Hello Dear Friends!
Please forgive me for not posting so much. As I start Week 38 of my pregnancy, there has been a whole lot going on.
Amelia is doing well. Still transverse, but doing well. I on the other hand have high blood pressures along with swollen feet, ankles, legs and lower abdomen. Fridays appointment, my Dr. decided she wants us to have an amnio to check Amelia's lung function and she wants a c-section done this week. If I have proteins in my urine, they'll forgo the amnio altogether and go straight to the c-section. We could have our little Amelia by next week.
I'm excited but nervous. I have to say by tonight I am READY to have her. I feel like the size of a truck from the water retention and am just ready to be myself again, ready to see the daughter we've waited 10 years for, ready to be with my husband and be a new family. My emotions are all over the place. I'm excited, happy, amazed....I'm also scared, hopeful and wondering if I'll be a good mommy. This is all new to Doug and I. We've been praying for over 10 years and God blessed us with this child. Now the day is at hand and I just don't know what to do. It's like everything is coming so quickly and I'm ill prepared for her arrival. The bitter-sweetness of it all is that I'll also miss the beautiful movements I've felt as she kicks or moves. This little girl has blessed me already beyond what I could have ever comprehended. I'm amazed and bewildered at Gods creation. I'm thankful to Him!
At any rate. I'm excited and can't wait to share our little blessing with the world. A blessing of Hope after the loss of a child. I'm reminded that my daughter is considered a "rainbow baby". A child born after a loss. While her brother, Jackson Jeffrey, went home to be with the Lord. God followed through on a promise. You see, Many friends and I have been praying. One in particular, Patti and I have been praying. She called me one day after my loss. We cried together and prayed. We prayed as Hannah gave her son unto the Lord, She asked God for more children. We stood on that promise and kept asking God to fulfill this for me too. We weren't sure if it would be by conception (well, Patti was sure) or through adoption which is STILL our hearts desire. But we stood on it.
After a year of grieving the loss of our son, we were ready to try again. This time we knew we needed help so we went through fertility treatment with a means to stop if IVF treatment was recommended. Our reasoning behind it was because we have ALWAYS wanted to adopt and the money to do either was similar in cost however there were no guarantees that IVF would actually work yet we knew there were plenty of children and still are who need loving homes with mommies and daddies willing to love them as their own.....Or in our case....a child who would be willing to call US their own.
We started an adoption blog in the middle of our treatment. LITERALLY at the 11th hour just as the medical staff were giving up and ready to refer us to IVF treatment, we found out we were pregnant with the child we now know is our Amelia. It was then we put the rest of our adoption blog on hold to care and advocate for myself and our daughter.
After Noah built the Arch and God followed through to wipe out the sinful population that refused to heed His call, God promised He would NEVER do that kind of thing again. To show His promise, He created a beautiful rainbow. Rainbows are symbols of Gods everlasting promises. Hence the name for a "rainbow baby". A child conceived and carried after a loss.
So to those of you grieving after a loss and wondering if you will ever have a baby or if you'll ever be able to allow yourself to have a baby, I pray you know Gods Hope. As I've gone through this pregnancy, everything I've PLANNED has never gone as planned. In fact, I wanted a vaginal birth NOT a c-section. One of the MANY things that in my opinion went "wrong" with my plan. HOWEVER, God knew HIS plans for Doug, myself and Amelia...for Jackson Jeffrey too! It wasn't MY plan, however His plan is better. For some of us, conception may not be the way we have our children. It may be through adoption. I've learned there's always more than one way....always more than MY way or MY control.
Now I'm not saying Gods plan was for Jackson to to parish the way he did in order to punish me. What God did there was protect my son from harm, give peace to me and strength to my husband at the moment that was bitter sweet for us. His PLAN was that of love and protection which carried on through the grief we had. Healing also took place. God was NOT out to plan punishment and thus decide to use our son to do so. No, our Heavenly Father is a loving Father with plans that can be SO MUCH better than ours. The day we said hello and goodbye to our son, God was with the three of us, wept our tears and gently took my son's spirit to heaven with his last little breath. A peace only a Heavenly Father could do.
While my daughter is here on earth with us....our son is running through the garden with Jesus waiting for US to come home. Again, Jackson isn't gone forever. We're NOT walking away from our son, we're walking TOWARD Him. Toward our Heavenly Father with whom by the gift of Jesus Christ, we are able to spend a whole eternity with one day.
God is good! I pray as Amelia arrives, Doug and I will be the example she needs to understand His love and to overcome adversity here on earth without the question of where her heavenly father is...but KNOWING with confidence that He is there and always will be both during good times, and those that are sorrowful!
May God bless you abundantly and May you find rest in Him. I look forward to sharing Hope with you in the future!
