude and joy, that we get the privilege to work for Him, and for His glory. Merry CHRISTmas

Seven

We have a new Pastor. Well, kind of new, he has been here almost a year. His greatest gift (in my opinion) is his zeal for the Word. He gets you so exicted to read your bible. And he is SO passionate about you not only reading it, but understanding what you are reading. I have gone from reading my bible in a year every year, to spending weeks on a passage or verse, months on one book or a few chapters. He has taught us to notice numbers, certain words, phrases, that key in on something deeper, or that accent a passage to help you understand more. It’s amazing how on fire our members have been, from young kids to 80+ year old members, so excited to dig in and learn.

Seven is the number of completion in the Bible. I’ve always known that. Never thought it would be a theme in my life. But here we are.

If you have met the last baby of our brood, you would describe her as JOY. I don’t know of any other human that meets the standard of that word more than her. She is full of joy. She has joy pouring out of her little body any time you are around her. Every one, and I do mean every one, wants to take her home with them. She is stubborn, WIDE open, busy, oh so hyper, silly, sweet, sassy, all of the things, but in and above it all, she is joy.

I didn’t have much joy when I realized that she was going to be mine forever. I love her, don’t get me wrong, I am crazy about her. But she wasn’t in my plan. It’s taken me a long time to find that joy, I think even as I type, that this may be the reason for this blog post, because I just finally have not only accepted, but embraced that she is mine. Without spilling too much of her story (it’s not mine to share), she came here because we parented her parent for a very long season. We took her under the impression that she was kinda our “grandbaby” and we would step in while said parent stepped up. But then that didn’t happen. And this mama who was SO OVER parenting, at FORTY FOUR years of age, had a baby again. To say I have struggled with that is an understatement.

It’s funny how God reveals stuff slowly to you. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like He knows I can only handle so much info at one time, so He leads me slowly, and gives me bits very slowly. I need time to mull over things. To pout, to fuss, and then to give up and accept. This weekend I RELUCTANTLY decided to potty train her. Not because she wasn’t ready, or because I wasn’t capable. Because I didn’t wanna do it. I have parented so much more than I ever planned. There are days I don’t wanna be touched, talked to, even days I feel that I don’t wanna hear the word “mama” ever again. I am tired. But, we did it. We stuck some panties on her and we did it. God knew how tired I was, because she acts like she has been potty trained all her life. She had a few accidents, but about thirty successes. Woke up the next morning like it was nothing, straight to the potty, no accidents. She also moved into a toddler bed. Laid down in that thing like she had slept in it every day of her life. And you know what? I watched her on that monitor SO SAD!!!!!! She is my baby. M very last baby. And you know what God whispered to my heart while I was watching that monitor wondering what this sadness was? SEVEN. She is number seven. She is the completion of the Rhyne crew.

What a gift He gave us. Pure joy. To end our foster care journey. To step into our forever family. He gave us joy. I never had that sadness when any of the others moved to toddler beds, got potty trained, went to preschool, none of it. I was an emotional disaster Kinnley’s first day of school. Pretty sure other than that I have handled most things pretty nonchalantly(other than Kinn going to college and Tate getting married- those are for another day HAHA). I finally get what everyone says about “the baby”. I thought I had “the baby” when Parker was born. Then again when we got Dillon, then again with Fia. LOL, God has a sense of humor. So here we are. With seven children. She is THE baby.

I don’t find my identity in being a mom. I never have. I am not a great mom. I think I do okay, LOL, but I am breaking some generational curses over here too, and that gets messy some days. I am however, so grateful that God has allowed me to parent such incredible humans. Every time I look at Kinnley, Tatum and Parker I am amazed that we made it. That they are adults. My tiny little girl tribe is all grown up. And they are wonderful people. I would like them even if they weren’t mine. How gracious is God to give me another batch. To give me another chance to clean it up, to show Him a little more, to have different intentions. I hope my words never come across as having it all together, or all figured out. I don’t. If you are attracted to anything in our lives, I promise it’s not us, it’s God within us. He guides our steps, our days, our ins and outs. He gives me grace when I get it wrong, to start again the next day. And He gives my precious kiddos that grace too, they love me new each morning and I am so thankful for that.

Google says “the number seven is often associated with completeness, perfection, and fulfillment”. I can confidently say that God is done growing our family (through parenting), and it’s perfect for us, we feel that fulfillment. I have been done many times over the years, but He wasn’t. I know in the depths of my soul that I am now, and I know that knowledge is from Him. I am nervous about closing our home. We aren’t perfect, but we were a good foster home. Not many people foster, and even less adopt. The thoughts of their being one less of us in our area makes me nervous. But I know God is greater and He has a plan for that as well. For now, we are going to embrace the joy of Yana that He blessed us with. We also will embrace the peace of Ky, the patience of Sophia, and the gentlessness of Dillon. We see glimpses of Him in each of them and know as we all grow in this forever season we will see more and more.