Let the Waters Rise...

I'm going to be honest...times are still hard for me right now. I've found myself these past few weeks FORCING one foot in front of the other. I'm generally a very positive person and I'm trying to get back to the old me. But it's hard...

I had a bad day on Saturday. Without going into a lot of details, my morning started out with a reminder of the D&C that I had last Wednesday. It was all too much for me, so I got in my car, went for a drive, and called my mom...while I cried my eyes out. I was already on edge and dreading a party that David and I were to attend that night, so the reminder of our loss was just too much for me to handle. Don't get me wrong, we LOVE our friends and look forward to our monthly get togethers, but I knew the conversation that night would be revolved around an upcoming baby shower that we are planning for one of the girls. I just knew that I couldn't handle one more reminder of what we didn't have. I felt 100% better after talking (crying) with my mom, so I went back home, and started to get dressed for the party.

We actually had a great time at the party. We enjoyed the beach, ate fabulous food, watched football, and played games till after midnight.  On our way home I kept thinking to myself...I did it! I made it through the night and it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.

Monday rolled around and I struggled with getting dressed and felt as if I just couldn't go to work. But, I have already missed FOUR days in the past two weeks and I just can't miss any more days. So I pulled myself together, got dressed, and drove to work.

Each morning before I walk into the building, I pull out my prayer book and pick a verse for the day. That morning I landed on "I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continuously be in my mouth." Psalm 34:1. This verse is one that I prayed over and over again throughout our IVF cycle. No matter the outcome, I would praise His name. And I meant it.

I walked into the building and after greeting a few people, I had a clerk stop by my office and ask if I was pregnant. I politely told her no, I wasn't pregnant, but hopefully I would be soon. She doesn't know anything that we've gone through, I think she just noticed that I've put on about 10 pounds from all the fertility meds and hormones. But little did she know, her simple comment brought me back to those feelings of pain, loss, and frustration. That afternoon, during cafeteria duty, one of our custodians asked me the same thing...was I pregnant. Again, I just smiled, told her no, and started to walk away. She caught back up with me and said "Ms. Knight, I am praying for you. You are going to be the BEST mom."

The school day had finally come to an end and after trying to catch up on all the things I had let slide due to my absences, I realized it was late and I was practically the last  person in the building. Just as I was packing up to go home, one of the teachers stopped by my office. I didn't know at the time, but she had read my blog and discovered what we had been going through. She offered me two CD's that she made and thought that I might need them. The title on one of the CD's read I will praise Him in the storm. I could hardly wait to get in my car to listen to them.

Those CD's were EXACTLY what I needed. I have listened to them over and over and over again. A lot of the songs were ones I already knew and loved, but I found a new song that I felt was made for me and is helping me get through this storm I'm in right now.

"You were faithful before, You'll be faithful again" are the words that seem to make me cry every single time I hear them. I truly believe this...He helped us get pregnant before and He'll do it again. So let the waters rise...I can weather this storm.

I am an Overcomer...

My friend Amy (at Chapters) is in my opinion, a brilliant writer. I'm not quite sure she knows what an amazing talent God gave her...but I can get so lost in her words sometimes. 

Amy wrote this post today and it couldn't have come at a better time. To be honest, I didn't read the entire post at first...my feelings were still raw from having the D&C yesterday and the realization that our pregnancy is really over. But God had other plans and WANTED me to read her post in its entirety.

You see, my husband reads her blog too. He actually emailed me today and told me that I really needed to read her post and the blog that she referred to in her post. So I bit the bullet, got some kleenex and started reading.

You'll need to read her post and the blog post she refers to in her blog yourself...but I wanted to share the paragraph that grabbed ahold of me today and made me realize WHY our pregnancy ended the way it did.

"I have to be strong. I have realized more and more that trials aren’t always to strengthen the person going through them, but more so to strengthen the people watching. Many times on the other side of the storm on the distant beach, there are people that will be in awe when they see you rowing out of the raging waters in your tiny canoe, with only Faith beside you. My storms are not for me. My storms are not my own. I am an overcomer." ~Baron Batch

 

I just sat at my laptop and cried my eyes out. I re-read the blog post again, especially this paragraph. I just wanted to hear those words again...My storms are not for me. My storms are not my own. I am an overcomer...I needed to hear those words. I believe those words.

I am an overcomer.

Closing a Chapter...

Today is a day I never thought I would have to experience. I am going in this morning for a D & C.

David and I had another appointment with our doctor on Monday to confirm the growth of the baby and unfortunately, the doctor couldn't even see our baby this time. In a way, I was somewhat relieved...I have been having this terrible feeling/thought of having a D & C knowing that there was a baby inside of me. So when the doctor told us that the she could only see the gestational sac and no embryo, I had an instant peace about the procedure today.

Every day has been a "put one foot in front of the other" day, but we are making it...leaning on one another.

Please keep us in your prayers today as we close this chapter of our pregnancy and prepare our hearts, minds, and bodies for the next step in this journey.

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."~Psalm 147:3

Overcome...

Thanks to all of you for the sweet comments and prayers. David and I have needed them more than I can say.

 I have spent the last two days at home, although I really should be at work keeping busy. But the other administrators at my school encouraged me to take these past two days, collect my thoughts, and spend time with David. So I will be back at work on Monday, for the first day of school.

I spoke with our doctor's office and have scheduled another ultrasound on Monday. If the baby has not shown growth and a heartbeat is still not there, we are going to proceed with a D & C. For some reason, just typing the letters D & C makes my heart hurt tremendously, but the thought of experiencing a miscarriage and reliving the hurt of losing our first baby is even worse. I am still hoping and praying that this baby will show some growth...I just can't help but want this so badly. So we will know more on Monday.