Please forgive me for not posting so much. As I start Week 38 of my pregnancy, there has been a whole lot going on.
Amelia is doing well. Still transverse, but doing well. I on the other hand have high blood pressures along with swollen feet, ankles, legs and lower abdomen. Fridays appointment, my Dr. decided she wants us to have an amnio to check Amelia's lung function and she wants a c-section done this week. If I have proteins in my urine, they'll forgo the amnio altogether and go straight to the c-section. We could have our little Amelia by next week.
I'm excited but nervous. I have to say by tonight I am READY to have her. I feel like the size of a truck from the water retention and am just ready to be myself again, ready to see the daughter we've waited 10 years for, ready to be with my husband and be a new family. My emotions are all over the place. I'm excited, happy, amazed....I'm also scared, hopeful and wondering if I'll be a good mommy. This is all new to Doug and I. We've been praying for over 10 years and God blessed us with this child. Now the day is at hand and I just don't know what to do. It's like everything is coming so quickly and I'm ill prepared for her arrival. The bitter-sweetness of it all is that I'll also miss the beautiful movements I've felt as she kicks or moves. This little girl has blessed me already beyond what I could have ever comprehended. I'm amazed and bewildered at Gods creation. I'm thankful to Him!
At any rate. I'm excited and can't wait to share our little blessing with the world. A blessing of Hope after the loss of a child. I'm reminded that my daughter is considered a "rainbow baby". A child born after a loss. While her brother, Jackson Jeffrey, went home to be with the Lord. God followed through on a promise. You see, Many friends and I have been praying. One in particular, Patti and I have been praying. She called me one day after my loss. We cried together and prayed. We prayed as Hannah gave her son unto the Lord, She asked God for more children. We stood on that promise and kept asking God to fulfill this for me too. We weren't sure if it would be by conception (well, Patti was sure) or through adoption which is STILL our hearts desire. But we stood on it.
After a year of grieving the loss of our son, we were ready to try again. This time we knew we needed help so we went through fertility treatment with a means to stop if IVF treatment was recommended. Our reasoning behind it was because we have ALWAYS wanted to adopt and the money to do either was similar in cost however there were no guarantees that IVF would actually work yet we knew there were plenty of children and still are who need loving homes with mommies and daddies willing to love them as their own.....Or in our case....a child who would be willing to call US their own.
We started an adoption blog in the middle of our treatment. LITERALLY at the 11th hour just as the medical staff were giving up and ready to refer us to IVF treatment, we found out we were pregnant with the child we now know is our Amelia. It was then we put the rest of our adoption blog on hold to care and advocate for myself and our daughter.
After Noah built the Arch and God followed through to wipe out the sinful population that refused to heed His call, God promised He would NEVER do that kind of thing again. To show His promise, He created a beautiful rainbow. Rainbows are symbols of Gods everlasting promises. Hence the name for a "rainbow baby". A child conceived and carried after a loss.
So to those of you grieving after a loss and wondering if you will ever have a baby or if you'll ever be able to allow yourself to have a baby, I pray you know Gods Hope. As I've gone through this pregnancy, everything I've PLANNED has never gone as planned. In fact, I wanted a vaginal birth NOT a c-section. One of the MANY things that in my opinion went "wrong" with my plan. HOWEVER, God knew HIS plans for Doug, myself and Amelia...for Jackson Jeffrey too! It wasn't MY plan, however His plan is better. For some of us, conception may not be the way we have our children. It may be through adoption. I've learned there's always more than one way....always more than MY way or MY control.
Now I'm not saying Gods plan was for Jackson to to parish the way he did in order to punish me. What God did there was protect my son from harm, give peace to me and strength to my husband at the moment that was bitter sweet for us. His PLAN was that of love and protection which carried on through the grief we had. Healing also took place. God was NOT out to plan punishment and thus decide to use our son to do so. No, our Heavenly Father is a loving Father with plans that can be SO MUCH better than ours. The day we said hello and goodbye to our son, God was with the three of us, wept our tears and gently took my son's spirit to heaven with his last little breath. A peace only a Heavenly Father could do.
While my daughter is here on earth with us....our son is running through the garden with Jesus waiting for US to come home. Again, Jackson isn't gone forever. We're NOT walking away from our son, we're walking TOWARD Him. Toward our Heavenly Father with whom by the gift of Jesus Christ, we are able to spend a whole eternity with one day.
God is good! I pray as Amelia arrives, Doug and I will be the example she needs to understand His love and to overcome adversity here on earth without the question of where her heavenly father is...but KNOWING with confidence that He is there and always will be both during good times, and those that are sorrowful!
May God bless you abundantly and May you find rest in Him. I look forward to sharing Hope with you in the future!
