Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  I won't be long today.  I just wanted to really quickly share something our pastor preached on this morning.  Being as it's Easter, he preached on the crucifixion and resurrection, as I'm sure most of your pastors did.  But He took it in a little bit different direction, which I'd never really stopped to consider.  He talked about the brutality of the beating and the crucifixion and how it can make us feel sorry for Jesus.  And he made the statement do not for one second feel sorry for Jesus.  I thought that sounded harsh considering He's the savior of the world.  But then he followed it up with John 10:14-15, 18 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - (15) just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep.  (18) No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.  I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.  This command I received from my Father".  In hearing that, the 'don't feel sorry' statement didn't seem so harsh.  Jesus wasn't murdered on the cross.  He chose the cross for us - He took it joyfully so we could be saved from our sins.  He has taken the penalty for every sin we've ever committed and every sin we will ever commit.  That's how deep His love is for us.  That He willingly chose His death for me.  As Paul says in Romans 5:8 - "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us".  There's no greater love than that.  I've recently heard it called the 'Scandal of Grace'.  It's the most amazing part of our God, and yet the hardest part to comprehend.  As people, we constantly feel the need to work our way to Heaven.  But thankfully, that's not how God designed it.  We just simply need to believe and ask Jesus to be our savior.  It's as simple as that and yet as mind-blowing as that.  If you don't know the love of Jesus, I pray that you soon will.  And if you do, celebrate that we serve a living God who willingly gave His life for you and for me.  It's that personal.

 

Below is me and Andy's annual Easter pic at my parents house.  My best friend suggested I add it to my Easter post :).  Until next time...

 

Can you say miracle?

It's been a couple of days since I've written, and I have a really good excuse.  I had what I'm hesitant to even call surgery, yesterday afternoon.  Let me back up a little to explain.  I know I said I was going to tell our infertility story from the beginning, but I'm going to jump around a little bit today.  I had what I thought was a normal appointment a few weeks ago with my infertility doctor.  A routine sonogram and of course more blood work.  Sometimes I feel like my doctor is a vampire - every time I turn around they're drawing more blood.  It's like that AT&T commercial - we want more, we want more!  As it turned out, I was scheduled for a saline sonogram.  Not as much fun.  They basically stick a balloon in and fill it with saline so they can get a better look.  It causes a lot of cramping and is fairly uncomfortable.  Unfortunately she didn't get a good enough look the first time and had to do it again.  The best news (and that is complete sarcasm) is that they found polyps in my uterus.  Polyps aren't necessarily dangerous, but because we're on the road to IVF they want to make sure everything is clean and my uterine wall is smooth.  So I needed to schedule surgery.  I also found out that day that we had to cancel our vacation because our IVF dates has been pushed back to May.  I just should've stayed in bed.

So I call my OBGYN to schedule the surgery.  It's a fairly simple surgery - they put me under, shave off the polyps and wake me up.  No big deal.  We went to a Maundy Thursday service for Holy Week and our friends laid hands on me and prayed for my surgery on Friday.  One of my friends insisted on laying her hands on my stomach to pray.  Even with all of the prayers I was still feeling anxious for some reason.  I didn't sleep well Thursdsay night.  I kept waking up and praying from Phillippians - do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition present your requests to God.  I woke up early and had an amazing quiet time with God and He gave me peace about the whole situation.  I tell you all of that because when they woke me up from my surgery yesterday they told me there were no polyps - they couldn't find anything!  I saw the sonogram pictures and I know there was something there.  So we're chalking it up to Jesus healing me.  I would've rather spent my day off shopping, but I'm glad we went through it - better safe than sorry.

When I had my quiet time yesterday I was just drawn to Phillippians 4:6, which is what I had been reciting in the middle of the night.  When I looked it up yesterday morning, I realized I missed a piece while I was praying.  The most important piece if you ask me.  The actual verse is "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving (italics mine), present your requests to God".  I was so busy being anxious that I forgot to give thanks.  Verse 4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!"  I was forgetting to rejoice in God, and once again I wasn't trusting Him fully to take care of me.  And not only did He take care of me through surgery, but He healed me completely - more than I could ask or imagine.  Oh ye of little faith...Do you know how the passage ends with verse 7?  "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".  I just have to remember to rejoice, to give thanks and give every situation over to God.  Then He will give me peace that surpasses understanding.  I put my hope in that verse.  It's the only way I can get through this process - with God's peace.

Until next time...

Day 2

In my total lack of blog knowledge I was unsure of how one got the news out about a new blog.  So I posted it on Facebook - how else does anyone find things out these days?  And I have to say, I have the best family and friends.  I've had the most amazing response and I'm not even that interesting!  Thank you all for caring about us enough to read our story and get inside my crazy head.

