This two week wait has proven to be an uphill battle emotionally. As I wait for His answer, I pray He will not forget me. That I won't be the only one still sitting here...waiting.
It hasn't been fun being around me. My heart, mind and spirit are quite weary and I long for the answer to be "yes". Reality is though, that God doesn't always say "yes". That's my fear. As I talk myself into who God isn't...He isn't a God of fear, jelousey, anger, rage, anxiety, bitterness, etc., I find myself trying my hardest to focus on what He IS...a God of Love, Mercy, Grace, Forgiveness, Kindness, Gentleness, Guidance and yes, sometimes miracles.
I've already received one miracle though. One that while I wait for heaven to see him again, I also DREAM to experience the gift of pregnancy once again. For a more positive and beautiful outcome. A healthy child carried to term.
Two week waits to test are usually pins and needles, but this one is INTENSE. It is the difference between a dream come true, or closing the door to open a whole new one. It is HERE where I sit and wait. I HOPE in the only one that has the power to create a miracle that Dr.'s cannot do. It is now when I say, "Lord, please don't forget your daughter".
Oh goodness! Throughout this path of fertility treatment, I've heard MANY women talk of excessive testing as they wait. This hasn't really hit me until my present cycle. We have a TON of tests in the closet and I'm SO tempted to test. It's too early and I know it. I'm on eggshells waiting to find out the Lords plan for us. There's an inkling of anxiety and I see myself wanting to control the outcome if only to test to see where we will be next month.
To calm my heart, mind and spirit, I've been reading scripture that fits the occassion. I am atimate about staying the course and focusing solely on God. THIS is my still season right now. When I find my mind is getting side tracked, I try to redirect myself to do "what's right". Is testing REALLY going to change Gods outcome? Wouldn't it be better to wait on the LORD'S plan to unravel and not to rush Him?!
God is good and I know He'll reveal His plan in time. His timing as I've said before is PERFECT.
In the meantime, I've been getting things done around the house. The temperatures have been in the single digits lately so it's given us ample time to reorganize here. We bought bookshelves the other day that I had planned to put on each side of the sliding glad doors in the dining room. They look PERFECT. I have to change the curtains, but that will come in time. We have a TON of books and we'll most likely have more coming in the house soon. We have a book case upstairs and now two more downstairs. I tilted my dining room table and it looks SO nice! Why didn't I think of that before??
We also got my new sewing machine off layway at Sears. The desk we put together is complete and is also in the bay window area in the dining area. It all comes together nicely. I can't wait to get to my sewing again. I have a quilting class in February to look forward too.
I'll start putting pictures up again when we get a new camera. Oh how I miss blogging with pictures!
I seem to be in a "resting period" lately. It's absolutely AWESOME! I don't remember a time where I've ever been calmer and I attribute it to peace from the Holy Spirit.
I had an IUI on Tuesday morning. When the medical staff literally said they thought this cycle was a bust, I prayed to God for a miracle and lo and behold, 3 fully mature follies showed up. I haven't had three the whole time I've been going through treatment. It's a testimony to God's mighty power.
When we went in for the IUI, I found out that the midwife was performing the procedure. That was a first for me and while I was hesitant, I knew just why I love natural child birthing. First, let me share that I prayed for "peace which surpasses ALL understanding". Throughout the whole appointment I was praying scripture and standing on Gods word.
Upon entering the room, we found out that Doug had a MASSIVE amount of "swimmies" and that they'd be inserting two vials of swimmies instead of just one as usual. Praise God! I thought. This has never happened either.
As the midwife performed the IUI procedure I felt nothing but compassion, love and peace. While it was uncomfortable I did not feel the pain I usually did with the past two procedures I had with the medical staff on the other side of the office. In fact, I CLEARLY understood the reasons why I like the whole natural approach.
