Waiting for the Ball to Drop...A look back at 2014 and preparing for 2015

Year 2014...man do I feel blessed to have experienced you!! I can't help but think back over the past year and just be in awe of all that has happened. Some of you may remember my blog from February of this year, where I talked about all of the struggles that Jamie and I experienced in 2013. Here is a look back from that blog...

"I am not going to sugar coat it, 2013 was an extremely difficult year for Jamie and I. There were times where we both wished that we could have laid our head down and slept through it. Infertility, struggles with our weight, job loss, unemployment, and months with great financial uncertainty, could basically summarize the year we went through. Every month made us feel more and more raw and exposed. Sometimes the only thing I could muster to pray was "Lord have mercy on us." ...When the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, Jamie and I kissed, wished 2013 good riddance, and agreed that 2014 was going to be our year of hope...So goodbye 2013...I did my best to learn from the path God had us walk through on this really sucky year and I am holding onto hope that 2014 will be our year or at the very least one year closer to Jamie and I growing our family and having the children we so desperately want. Greetings 2014! Howdy! Good to see ya! Let's do this!"

The sadness of 2013 really made 2014 so much sweeter!! Here I sit writing this at 18 weeks pregnant (in my 5th month) and with every little baby kick, I cannot help but feel this immense joy. In total, our baby is 5" long, the size of a sweet potato, and now has a complete set of unique fingerprints. How miraculous!!! As Jamie and I were driving to Christmas Eve service, I began crying because I just could not believe that (A) we were blessed to be able to pursue IVF this year, (B) that we got pregnant and still were pregnant, (C) we both had good jobs in our field (sometimes a few too many jobs), and (D) that many of our prayers were being answered.

2014 was also the year that we sent our first child (Riley) to heaven and though that was one of the hardest parts of this year, I do feel blessed to know that Riley will never have to deal with the pain of this world and that we have a Savior who is taking better care of him or her than Jamie and I ever could.

My hopes and prayers for 2015 are ones for a healthy child to join our family in May or June. To be quite honest, I am literally petrified of all that could go wrong and counting down the days till I am 24 weeks pregnant, which is the point in a pregnancy where a child could survive if born early. Before every ultrasound, I get extremely nervous. The night before we went in for a 16 week ultrasound to find out the gender, I was crying hysterically because I hadn't felt the baby move in a week and at that point all I wanted to hear was a heartbeat. Thankfully, everything looked good, but I am still very nervous about my anatomy ultrasound coming up in early January. Sometimes I feel like I am waiting for the ball to drop and not the one in Times Square. I guess this means that I am becoming like any normal mother...overprotective and worried about everything! Truthfully, I know that I need to cast all my fears and anxieties on Him, but I am really struggling to do that.

My other prayer for 2015 is that Jamie could get into a place where he has a better work-life balance. Him having a full-time job in accounting and a part-time job in land survey drafting at night has been an amazing blessing financially, but it leaves us with very little time to spend together. Thankfully, he will be greatly cutting back his hours at his part-time job, but he is also gearing up for another tax season ....hence me becoming what they call in the accounting industry as a "tax widow". So all that to say I am looking forward to the end of April when we plan to take a babymoon (a 2nd honeymoon-type trip before the baby comes).

Sooo many people have been so kind in asking how I am feeling...well... I am usually feeling great! Exhausted....but great! The nausea has mostly gone away! THOUGH I will say the food aversions are as bad as they have ever been and smells of meat and garlic still make me lose my cookies. The other day I bought Jamie a can of chicken noodle soup because he was sick, but when he opened it in the kitchen it sent me into a vomiting spell. Also a few weeks ago, I told Jamie to bring home Boston Market, because I knew that I needed some protein, but the smell of that even coming into the house make me violently sick for several hours. So there was poor Jamie eating the Boston Market chicken out under the freezing cold carport...poor guy!!! When we went to go see my family for Christmas, they were gracious enough to have a meat-free house. BUT as long as I stay far away from meat and cooking meat, I feel good. Pregnancy is so crazy! I am still getting frequent migraines, but that is just normal for me and I deal with them the best that I can.

My body is really starting to change and even though I still haven't gained any weight according to the scale, my bump is definitely growing. In the middle of the night if I switch from sleeping on one side to another I can feel the baby tumbling around to settle on the other side. So cool! The miracle of children just amazes me more and more everyday!

Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement on the baby's gender! We can't wait to share!!!

14 Week Update + The Big Reveal to Jamie

So today, I am 14 weeks preggo and I am officially starting my second trimester! Man that feels crazy to say! The past few weeks have included some hard days, but every day it seems like the painful heartbreak of losing baby Riley is getting more and more healed. However, I know the pain will never completely fade away and, truthfully, I don't think I ever want it to. Riley will always have a piece of my heart and I long for the day when I get to meet him or her in heaven.

For several weeks, I struggled with pretty bad nausea and migraines. I remember hearing women complain about their first trimester and I would think "What? Don't you know how crazy blessed you are to even be pregnant? I wish I was pregnant and feeling all of those things." I swear God has a sense of humor because I think his response was "Don't worry I will make sure you get to experience ALL of those things too." Thinking about this really makes me chuckle. One night I had an exorcist moment in the living room...you know where her head spins around then and she projectile vomits...Sorry too much info? Thankfully, Jamie woke up and took good care of me. Another night I just was so sick and I spent several hours sitting in an empty bathtub because I was so afraid that I wasn't going to make it to the bathroom to throw up. My gag reflex would go into overdrive at the weirdest moments...like eating peanut M&Ms....seriously? Peanut M&Ms are yummy! Or I would take a bite of something simple like a cracker or a banana, chew, and think..."can I swallow this?" In total, I ended up losing a couple of pounds during my first trimester, but I feel pretty sure I will be able to make up for this later.