I've been struggling with the set-up of the blog - what I'll talk about, how often I want to post, etc...I still haven't come to a definite conclusion, but I had something to say today so I figured why not?  I thought I would start at the beginning, that's usually a good place.  We've now been trying to have a baby for 7 years.  Our motto was let's give it one more month.  Well one more month turned into one more year, and so on.  It's a very hard pill to swallow to realize you can't get pregnant on your own.  It's such a pride issue - which I never thought I struggled with but God is teaching me that He's in control.  Once Andy and I accepted that we needed help, we had no intentions of infertility treatments.  I watched one of my best friends go through two rounds of IVF with no baby and I said no way - I'm not putting myself or our relationship through that.  We had decided on adoption.  But my heart wasn't totally in it.  Everyone longs for their own baby.  So an old friend found me on Facebook (see reference above) and we went to dinner.  Her and her husband were struggling with infertility as well.  It just so happened that she worked for an infertility doctor.  She talked me in to coming in for an informational visit.  Of course Andy got called into work that day so I was flying solo.  The first step, for those of you who aren't immersed in the infertility world, is a sperm analysis.  It's the cheapest and easiest first step for everyone involved and since it didn't involve me, I was like let's go for it!  Andy was super thrilled, especially since my friend worked there and he had to see her when he checked out.  She did tell me that if it made him feel any better, her husband had been in several times and he had to go to the Christmas party with these people - Andy didn't feel so bad after that.

The next step was for him to go to a eurologist to make sure everything was OK with him physically.  I didn't go to this appointment, and after hearing the story when he got home I'm really sorry I missed it.  He went in and the physician's assistant came in with a young female resident.  As you can imagine considering the title of eurologist, Andy had to drop his drawers.  Later when the regular doctor came in, he had the same resident with him and asked Andy's permission for her to be in there to which he replied, "I don't think we have any secrets between us anymore".  Poor guy - he's been a trooper through the whole situation.  After that, we dove in with both feet.  The next steps are a little more involved so I'll save those for another day.

This journey can be a lonely one - it's hard for people who haven't been through it to grasp just what you're going through.  And there are days when we feel like we're the only couple in the world without babies.  But there are so many people struggling with infertility.  My prayer through this journey is that we enjoy the ride and the lessons we're learning - which isn't easy and I have to remind myself everyday of just how much God has blessed us.  It's so easy to get focused on what's to come and forget that we're on this path because God wants us here and He's teaching us something.  Our character and faith are built through our struggles and pain, not when everything is smooth sailing.  That's why the book of James says consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance - James 1:2. 

My second prayer is that we touch someone through our story.  That we can help them through the struggle.  Nothing is more meaningful and relatable then someone who's already been through it and is on the other side.  Afterall, that's why God sent His son, so that we could relate knowing Jesus walked this earth, bled like us, wept like us, got hungry and hurt like us and did it all without sinning.  He can empathize with every emotion we've ever experienced or will ever experience.  And in that we have hope, because Jesus is on the other side.  We have hope for this life because the Bible tells us to delight in the Lord and He will give us the desires of our heart, and when we're done here we get to spend an eternity with Him in Heaven!  I prayed God would use me today while I was writing, so this is straight from Him.  You're welcome :). 

Until the next time...

Day 1

So I've never been much of a blog reader so I shocked myself a little bit when I decided o start a blog.  Let me tell you a little bit about myself and maybe you'll understand my need for one.  I'm 30 years old, married for 10 years this June to my very best friend in the whole world, and we still have no babies.  We have been on a crazy infertility roller coaster for the past 7 years.  Of course at first we didn't know it was infertility - we thought maybe we were doing something wrong.  My husband continually said 'practice makes perfect' (he's an ex-college athlete so everything's a sports analogy around our house).  Though practice as we might, no babies.  We did find out we were pregnant in January 2010, but we had a miscarriage at 9 weeks that just about broke our hearts.  So here we are three years later, no closer to a baby.  We did however give up on the wishin' and hopin' practice method and sought professional help.  Turns out, we're infertile.  OK, that's not our specific diagnosis, but we definitely need help.  So we've now (and by 'we' I mean me) have been through three IUI's (intrauterine insemination) with clomid and one with the really good, make you hormonally crazy drugs.  And as I said earlier, still no babies.  So we've moved on to our last resort of IVF (invitro fertilization).  We're scheduled in May for the egg retrieval.  So in a few weeks I'll be starting even more of the make you hormonally crazy drugs - three different kinds, that's three shots per day directly into my belly, I can hardly wait :).  And my husband is super stoked!

All that being said, I've always been a big journaler and I thought why not put all my innermost thoughts on the internet?  On a more serious note, I've always wanted to write a book and I've heard from many people that a blog is the best place to start.  So here I go.  I want the blog to mostly be about our infertility journey, but I might veer off course every now and then.  I've been praying a lot about this blog and about writing a book and I feel like God has definitely been giving me inspiration.  So some days it might just be about my quiet time that morning and what God laid on my heart.  I guess I forgot to say the most important thing about myself is that I'm a Christian.

I attempted to start a new routine in the past couple of months to get up early and run on my elliptical and read my Bible.  Killing two birds with one stone.  I get up most mornings :).  I talked my husband and one of our friends into going and picking up the elliptical that I bought off Craigslist and then three hours later we had it apart enough to carry into our non-walkout basement. Our friend said I better use it everyday, and my husband said it stays with the house, so if anyone's interested in a house in Western Shawnee with an elliptical, just let me know.  I've been studying in Psalms and this morning when I was praying the theme God seemed to be showing me was patience.  Psalms 27:13-14 says I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  He's been showing me patience through this whole infertility journey; patience and complete reliance on Him.  I would not be able to get through a single day without relying on God to get me through.  So I will continue to take heart in Him and wait for his plan to unfold for our family.