You see, The last two times were VERY "clinical". Get em in, get em out. Everything was done in a hurry and we were left alone. It's quite understandable why Dr.'s are performing massive amounts of unneeded c-sections in order to work around their own schedules to be home for dinner instead of waiting on the mothers to birth their children.
In fact, go into any Labor and Delivery unit and ask how many of the nurses and staff perform "natural" deliveries and watch them all look at you with confusion on their minds. Many of your city hospitals just don't. If they DO actual vaginal deliveries, oftentimes you'll find them administering petocin to speed along the process. They don't tell you that using petocin will actually produce MORE pain during child birth and can even cause attatchment issues once the baby is out and mom wants to nurse.
Okay, okay. So I'm getting off track here. My point here though is there was a HUGE difference between the IUI I had this time and the two done by the medical staff on the other side of the office. One was more natural, allowed time for the swimmies to move back and gave such love and compassion for a dream long hoped for and awaited. While the other experience was WAY more "clinical" with less emotion and more rushed.
God knew what I needed and provided that for Doug and I. Now it's in HIS hands. Will we actually find ourselves pregnant soon? Or will we continue to move forward with adoption next month? Either way we've always wanted to adopt and will approach that direction with excitement. However, I would love to conceive a child and carry to term with a more positive experience in my head.
If that day comes, Lord willing, I am confident that we will approach our birthing experience the same way we did with Jackson Jeffrey and with the same measure we had this time when the midwife performed the IUI procedure. With a more natural, loving and GODLY approach than the experience I've had.
I look at it this way, had I listened to the Dr.'s when we were birthing our son to go ahead and take morphine, we would have never seen our son alive and enjoyed the moments we had with him. He either would have died right away OR would have been too lethargic from the drugs to function.
Overall, I've seen God EVERYWHERE in my life. I wouldn't have it any other way. So to God be the glory. Either way, we'll have another miracle. For that may God solely have the glory.
We're so excited to announce that we're moving forward with adoption plans. It's been a long hard road trying to conceive since our son passed. It took us 8 years just for his miraculous conception but it was certainly God who made it all happen.
We have been told that it's time to think about moving on to IVF. Doug and I agreed before we started all this, that our stopping point would be IVF. We have always wanted to adopt since LONG before we got married and it just makes sense to move straight to adoption.
We have picked a country and now we're working on another blog dedicated to our adoption journey. If we get pregnant on our own in the future, it will be Gods great blessing, but we are at peace knowing our children have been born in our hearts for quite some time and God knows our hearts desire to adopt our little one as our own forever.
I am working on some fundraising opportunities as we speak and Doug and I are quite excited as we step out in faith to bring home our son or daughter.
I look forward to sharing with you our new blog shortly. In the meantime, we covet your prayers that God would help us finance the adoption to bring home our little one safely.
As I sit here and wait, I am encouraged. God is with us. He knows our desire and I know He'll provide. Lord, multiply our descendents and widen our territory. Fill us with the fruits of the spirit and hear our prayer in Your Son's name I pray...Amen!
Is it possible there could be more change in the air?! After another appointment for labs and sono's, my nurse called to tell me the estrogen level has gone down. She let me know that if this cycle doesn't work, we should think about moving on to a Dr. who is more equipped for my body that is slow to stimulate follies to maturity.
It seems as though we're coming to our stopping point pretty fast. The Dr. she speaks of is the only specialist in the area that is well known. The problem with this is that he's for the numbers which makes his rates look good published and also has an EXTREME focus on IVF. My husband and I have committed to stop there because we do not want to store fertilized embryos for someone else to take, we don't want to sell them for adoption and we most certainly don't want them to be used for stem cell research. The money it costs to store and the amount of times IVF is covered just wouldn't be enough to risk for us.
I am very sad because after 8 years, we conceived Jackson without fertility intervention after we were told we'd never be able to. It happened on it's own by surprise. At almost 37, I don't have another 8 years to wait. This is the only measure we can use to try for a natural pregnancy to carry a healthy baby to term.