The great news is that as I am bringing my first trimester to a close and the nausea is beginning to fade away. Though, I will say the food aversions are still really really bad. I feel like a picky little 3 year old eater. I am ecstatic that in my 12th week I got to feel some of the first movements of the baby. The first time felt like I got lightly tasered from inside my uterus 3 times quickly in a row, which some women and doctors say happens when the baby is kicking against either a nerve or the cervix. The second time it happened, it felt more like the normal flutters that most women get. I was really appreciative to get to experience these moments so early, especially since I really have a deep desire to bond with this sweet growing life in spite of the rocky start I have had to this pregnancy.

Jamie and I are hoping we can find out the sex of the baby right before we go up to visit my parents for Christmas. We have an appointment at Tiny Toes, a non-medical ultrasound office, where you can find out the sex of the baby a little earlier than waiting for the 20 week anatomy ultrasound. We will then do a fun gender reveal gift for my parents.

Speaking of reveals...I really want to share how I revealed to Jamie that we were pregnant.  As some of you might recall from my previous posts, I found out late on a Thursday night in September that we were pregnant from an at home test. I just so happened to have the entire next day off to plan a grand reveal for Jamie, so after Jamie left for work on Friday, I ran over to a close friends (Emily Trader's) house to tell her the news and my grand scheme. I wanted Jamie to come home to a beautiful picnic set out in the yard and to give him a wrapped up box with a onsie in it. Back in April, I had this onsie custom printed by Circle Press Design, which is owned by my brother Matt and his friend Kyle in Richmond. Shameless plug for them..you can check them out here on Facebook or here on their website. Anywhooo...I had this onsie made back in April with the hope that one day I could give it to Jamie as a way to reveal we were either expecting or were selected to adopt a child. After hiding it in the closet for months, I was so glad that today was the day I could wrap it up and give it to him.

I know the positive line is really hard to see in the photo, but believe me it is there (and it continued to get darker every day).

After much running around, here are some pictures of the picnic that Jamie came home to ...complete with sparkling grape juice and white hydrangeas of course.

Jamie was so shocked and didn't suspect anything even after he saw the picnic all set up. He thought I was just being sweet. I had fibbed to him about when our blood test was, so he thought we still had at least another week until we would find out. I lied and told him the gift was because of all of his help with the Chic Chateau Showhouse and he actually believed me. His expression of pure shock when he found out we were pregnant....(tear)...so awesome. I have dreamed and hoped for that very moment for years and it was finally coming true. After that we both hugged and cried for a while. We kept looking at each other as we ate dinner and would just say over and over again "I can't believe we're pregnant."

We knew that we wanted to surprise my parents, so we drove the 5 hour trip to DC the following weekend, without telling them we were coming, and showed up on their doorstep. That was a fun weekend to tell them and celebrate our big news!

On Monday, September 22nd, I walked into my blood test at my fertility practice with the biggest smile. I saw the doc and he said "how are you?" to which I replied "I am GREAT! (sounding like Tony the Tiger). After he walked by again, I grabbed him and told him we were pregnant. He said "I thought you were, but I didn't want to pry. Of all the couples, we were almost positive that you were going to get pregnant this month." My blood test confirmed what we already knew, which was that we were indeed pregnant.

Below is one of our cute ultrasound photos from our 13 week appointment. Baby Reynolds is waving hello to all of you! Till next time....

The Truth About This Pregnancy & Our Loss Of A Child

Let me first say this is not the Part 3 blog that I wrote and wanted to share. This is.....hard to share and not the way I wanted this part of our journey to be. As I write this I feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest. At 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant, Jamie and I found out that our dreams were coming true and we were pregnant with twins. We were so excited! As we heard both of our babies hearts beating, I broke down with thanksgiving. Having twins had always been a deep desire in our hearts and we celebrated the news with so much joy and many happy phone calls to people. On our 5 year anniversary trip to Bryson City, NC, we shared the news of our pregnancy on Facebook, which was so much fun and we were overwhelmed with support. We decided not to share our news quite yet about the twins. We figured we would wait to share that news a little later.

Over the next two weeks, we talked to the babies, did research on double strollers, got great advice from people who have had twins, and were excited for our due date to be moved up from June 2nd to May 11th, since twins come around 36 weeks instead of the normal 40/41 with a singleton pregnancy.

Unfortunately, a lot of that joy and excitement was put on hold at our 9 week ultrasound, when something right away seemed off. The tech was very quiet and said she didn't like how one of the babies was looking. Tears started immediately falling down my face and Jamie and I were holding hands so tightly as we waited for her to keep looking. We could see both gestational sacs, but could not make out a clear outline of the baby in the sac she was looking at. Then she broke the news that "Baby B died." It felt like a bomb exploded in the room. No words can explain the sadness as I laid there feeling helpless.

