Sunday evening

We just finished visiting with the birth mother, and the conversation was very pleasant and enjoyable. She is a sweet young woman with a strong Catholic faith. We gave her a tour of our house and then we discussed various topics, such as family, traditions, discipline style, etc.

The pregnancy is going well, and the doctors say the baby looks great. Her due date is July 12th and it's a _______!!!!! We will update the blog as soon as we know anything more.

As always, we appreciate any and all prayers for the baby, the birth mother, and us.

Update #2

Again I want to start by thanking everyone for their thoughts, prayers, and overall support for Mark and I.

Now for the update. We got a phone call from my acquaintance's niece this evening and she will be coming over late Sunday afternoon to meet us and see our house!!! We are extremely excited and cautiously optimistic.

We are requesting that you continue to pray for the birth mother, the baby, and us.

Thanks again!

Prayer request update

I have requested prayers for a few things in the past week and wanted to, first thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers, we are truley blessed to have such a wonderful family and support system around us.

First - Blake - he made it home from the hospital on Friday with orders for more breathing treatments. He is doing fine and is up to his old tricks, just with a lingering cough.

Second - I ask that you continue to pray for my aquantances neice as she makes her desicion.

Third - I ask that you continue to pray that she will take a look at Mark and I's portfolio, meet with us, visit with us, e-mail us, in short - take a min. to get to know us. Try to join me in placing my faith in God that if this baby is meant to be placed in Mark and I's care it will be. We have to place our trust in God that when the time is right we will get to hold our child and raise him/her up in faith.

Thanks, again, for all your thoughts, prayers, adoration hours, and candles. It means the world to Mark and I and I promise I will post if and when I know anything more.

PRAYERS PLEASE

I will start with saying MOM the reason I didn't call is because nothing is set in stone - it is just through word of mouth and I'm just asking for prayers at this point.

Through the grapevine last night I got a call from an acquaintance that her niece is pregnant and has chosen not only to give her baby life, but to place it up for adoption.

First, I ask that you pray for her as she makes the decision of choosing a family to raise this precious child, that she may find peace in her choice to give this child life and answer a lucky couples prayers.

Second, I ask that you pray that she look at our portfolio and possibly meet with us. We would love the opportunity to let her see who we are and hopefully show her how we could and would love her child unconditionally.

Thanks for all the prayers put up for her and the baby she is carrying. Who knows if this is God's plan for this child or not, but if it is this could be the start of our hopefully, large, family :)

(mom - I promise I will call if and when I know more than this)

It's SUMMER!!!

Well, it is now officially summer for me. I got checked out at school today (goddard) and then went over the the COOP and got checked out and I'm good to go. I got my contract for teaching summer school as well. I will start that on June 8th for 5 weeks. It is only 4 days a week this year though, which makes me very happy.

After getting checked out I headed up to the hospital to visit my godson, Blake (Amy and Nick's son). He had a bad cough and a fever on last Friday. They made it through the weekend pretty well and Monday wasn't bad either. Then on Tuesday Amy took him to the doctor to get an antibiotic and found out that his oxygen levels were so low they were going to admit him to Wesley. His is still there today (Thursday) and is on Oxygen and now has an IV. He has been diagnosed with pnemonia. The little stinker must like hospitals. He is only 2 and a 1/2 and it is the 3rd time he has been in the hospital. Once he can maintain his oxygen levels at or above 92 for 2 hours while sleeping he can go home. He is currently doing 90 while awake so it may still be a little bit. Please pray for him to get to go home soon.

Have a great day!

Happy Mother's Day !!!

I wanted to wish all the Mother's who read this blog a great day.

I'll be honest today is NOT my favorite day - I'm sure you can all guess why. This year seemed to be a little bit better though as I have such high hopes that this will be the last mother's day I have to spend without a child in my hands. I know there is no guarantee, but I can still hope and pray.

We actually had a nice day. We went to church, then to Jim and Phyllis' for lunch and conversation about their two week vacation to Ireland and Scotland. After lunch we came home and had a nap before my whole family came over for Mother's Day dinner. It was nice having everyone together.

Happy Mother's Day!

We have a new niece!

Brandi and Jeremy had a baby girl yesterday. Both are doing fine :) The baby was 7 lbs. and 7 oz., I'm not sure how long.

Her name is Matea Noelle.

Can't wait to see a picture of her.

Infertility Journery: Part 3

So... After I met with Dr. Ferris he wanted to run some blood tests of his own. So I did that (by this point, needles do NOT bother me - hey there is one of the positives of struggling with infirtility.) Believe it or not Mark and I are slowely finding positives. After getting the results from the blood work Dr. Ferris saw a slight concern with my thyroid levels. Very slight - slight enought that if I had just went in for any other reason he wouldn't probably have done anything, but since we were on month 35 of trying to start a family he put me on some thyroid pills and an endorphine pill. There was a reason, I promise I just can't remember at this point and honestly - at that point I would have swallowed anything he asked me to if he said it might help me get pregnant. Along with this Dr. Ferris urged me to have a laporoscopy done to make sure I didn't have endometriosis. Which the Center for reproductive medicine had urged me to do as well, but surgery wasn't on the top of my list.

Well, after 2 months of taking the new pills we decided to have the surgery so Dec. 31st I had a laporoscopy done (and they did another die test while they were already digging around inside of me to make sure my tubes were open). Stage one endometriosis was found. We were told that it was minor enough that it would be VERY suprising if that were the reason we were not concieving, but that I did have some. Needless to say that was not a new years that tops my list of good times. Mom and Dad actually came over and played some cards with me. I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 10:30. Mark was so wonderful - he took wonderful care of me. He hated seeing me with the IV laying in the hospital bed before they took me back. It was cute. I really couldn't ask for a better husband. We were told that the next 6 months would be our best time to try again as all the endometriosis had been burned off and my tubes were clear.

So we tried with the medicines from Dr. Ferris for the next two months (Naltrexone and Armour) Then we went back to the center for reproductive medicine and tried Femera and Ovadril again. That is the second drug with the shot - in combonation with Dr. Ferris' drugs (Naltrexon and Armour) I know it's getting good isn't it. Anyone want to know why Jenny gained so much weight???? Just weight here comes the best one.

We were on our fourth month following the surgery and were really wanting to do anything we could to concieve so - we tried EVERYTHING they would allow us to basically. We moved on to a more powerful supped up drug. During this month I was taking Naltrexone - the endorphine, Armour - for a possible low thyroid, Femera to help my body produce better eggs, Ovidril - to enduce ovulation and two new drugs. Folistem - which was ANOTHER shot that Mark had to give me. This one was CRAZY!!! Along with Prometrium - a progesterone capsule. I know, I know, crazy - so if any of you had a weird or strange conversation with me in May of last year - you now know why - I was a mess. Hormones were running rampid and stress was at an all time high. Well - no shocker here - this month we didn't even get to have the insemination because they had hyperstimulated me. What that means is that I had approx. 22 eggs ready to be fertalized that month. Of those 22 eight were very large. Basically I felt like I had a football inside of me. This was obviously not a good scenerio so they would not go ahead with any plans that month. Painful!!!

We tried the same regimine the next month just with smaller dosses of the meds, same amount of shots though. Obviously, again, no good results. So the next month we again, stopped going to the center for reproductive medicine and haven't been back since - GOOD RIDENS :)

Well we are up to month 45 and that is where I will stop.