We've been wanting to adopt for some time and finances have been an issue. We don't want to go into debt, what kind of an inheritance would that be to give a child we adopt as our own if we hand down debt?!
I'm in a place right now where I'm not sure what we're going to do. We have four more IUI's left. Do we go to a Dr. that may not put our best interest first before his quota or love for IVF? Do we travel back and fourth to a city 2 hours away from us where there are other specialists who have a better repor?? Do we foster to adopt? In which case we're forgoing infancy which we've never had the pleasure of enjoying and going straight to older children which we don't mind as we fostered teens. Do we bite the bullet and somehow get our heads in the door at an adoption agency who will charge us 20k? Even with the tax credit, we would have to put up the money in order to get it back at the end of the year. So while people say it's cheaper, it isn't at that paticular time.
My heart is weary but I DO know God is with Doug and I. I'm not sure what his plans are. I pray we hear Him speak, that He will somehow open the door for us to be parents here on earth. My heart is heavy but God says His burdens are light. Father, please show us your will and multiply our descendents. Help us to provide enough room for them and direct us in how to use our finances wisely in Jesus name.
NOTE: Scroll to the bottom to mute the music already playing.
God seems to be giving me a "teaching moment" lately. Something along the lines of waiting. If you know me, you know I'm not good with "change" nor am I good at being "patient". In fact, I get somewhat of an anxious heart when plans go awry.
As a child, I seemed to dream my life away per sey. I was a dancer and planned to become professional, I wanted to get married, buy a home in the country, have children and enjoy life. I was a bit more anal than I'm sharing right now as I literally had dates and times.
I remember my grandmother sitting me down one night and sharing that she was worried about me. She said, "Becky, you are planning your life away. I'm worried that your setting yourself up for failure. If things don't happen as you plan them, you become disappointed". Oh how I miss my grandma! She was SO wise and yet with the wisdom, I just pushed it aside and carried on with "my own plans".
Later, I found out I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I started gaining alot of weight in a VERY short amount of time and soon lost what would have been a great professional career had I not gained so much. I became depressed when more and more weight came on. When I couldn't find a date let alone someone I'd marry, I fell deeper and deeper in depression.
One day, after accepting Christ into my life. I started finding joy again. I met some friends in college and one in paticular who became my husband. Doug was like no other man I had met before. He was a Christian man, a GOOD man who I now know was hand-picked to be the man I'd fall inlove with and marry. Little did I know that this man that God hand-picked, would jump behind me at the hospital and help me deliver my baby at 22weeks gestation from an accident a month prior that no medical staff caught in time.
In the end, the baby we'd waited 8 years for, passed away 25 minutes later. Yet again, another hope and dream demolished.
I don't blame God for any of this. In fact, HE is what kept it all together. You see, aside from the accident that took our son, "I" was my own worst enemy. My need to plan and FIX things so they'd come out the way "I" wanted them to was making a mess out of Gods plan over our lives. Yes, God still did what He planned, but sometimes I took the blessing out of it all because I wanted to control it myself.
Right now we're going through fertility treatment and all I want to do is control the outcome. OH how I wish "I" could tell the Dr.'s what and how to do their jobs. In this process, I've become more and more aware that God knows what He's doing and will follow through with it. I also am aware that out of all the heartache I had from prior medical staff, God blessed me with a whole new medical staff that knows who I am when I walk through the door, talks with me, listens to me and has a handle on everything. The rest is up to God.
Which brings me to this video and the other teaching moment: Certain things trigger my sadness in the loss I feel for our son Jackson Jeffrey. It's not women who announce their pregnancies.....that is, as long as they don't take them for granted. It's usually women who have infants and toddlers or even teenagers who are being abused by the mouths or the hands of their parents.