The tech showed us "Baby A" and let us know that baby was looking very healthy and had good a heart rate (in the 170s). I think the tech felt so bad that she turned on the 4D ultrasound so we could see and bond with the baby we still had with us. After she left the room, Jamie and I had a good cry before going to talk to my new ob doctor, which I still hadn't met yet, about the loss. When she came in the room she showed so much compassion for us and talked about her own loss of a baby in her first trimester and how hard it was. She even said "you have a child in heaven." Wow! I cannot tell you how glad I was at that moment that I had done my research and switched to her from my last ob/gyn. She reassured me that this was something completely out of my hands and not caused by anything that I did. Because our next ultrasound wasn't scheduled for another month, she said "I don't want you to have any extra stress worrying for a whole month in between ultrasounds, so I am going to have you come back for another one in two weeks."

That night and the rest of that week was really hard. In my dreams when I slept, all I could hear was "Baby B died" in the exact voice of our ultrasound tech. The one thing that has brought us so much comfort is prayer and worship. The morning after hearing about our loss, I listened to worship music and praised God for His goodness because even though I was hurting and sad I "...do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Even though I was heartbroken, God had still sent His Son Jesus to be brutally crucified for me and this loss didn't change that fact.

Jamie and I decided that we didn't want to miss any work and that work might be a good distraction for us. Somehow we were given enough strength to get through those first few days at work (even with lots of nausea from the baby I am still carrying), but in the evenings we would spend time comforting each other, grieving, letting the emotions flow, and the sadness made us physically exhausted. We prayed and continue to pray for the baby we still have with us.

Part of me felt really cold for going back to work right away, but I was reminded of 2 Samuel 12:15-23 when King David's learns about his child's death (after he had been mourning, praying & fasting for days) he immediately gets up and resumes his normal activities. His servants couldn't believe it and thought he was heartless, but essentially talks about going to be with his child in heaven one day and the peace that brought him.

Jamie and I named the child that we have in heaven Riley, since we don't know if it was a boy or a girl. The truth is after so many years of infertility, it just didn't seem fair to have to go through this. It downright sucked and it still sucks. Sometimes that is just comforting in and of itself to acknowledge.

Thankfully, I am still very pregnant with one child, though I am still in my first trimester and praying for their health. During a 10 week appointment, they tried checking heartbeat which they eventually found through another very very quick ultrasound. I could clearly see Baby A dancing on the screen and everything seemed good. Sadly, I can still see Baby B's body right next to them, but with no heartbeat. Jamie and I are trying to emotionally prepare ourselves to be happy and sad at every ultrasound because we will see Baby A and Baby B. The medical term for this is "Vanishing Twin Syndrome" and likely my body will reabsorb Baby B's body since it was so small when it died.

I have a bunch of fears at this point. My first fear is that Baby A will pass away too. Secondly, I am worried about bonding with the baby we still have and being able to enjoy the pregnancy I do have. It may seem odd, but I feel emotionally closer to Riley because they have a name and I can picture them up in heaven on Jesus' lap...maybe even playing an instrument for Him if they inherited their daddy's musical gifts. (tear) Lastly, I am fearful about all of the emotional grenades that will go off - the May 11th twins due date, the odd and sometimes unintentionally hurtful things people will say, the shame I feel about crying in front of people, and one day telling this baby about their twin brother or sister in heaven. These are the things I would really love some extra prayers about.

Thank you for letting me make this blog a place where I can be open and honest about what is going on in my life. Writing is extremely healing for me. Jamie and I know we are still extremely blessed to even be pregnant at all given all we have gone through to get here. My hope is that when I am feeling a little bit better emotionally and physically, I would love to share with you the pictures and story of how I revealed to Jamie that we are pregnant.

Our Pregnancy Story - Part 1

So we have some exciting news to share!!! WE ARE FINALLY PREGNANT! Man that feels so good to write. Jamie and I feel so excited and so blessed. The past few months have been a whirlwind of shots, prayers, procedures, tests, one egg retrieval surgery, prayers (wait did I already say that?), praises, miraculous beating of odds, anticipation, and, lastly, overwhelming amounts of joy!

It is hard to explain in words how blessed Jamie and I feel. Years of infertility have taught us so much, but it has been a hard, expensive, and tearful road to walk through. I have been keeping it pretty quiet (well by my standards and I am a big blabber mouth about my own secrets) exactly what has been going on with us over the past 2 months only because IVF is such a terrifying process to go through and I was so worried people would be asking me if I was pregnant or when I would know. I was more worried that people would ask and I would have to say "we found out we aren't pregnant." That really terrified me. But before I jump too far ahead, let me back up and give you guys some of the details of all of the crazy and amazing things that transpired. The story is a little long, so I broke it into 3 parts. I hope you find the time to read all of the amazing parts because they truly show how God answered prayer after prayer and they also fill you in on fun details like do we have any frozen embryos for future babies, how I revealed to Jamie we were pregnant, and whether or not we are carrying one or two babies.

Part 1 

At the end of July, my fertility Dr. put me on birth control pills, until we were ready to start our IVF cycle at the end of August. It sounds like the opposite of what someone trying to get pregnant would want, but they do this to actually encourage a better harvest of eggs during the IVF cycle so one or two don't become dominate. In early August, our health insurance kicked in at Jamie's new job and, even though it wasn't going to cover IVF, it did cover a lot of the blood tests and pre-testing that were required. One very sweet friend of mine, Emily Trader, actually went with me and held my hand when I got my sonohysterogram done. A not so fun procedure where they inject solution into your uterus to make sure you don't have any fibriods or other issues that could prevent a pregnancy. Thankfully, we got the all clear from that procedure and all of our other tests.