I can say that God has been blessing me over and over again these past two days with words of wisdom, hope, and showing me that I can overcome this.

My Rick Warren devotional said this yesterday...

“For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.” Lamentations 3:31-32

Things in your life were going so smoothly, and then the next minute it’s as if a storm hit your life, and now all your plans have been destroyed. What do you do?

This devotional referenced Lamentations  3 and encouraged me to read verses 22-26. They read:

22 The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease.

23 Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”

25 The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him.

26 So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord.

My Joel Osteen devotional said this today....

Don’t ever get stuck in the rut of thinking, “I’ll never change...that’s just the way I am.” No, the Bible says that the Spirit of God aids us in our weakness. He gives us strength to overcome. He empowers us to live as more than conquerors in this life.

Is there something you want to change in your life today? If you’ve received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then start declaring, “I am a new creation in Christ! I am empowered to overcome! I am equipped to walk in the new, abundant life the Lord has in store for me!”

With His help...I will overcome!

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times...

These past six weeks have been the BEST of my life and the WORST of my life.

This post is going to be a shock to most, but wanted to share our story with those of you still waiting for your miracle AND to ask for prayers as we move forward with our journey to become parents.

David and I did another round of IVF in June/July. This cycle was 100% better than our two previous cycles. We had MORE eggs during the retrieval this cycle, MORE eggs fertilized this cycle, we were able to do a FIVE day transfer this cycle, AND we were even able to freeze TWO blastocysts this cycle. To say that we were LOVING life during this cycle is definitely an understatement.

My parents visited us for ten days and it was by far, the visit that I will remember for a lifetime. We discovered that we were finally PREGNANT after trying for five years AND we were able to share that news with my parents and with my mother-in-love together. It was what we had been dreaming about for YEARS.

My beta numbers looked great and we spent the past six weeks celebrating!!! We continued working on our nursery, I bought a few baby clothes, we shared the news with our close family and friends, and mom and I talked non-stop about the perfect name for our baby.

Our dreams started to crumble though when we went in for our first fetal ultrasound on Monday. It was a day that we had been anxiously awaiting...mainly because we were excited to see our baby's heartbeat AND we couldn't wait to see if we had one baby or TWO!!

But, our appointment didn't go exactly how we had planned. The technician conducting my ultrasound could not find a heartbeat for the baby. She was also concerned because the baby was not as big as it should be for 6 weeks 4 days pregnant. We kept our chins up and prayed that in the next two days, our little baby would continue to grown and we would be able to see a heartbeat on Wednesday. We researched this scenario for hours, we prayed for the past two days, and felt confident that our prayers would be answered.

But as our doctor proceeded with the ultrasound yesterday, our dreams slowly faded into a distant memory. Our baby is at least a week behind in growth and there is still no detectable heartbeat. The baby has stopped growing and we are to expect a miscarriage soon.

We seriously feel as if someone has reached inside our chests and pulled our hearts completely out. We came home from our appointment mad, frustrated, heartbroken, defeated. How could this be happening?

After a lot of crying, praying, and talking we came up with some positive things that have come from this experience:

1.  I CAN get pregnant. This is a huge piece of the puzzle we have been trying to solve for the past five years. This cycle showed us that we CAN get pregnant afterall.

2.  We do have TWO beautiful blastocysts frozen that we can transfer and we will not have to pay an arm and a leg to have this done.

3.  Our doctor shared that the reason the baby stopped growing was because he/she had some sort of chromosomal malfunction...it had nothing to do with anything that I did or didn't do and that this is God's way of preventing more heartache later.

My heart is still aching this morning and I honestly believe that I am still in shock over this news. I am still SO in love with this baby...our baby, our FIRST baby. But I'm trying to look at it as another step in this journey to parenthood.

Please keep us in your prayers as we pick ourselves up and continue to move forward. We know that the hard times are not quite over, as we will be losing our baby sometime within the next week. But we know the he/she was never ours to begin with....

"I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." John 17:9

It truly has been the BEST of times and the WORST of times.

Progress...

We've made some progress with our nursery. Well...David has made some progess :)

I had Bunco last night and received a text message from David that he had started painting the wainscoting in the nursery. I could hardly WAIT to get home so I could see all the work he had done.

I seriously couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how beautiful our nursery looked...

I can't wait to see how it will look with the pastel green painted on the top portion of the walls.

Progress...

A Purpose...

I received this devotional today and it spoke DIRECTLY to my heart and is exactly how I am feeling these days.

"And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

~Ephesians 5:20

God never said that all my days would be filled with sweet moments. In fact, He said in this life there will be trouble (John 16:33), so when I think that everything will always be perfect, I'm just setting myself up for disappointment. However, the wonderful thing about being a child of God is that all of our pain, lack, hurts, and troubles have a purpose. They are all connected to a greater plan, a greater lesson, and a greater testimony. I guess that's why James said to count it all joy when you encounter various trials because the testing of your faith produces perseverance (James 1:2-3). When you face adversity it's a sign that God is up to something. He's preparing you, strengthening you, and purging you for something greater.

Although we have been waiting SO long for our journey to become parents to come to fruition, I wouldn't change one single thing. Through all this pain, lack, hurt, and trouble, God has a purpose. Through this journey, He has taught me patience, perseverance, strength, and love. He has picked THE perfect baby for David and I and when he/she gets here, it will be the greatest moment of our lives.