Today I was pretty upset to find that a local unknown woman gave birth to her baby and threw it in the trash. The case is still being investigated and we still don't know if the baby was alive or dead upon being thrown in the dumpster, however there are laws protecting babies that will allow mothers to turn their children over to hospitals anonymously and there are programs that will give free medical care and prenatal vitamins to those who are pregnant. I also know of a slew of adoption agencies that would have helped this woman. I can think of one in paticular.
In my opinion there is no excuse for something like this to happen. My heart aches because while some women take for granted the lives they conceive, there are MANY like myself who long to bare a child or even hold a child through adoption in their arms.
God knows my heart and also knows I have a hard time grasping this. I came across another Steven Curtis Chapman song that blessed my heart. Again, it's the second song this week that speaks of "waiting". Only this time instead of waiting for a child here on earth, waiting to also be with our children who are in heaven. I needed to hear this today. That little baby that passed away and was dumped IS in heaven with my son romping around in the garden and listening to Jesus as He tells the story of HOPE.
before I end, I just want to take the time to pray for the mother who abandoned here baby and ask that the Lord speak to her, that she would come to know Him and that He would find a way into her life in Jesus name...AMEN!
I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1
Sudanese Children, picture provided by Samaritan's Purse
This Sunday, Southern Sudan will be voting for it's Independence in a referendum. This Country has had MANY civil wars and lives are at stake.
Please take the time to pray for Sudan and it's citizens. Religious persecution exhists among it's people. Muslims and Christians alike in Sudan need your prayer for peace, guidance and protection for those especially in Southern Sudan to find freedom and protection from genocide.
Again I ask, please pray for our brothers and sisters in Southern Sudan. That God would keep them safe, giving them all the protection they need, that their lives would be blessed abundantly and they'd find freedom and victory through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Pray also that muslims would come to know the gift of Salvation through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. In His name I pray....AMEN
A friend of mine who also has PCOS and has waited a LONG time to conceive, has just shared this video with me that gave her strength as she waited. I felt the need to share it with all of you as well as post it for continued reference in our own waiting. God is good and there is nothing He can't do. So we wait. While doing so, we will serve our Lord and continue to move forward until He speaks boldly and blesses us with our children. Praise be to God!
NOTE: Scroll to the bottom to mute the music already playing.
As I look back at 2010, I look at a year filled with newfound understanding. 2010 was a year of "healing" for Doug and I. For me, I found that I was starting all over again. Learning who I am, who I wanted to be and understanding life, death and the afterlife. From my grief, I found new peace as I started walking step by step, day by day, month by month and so on.
Christmas took on new meaning for me in 2010 also. One of HOPE, renewal, a gift of life everlasting and a glimpse into exactly what we'd like Christmas to mean in our own family.
As I ponder on yester-year already, I look at this woman who was afraid. I was afraid to disappoint, afraid to learn, afraid to accomplish most tasks. By the end of 2010 I found that I had come out of that shell of fear to protect myself from hurt and learned to take a risk and follow through on things I may not have otherwise done. This may not mean much to anyone else, but to me it's a HUGE barrier that's been broken. I see where God has helped me change and continues to mold me into HIS adopted daughter.
When the ball dropped in Times Square, I was standing in the living room with my husband and cheered for the New Year to arrive. My husband kissed me and I just knew that this year will be different. The healing that took place has set the foundation, along with our faith in Christ, for an attitude of gratitude in this New Year. You see, if I never would've gone through the "valley" I don't think I ever would have understood the season I'm in now. Looking back, God has blessed us with SO MUCH! In our time of need, He most certainly provided.
I look at this year and know that this is the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I have nothing to fear and look forward to accomplishing new projects, overcoming new obsticles and hoping dreams come true for 2011.
IBMD recognizes babylost women all over the world as mothers. Just because a woman loses her baby does not mean that she is not a mother anymore. She will be a mother for the rest of her life. On this special day in May we come together to celebrate our connection, our children and our hope for the future. IBMD is a day for love, peace, remembrance and recognition.