On August 29th, I took my first shot as Jamie and I were driving to Asheville for a camping trip. I mixed the drugs and boldly stabbed myself in the stomach with the needle, but then I yanked it back out because it hurt more than I thought it would. After about 20 minutes of me whining and trying to get the courage up to do it again myself as we are going 70 mph down the road; eventually, I gave up. Jamie pulled over on the side of the road and he gave me the injection. After that I had a self pity moment and cried saying "why can't we get pregnant the fun way?"

Don't worry the story gets better. Thank God Jamie is not afraid of needles, because every night thereafter he gave me my shots and we started putting ice on the skin first so they were not anywhere near as bad as the first one. We actually had it down to a relatively quick science. Sweetly he would say "I am so sorry you have to go through this" after every shot, which made me feel better. On our camping trip, I found these chic band-aids that put me in good spirits every time I got to slap one on.

The Sunday after we started injections, our church pastor gathered a group of people to lay hands on us in prayer over our IVF cycle. Okay, there goes the waterworks. I am crying now just thinking about this precious time. There were elders of the church, one of my amazing infertility warriors/my amazing mentor, and a few friends from our small group. To have others plead with the Lord on your behalf if just amazing!

After 6 days of injections at night, I added a morning injection to the regime, so then I was on two shots a day. The night shots were to stimulate egg/follicle growth, while the morning ones were to prevent me from ovulating.  I had one ultrasound prior to starting my cycle and two during my stimulation shots. Every ultrasound they took bloodwork to make sure my estrogen and progesterone levels were in a healthy range (yay...more needles). But the fun part of the ultrasounds was when they start counting and measuring your follicles...the more they find the better.

During my last ultrasound before my egg retrieval they told Jamie and I that they were expecting to get 8 eggs. We were excited and ready to go! This was the amount they told us we should expect based on my AMH level (my ovarian reserve test).

I took a hcg trigger shot that had to be timed exactly 35 hours before my egg retrieval surgery. The timing is super important because if you ovulate then there is no way to capture the eggs from your fallopian tubes. When we went in the morning of my egg retrieval surgery on Tuesday, Sept 9th, I think Jamie was more nervous than I was. The whole cycle felt like it had escaped me and I was floating through days and weeks. I kept commenting that..."didn't we just start injections like 3 days ago?"...even though it had been longer than that it really felt like whole chunks of time just eluded me. Jamie and I prayed so hard that morning. It seemed like we arrived at the dr.'s office, I blinked my eyes 3 times, and I was laying with my feet up in stirrups before the surgery. This part may be a little tmi, but using a long needle they pierce through the vaginal wall and into the walls of the ovaries (at least one time on each side). During this whole time, Jamie is donating his DNA if you get my gist. Thankfully, they put me under anesthesia during the egg retrieval and I don't remember anything.

When I woke up, I was anxious to hear how many they had actually retrieved. Jamie came back and sat with me as we waited. The nurse came and told us they retrieved 14!!!!! We were so excited. After she left, I broke down because I was so happy. We got almost twice as many as what we were expecting. The rest of the day, I took it easy at home and it finally started to set in for both of us that ..."we are conceiving today". They were mixing our DNA together on those very hours after surgery. Jamie was very sweet and was more emotional than I expected he would be. He bought me very beautiful orange roses, stargazer lilies (which we had at our wedding), and babies breath (get it?). So thoughtful!

The next morning, I waited for a call from the embryologist to tell us how many of our eggs fertilized. Typically, there is a 30% drop, so we were expecting to only have maybe 8 or 9, BUT we had 12. This was awesome news to hear! We became semi-parents lots of embryos.

After that call on Wednesday, the day after my surgery, we knew we wouldn't hear anything till we went in on Sunday for a Day 5 Embryo Transfer. They wouldn't even open up their little incubators to look at their development because they did not want to disturb them. We asked if it was possible if they could open up the case on the day of our embryo transfer and find that NONE of them were still alive and they said "it is unlikely, but it has happened before." So the anxious waiting began. We knew that only 30% of those 12 were expected to survive. We prayed everyday for those little embryos to grow properly and divide how they were suppose to.

On Sunday, Sept 14th, the day of our embryo transfer, we arrived at the Dr.'s office for our embryo transfer. The nurse called us back into the consultation room to wait on the Dr. and the Embryologist to bring us our results. Five minutes felt like forever. I started crying... "Jamie what if they don't find any left?"..."Dear God just let us have at least ONE left"..."Jamie if we don't have any left then we spent all this money for nothing"..."Please, just one"...(hands clenched together sweating).."Please God"....

(Read Part 2 below)

Our Pregnancy Story - Part 2

So there we are in the conference room at my dr.'s office...sweating, crying, and breathing deeply and wondering "did we just spend all of this money for nothing?" I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. Please just let us have at least one embryo...please...please....I heard my doctor laugh down the hall and I immediately thought to myself "Okay, certainly he wouldn't be laughing if they had opened the case and no embryos were still alive...unless he is just a really mean sick jerk." My doctor and embryologist opened the door and I feel like Jamie and I just stopped breathing. They had a picture of an embryo that they placed on the table. Whew.....breath. "Okay" I thought "We at least have one. Everything will be okay." Then they proceeded to tell us that even though at this stage there was suppose to be an estimated 3 or 4 embryos still surviving, that there were 9!!! Yes...9!!!

My reaction was not very cute....I just started laughing like a maniac. I couldn't get out any words that would have sounded like I had a brain, so I just laughed and laughed. They both told us how amazing this number was and that really instead of 12 embryos, one embryo fertilized late so we actually started out with 13. AMAZING!!!

That is when we told the doctor we were certain we wanted to transfer two embryos. That is the max that he probably would have allowed us to transfer given how well developed they were. Jamie and I really wanted the best chance possible of getting pregnant and were very very open (even excited) about the possibility of twins. During the embryo transfer they insert a catheter into your uterus and place back the embryos, using an ultrasound machine to guide the catheter. Really the most painful part was the ultrasound. I had an ovary blocking the view so they were pressing the wand on my stomach really really hard. Hey whatever it takes!!! Then the doc just had me lay there for 20 minutes and all the medical staff left the room, during which Jamie and I took lots of pictures and videos to document the occasion. We consider these our first family photos. Seeing pictures of the embryos felt like a special gift from God. Not too many other people get to see a picture of their baby this early, but we did.

After I was done with resting, the doc called us into his office and said "You guys have the best chance you or anyone can possibly have this month to get pregnant. We put back two excellent quality embryos. This is the type of IVF cycle that we live for. That is not to say you definitely will get pregnant. Sometimes we don't know why they don't take, but we are certainly hoping that this is going to be successful." That felt so good to hear. Jamie and I were very emotional and happy the rest of the day.

The embryologist let the other embryos continue to grow overnight and we had a couple still viable and living embryos that we were able to freeze! This was also astounding news, since we started off the month with only a 25% that we would even have 1 or 2 to freeze. I don't know if you remember me talking about how much less expensive it is to use frozen embryos versus going through the whole process again. I remember mourning this number and praying for us to have embryos frozen. Prayers were definitely answered here.

We began the waiting period very optimistically, because now, if for whatever reason we did not get pregnant this month, we could go back and begin using the frozen embryos. Statistically speaking we had about a 55% to 60% chance of getting pregnant at this point. It seems crazy that it is not a lot higher than this, but this was our chances of getting pregnant.

All I can say is we were so blessed. There are so many bumps in the road that we could have hit, but did not. I could have gotten ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome, where I could have been hospitalized or in a lot of pain for about a week or so, but I didn't.  There were so many people who would randomly text or e-mail us with words of encouragement. There were so many many people praying and pleading with God on our behalf. We felt so loved. All I have to say to you is THANK YOU! Seriously, I don't take it lightly that people have been praying for us. It has been such an honor to just be wrapped in prayer.

The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday after our Sunday embryo transfer seemed to creep by at a much slower pace than the rest of the month. I was hyper aware of every little cramp and I definitely had some. This can be a sign of implantation occurring, so with every cramp that came and went I was hoping for more. On Wednesday, I had taken a pregnancy test knowing that it was way too early and it was negative. On Thursday morning, I took another test and it was negative...knowing again that it was too early, but regardless I put it back in the box and hid it from Jamie. That night after a very full day of taking my students on some fun field trips, catching up with my friend Kate, and enjoying the Preview Night of the Chic Chateau, I went home and for some reason checked the test again. There was a small very very faint line. My stomach churned with butterflies. I secretly and quietly took another test right then and it was still light, but a definite positive. I wanted to scream to the world and Jamie "I AM PREGNANT." But at that point it was after 11pm and Jamie was exhausted and I wanted to tell him in a very special way so I decided to keep it a secret until he got home from work the next day. I definitely had a harder time getting to sleep that night, but somehow managed to get a couple of hours in.

The next morning the line got even darker. As he got ready for work and I sipped my small cup of coffee on the sofa, he complained about how hard it was for us to wait and I simply agreed with him. I was an actress in high school, so I think that helped a little bit to keep the poker face. I kissed him goodbye for work knowing  that because of some fluke I had the whole day off to scheme a grand master reveal for him.

Part 3 blog is coming which tells you about how I revealed our news to Jamie, his reaction and if we are pregnant with one or two...

A Summer Recap + All Aboard the IVF Train

Here we are! Its the end of August and Jamie and I have had a very busy summer, but nonetheless a GREAT summer! Jamie is loving his new full-time accounting job and is balancing still working his part-time job pretty well, though sometimes working 60 hours a week every week does get him a little tired. I am in full swing preparing for the Chic Chateau Designer Showhouse that opens to the public on Friday, September 19th and continues through the last two weekends of September. I have been painting furniture and sewing pillows like a mad woman. I can't wait to show off the bedroom to everyone! Everything in the house is all DIY projects that are for sale at very reasonable prices and proceeds go to ARC of Greensboro, which is a non-profit that helps people with various disabilities in the Greensboro area. For more info about the show visit https://www.facebook.com/ChicChateauGSO.  Anywho...besides that I have been enjoying teaching a very full load of classes along with working part-time at the kitchen and bath showroom. Jamie and I are still amazed at all of the work we have and feel so blessed to have jobs we love.

Fall is quickly approaching and my head has been filled with lots of fall daydreaming. You know pumpkin spice lattes, trips to the mountains, watching the leaves change, and...BABIES! Yes, lots of daydreaming about babies. After many months of planning, we are excited to begin our IVF (in-vitro fertilization) cycle this fall.

A lot of emotions have filled this summer about IVF. Back in June we went to an IVF seminar that informed us about what our chances would be of getting pregnant and what the whole process would be like. Essentially, my chances were based off of my age and what is called your Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH). Essentially, your AMH level predicts the amount of eggs a woman has left. At the time of the seminar, we believed that based on my high AMH level taken last year would put us in extremely high chances of success with the highest possibility of having frozen embryos. Well life threw us a curve ball when I got back an updated AMH level that showed our chances for IVF had been reduced and that we have less than 25% chance of having any embryos to freeze. In the IVF world, almost all couples hope to have frozen because it means that you don't have to necessarily go through all of IVF again if you don't get pregnant the first time and it is much much less expensive to use frozen embryos than to do start a whole new IVF cycle (like at least a 1/4 of the cost).

Before this test result, I was so positive that IVF was going to work and that we would get the joy of being pregnant this year. But after I got those results, I started preparing my heart for the worst...going through all of this, not getting pregnant, and not having any frozen embryos. My mother-in-law really came in handy with some great advice. She reminded me of stories in the Bible where God purposefully reduced down peoples chances of success in various circumstances so that when He performed a miracle it would be even more glorious! Thank God I was blessed with great in-laws! Really! This was just what I needed to hear. She also assured me that she had a good feeling that it was going to work. Even though that seems like a small thing, I love to hear peoples intuition about how this is going to work for us.

Last week, I took some advice from a friend and started a countdown on our chalkboard in our kitchen to our IVF cycle. Next to the countdown, I put Jeremiah 29:11:

  "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, 

"plans to prosper you and not to harm you, 

plans to give you a future and a hope."

It seems small, but counting down every day and seeing that verse has started me on a path of cautiously hoping again. Well ...that and pinning lots of baby room ideas to a secret/hidden Pinterest board.

Last week, I received two very large boxes of my IVF medications. This is not an exact picture of my meds (actually I think I have more than this if you can believe it), but it can kind of give you an idea on the crazy amount drugs I will be shooting myself up with soon. I was really worried about the shots, being that I am pretty afraid of needles, but I decided that if I got nervous before taking a shot that I would play Christina Aguilera's "Fighter" song. Ha! Beat that nerves!

In all seriousness though, Jamie and I would love your prayers. Prayers that we can be transparent about this journey God has us on and that it will speak to others about His great amazing love. Prayers for the surgery I will undergo during this process. Prayers that Jamie and I can remain hopeful no matter what the outcome. And lastly...bold prayers that this would work!

Beyond Blessed

So after I read my last post as a refresher on where I left off, I realized that A LOT has happened since my in the last few months. This past spring, I had a couple of interviews with different universities for faculty positions. Jamie and I were really torn about the idea of leaving Greensboro, but also felt a great peace about the idea of a move. We basically left the decision up to the Lord and man did he have some awesome stuff in store for us, but first let me tell you about my temper tantrum.

This past spring Jamie had accepted a temporary tax season internship with a local accounting company who assured him that if he worked hard they would probably be able to make him an offer for a full-time permanent position that would start in September of 2014. Being that he accepted this internship last fall, we really grieved over the idea of waiting almost a whole year for him to be employed full-time, but somehow we knew that we could make it through and held onto hope that they would make him a full-time offer. This tax season Jamie worked his tail off between working lots of overtime with his internship and continuing his part-time position in the evenings doing land-survey drafting. Some nights he wouldn't get home until 10pm from his internship and then he would stay up until 2am working his second job. But after a long tax season, came the time when Jamie was pulled into the partners office and was told how impressed everyone was with him...but they did not have it in their budget to hire anyone right now. He later found out that they also let full-time people go after the tax season. This was the second time Jamie had worked an internship hoping for a full-time offer and I could tell he was really disappointed. Well, I definitely had some very real moments where I was flat out angry with God. How could he let this happen...AGAIN? I encouraged Jamie to study his butt off for his final section of the CPA exam, so during the summer accounting interview season he would have "Passed the CPA Exam" on his resume.

Then the miracles starting happening...no really....

In the first part of May, I calculated up all that we had saved for our fertility treatments. I think my response went something like this..."Wait! What? Let me check this again....ummm...Noooo? Really? Oh My Gosh!!!!" What I discovered is that after a year of temporary and part-time jobs, we had reached our goal of what we needed to move forward with the fertility treatments. The burden of having to save thousands of dollars was now lifted. I called Jamie in to the living room and told him. We were both in shock and prayed with tears of thanksgiving.

Now began the hard part...making sure we didn't use the money!! I created a budget for the summer based on really tight spending and lets be realistic summers are always more expensive, but based off of this budget we would need to use a couple thousand from our savings just to make ends meet. I totally understand that some people would see this alone as a blessing to have savings like this and we did, but being that we worked so hard to save for our fertility treatments, the idea of taking out a loan seemed a little sad. For those of you who know me, I can be a little bit OCD. So I wrote on a giant poster the additional amount we needed and taped it to the fridge so we didn't have to dip into savings. I told Jamie you and I have to work together to make this amount extra this month and every time we make extra money we would put it on the goal poster. We thought of ideas such as me selling extra furniture, Jamie mowing lawns on the weekends, and so on and so forth. Around this time, I had an interview with a local design company, but it quickly became clear to me that it was not a good fit.

About a week or so later, I woke up in the middle of the night...4am to be exact and had the crazy idea to go apply at a local kitchen design company that I had heard about. The next day I walked in off the street with a resume in hand and got a part-time job that paid over what I was hoping for per hour, was willing to work around my teaching schedule, AND they gave me my own office. After updating our budget, we discovered God met almost exactly what we needed for the summer months so we could keep our "baby fund" intact.

The last week of May, Jamie took his final section of the CPA exam. He anxiously awaited the results, but I knew he passed. Come on this is Jamie we are talking about! He is one of the smartest guys I know. As we waited, he was called in for 3 interviews for the first week in June. Wow! Three interviews in one week! Awesome! The last interview he had was on a Friday morning for a Tax Accounting position, exactly what he wanted, AND he had a really good feeling about the company. Only a few hours after leaving the interview he found out he had passed the last section of his CPA exam! We were able to craft some really fun thank you e-mails to the company updating them with the news.

Monday afternoon the company he interviewed with on Friday called him with a really good offer and Tuesday he accepted it. Ahhhh! After a year of praying for him to find a full-time position with lots of sadness, hoping, and tears, God finally opened the right door and we didn't have to wait for him to start this fall, which is when most tax positions start.

The next day after Jamie accepted his new position, I went to check the mail. Inside was a random $500 check from a family member just because. I started weeping in the driveway. Jamie came out and asked "what's wrong?" I just passed him the card and the check. We both were in shock. I literally cried through the tears "God this is too much! We don't deserve this."

Amusingly the Saturday night we went out celebrate his job, I got the last and final rejection letter in the mail from my faculty search. At that point, I already knew that those doors were closed and I really felt a huge amount of peace over it. I am teaching interior design at two colleges, and working several design jobs, including owning my own business. Plus, my husband just got his dream job and we get to stay in Greensboro with our friends, our church, and our community. I couldn't have worked out something this perfect even if I tried.

In fact, this past Monday was Jamie's first day at his new job. They escorted him to his new desk and on it was a huge gift basket and a card welcoming him to the team with signatures of all the employees. At lunch they gathered a big group of people to go out and celebrate his first day. How nice is that? Medical insurance is going to kick in right when we need it too so we can move forward with our dreams of getting pregnant and growing our family.

Wow! It is like everything just fell into place after all of our waiting for the job situation to be worked out. Words cannot express my gratitude and praise for all that God has been doing to make all of this happen. Let me be clear...I don't believe in the prosperity gospel or the "name it and claim it" mentality. In fact in this life there can be moments, months, or years that can be downright heart wrenching. Especially lately there has just been some very very hard things going on with some of my friends and my family members. In those tough times it can be extremely hard to believe that God still loves you.  At least that is how I feel during the hard times, but I always find joy in hearing how others came out on the other end of those trials. I am still struggling with the fact that we are not pregnant. Mother's Day this year was my hardest yet. But I am finding hope in all the answered prayers from the past two months and I am getting excited to see what God is going to do next.

The Precipice of Possibility

A lot has happened since I last wrote. This winter was extremely hard and I know that I am not the only one who felt this way. Sleet, ice, rain, snow, and drudgery seemed to be the common denominator in my life and perhaps in yours as well. The bad weather was combined with failed months of trying to conceive, and I had some very real moments of bitterness and begging with the Lord. Though it seems cliché, I did ask Him “why?” a lot.  Then came the sunshine.

The sun started to peak through across the beautiful state of North Carolina and around the same time God began revealing a few possible answers to my “Why” questions. I had applied to some academic positions a few months back and calls and e-mails started rolling in for interviews. Last summer, when I submitted applications, they were to places that Jamie and I really did not want to move to, but we thought “what the heck let’s just put our name in the pot and see what happens”. Needless to say, though I struggled with some feelings of rejection, our general response was that we were almost relieved that God closed doors for us and we were able to stay in Greensboro. The interesting thing was that last summer I came up with a list of schools that I wanted to keep on my radar in terms of places Jamie and I would enjoy moving to. Let me just say that list was extremely small. Early this year, many of the schools that were on my list had position vacancies, so I eagerly applied.

Just this week, I participated in an all day campus visit (read as all day interview) at one of those schools. The discussions that day seemed like they went extremely well and the experience was beyond anything I was expecting. Many of my teaching goals and objectives aligned well with their student-focused culture and to be honest, it seems like the perfect fit.

So now what? Jamie and I will be waiting for several weeks on a decision, but this waiting is different than one I have experienced before. I feel truly at peace with God’s decision for us to move or God’s decision for us to stay. I can see benefits to both and Jamie and I are 100% on the same page, which has been such a blessing. After moving to Greensboro Jamie repeatedly kept saying that he hoped we could settle here forever. Last year, Jamie and I visited the place where this position is located and I remember him saying very calmly, “I could see us living here.” I remember looking at him, with a “really?” face. The crazy thing is there were no academic positions in the area at that time and I saw no possible way for God to move us there, but now all of that has changed.

If we were to move, our lives would change very rapidly and we would be packing to leave Greensboro by mid-summer. However, our deepest desire is that whether we stay or we go God will bring us children. My biggest worry is how these two possible worlds could combine in harmony…world one being a new academic position and world two being the dream to be a mom. I often whine to God and I have realized that a lot of my whining comes from the fact that I am not in control. But at some point throughout this spring, it dawned on me that if I was given the freedom to choose any of the possible outcomes for our lives in this next year and put together a seamless plan that the weight of that choice would be extremely heavy and I would very likely choose the wrong path. It was in that moment I realized the true freedom of my faith, which is that God knows me even better than I know myself and He is working all of these things out with my best interest in mind. Does that mean He always gives me everything I want? No. However, He does deeply love me, know me, and care for me every day.

One area that often is the most sad for me, is the idea of leaving all of our close friends behind. However, I feel like God also revealed something by showing me that a lot of our close friends are either moving away in the next year OR they are beginning to have their own families and will be more preoccupied with young children. I often tease my friends, that if we move I want you to move with us, and if we stay you have to stay with us. The truth of this concept is that I want the world to revolve around me. Well, I am just being honest. We all have our self-absorbed moments and I certainly have too many of them. Regardless, Jamie and I have been so blessed with amazing friends and mentors.

As the Episcopalians like to say at the end of their services, “Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you.” The reoccurring theme this spring has been to throw open the gates and the realm of possibilities and to let him choose for us and rest in the peace that he will meet our needs. My prayers at this point are not that I get this position, but rather that God closes the door if this is not the right fit. To me that would be just as good of an answer.

The Pain of 2013 and The Hope of 2014

I am not going to sugar coat it, 2013 was an extremely difficult year for Jamie and I. There were times where we both wished that we could have laid our head down and slept through it. Infertility, struggles with our weight, job loss, unemployment, and months with great financial uncertainty, could basically summarize the year we went through. Every month made us feel more and more raw and exposed. Sometimes the only thing I could muster to pray was "Lord have mercy on us." One of my wishes that I often expressed to Jamie was simply that I wished I could hold in more and become desensitized to the situations we were facing, due to the fact that I had a lot of moments in 2013 where my tearful moments were on display. I still hold a lot of shame for those times even though I know it is healthy to have vulnerable weak moments.

There were only a few months at the beginning of the year where we could afford to seek out infertility treatments; however, the rest of the year was painful for us to waste good months all because we were unsure of jobs, finances, and health insurance. After losing quite a bit of weight on a low carb diet, with each difficult month the clothes that I bought during the height of my weight loss got tighter and tighter until they couldn't fit anymore and I returned to the clothes I wore before losing the weight. The same month that Jamie graduated from graduate school, was the same month that my full-time teaching position was cut from the budget. We were left relying on Jamie's continued part-time work, my part-time teaching work over the summer, and an occasional client from my new business, which we always saw as a sign of God's grace. However, from August until the end of the year, I greatly missed teaching and being with my students and Jamie and I both missed the income. Every month we learned how to live on less and less, until our spending became as a lean as it could get. Learning how to live on less has taught us some valuable lessons that we are continuing this year. We were blessed to have some savings, which we refer to as our "baby fund" and with every spending decision we made, we fought to keep that money in savings. It is a true miracle, given our job situation, that we still have a significant portion of that savings still available for infertility treatments. Twice over the past three months we have unexpectedly received contributions to this fund. Let me tell you, I still am almost speechless about this. It brings tears to my eyes even thinking about the hearts of those who are praying for us and who have blessed us in this way.

When the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, Jamie and I kissed, wished 2013 good riddance, and agreed that 2014 was going to be our year of hope. In January, I started teaching a couple interior design courses at a program in Durham and was offered work to teach part-time from the program that I taught in before. Jamie started working full-time hours at a firm for tax season and is expecting to get a lot of overtime hours. He is continuing his part-time land surveying work from home in the evenings and studying to take his third (out of fourth) section of his CPA exam in any other spare minutes he can scrounge up. We don't get a lot of time together, and though we miss each other, we consider that a little bit of a blessing because we feel so thankful for work. Many a morning I have been driving to class and have broken down in tears of thanksgiving for the blessing to go to a job, and not just any job, but one that I love so dearly.

We are continually praying that the company Jamie is working for seasonally will have a full-time opening for him later this year. I was considering trying to find an additional part-time job outside of teaching to build our "baby fund", but instead I have been enjoying working on various furniture projects throughout the month and selling them for a profit. Jamie and I both joined Weight Watchers last week in hopes of getting back on track with a more healthy lifestyle.

Because 2013 was such a wash in terms of feeling like we were making progress in our journey to have children, we are really insistent that 2014 not go to waste and that we use it to try several types of infertility treatment. Originally we were planning to have one good in-vitro fertilization (IVF) try; however, the thought of spending one whole year on just one try seemed sad. So Jamie and I have decided to undergo a few more intrauterine inseminations (IUI's) before proceeding with IVF. We are not really expecting the IUI's to work due to our low chances. However, it would be a miracle for one of the iui's to work and save us from the expensive road that IVF entails. We prayfully feel like this is the road we need to take and have sought counsel from many people. Sometimes I worry that sharing this much information will cause people to want to put their two cents in and I would politely ask that unless they are kind supportive thoughts, that you keep them to yourself. This road is painful to walk through and I beg of you to be cautious of that. I have been the one saying all of the wrong things to someone with infertility before I was married. Here is a great article about "What Not to Say To an Infertile Couple." Reading this really would have saved me some embarrassment in a lot of things that I said.

So goodbye 2013. Sayonara! Peace out! Adios! As N'Sync would have said "Baby Bye Bye Bye." I did my best to learn from the path God had us walk through on this really sucky year and I am holding onto hope that 2014 will be our year or at the very least one year closer to Jamie and I growing our family and having the children we so desperately want. Greetings 2014! Howdy! Good to see ya! Let's do this!