Journey #2

From one journey to the next journey...from one trail to the next trail...from one blessing to the next blessing. That pretty much sums up our road to parenthood. I've shared in my previous blog what we went through for many years to become parents the first time ending with the amazing adoption of our daughter Reese. Well now as we have desired a second child, God has taken us through a similar struggle through infertility yet this time much shorter and has ended with a miracle pregnancy. Let me start at the beginning...

This past January we felt led to begin with a new doctor and go straight for an InVitro Fertilization. But quickly that ended in disappointment when it didn't work. My doctor suggested that our best chances to get pregnant would be by using an egg donor because I have poor egg quality. So now, not only do I have PCOS (polycystic ovaries) and Endometriosis but I also have poor eggs. Great, just what I needed to hear. Considering using an egg donor was the scariest decision we ever had to face and we were not sure what God thinks about it either. As we looked into it and prayed about it we were not comfortable with doing that, but instead we looked into using an embryo donor or embryo adoption. But still on the edge about this whole thing, we were not even ready to make this decision yet; we didn't want to give up just yet. So around May we went to another doctor, now my third Reproductive Endocrinologist, to see what she had to say. She was confident that we didn't need any donors and that we could try an InVitro with her. But we still needed to pray and make sure we had a clear direction from God to move forward. We prayed about it for about a month or two. At the same time as all of this I was contacted by our adoption agency that we used with Reese and was told that because Reese was now one year old we could start the adoption process again. This was exciting news so we begin praying about this as well. We figured since it takes a while before we would have a home study we had time to do an InVitro too. So we updated the adoption paper work, filled out the application and turned it in.

Cody and I were both reading a book called Discerning the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer which was perfect for us at this time. We really wanted to hear God tell us to yes, do this IVF or no, do not. We have always prayed about each of these big decisions and always felt at peace about them. While we waited to hear from Him we still continued seeing the doctor and getting ready with prenatal vitamins and a couple other medications. Cody went off as a counselor to J-high camp and the day he came back we talked about it again. Up until this point we still didn't know what God wanted us to do and it was frustrating because we truly desired to follow His will. But on that day we realized He was not giving us the green light. We both felt like we wanted to do this because WE wanted to and not because it was God's will for us to. We both did not have a peace about it. Within minutes of talking about this we agreed that we should put this IVF on hold. We didn't understand why but we had more of a peace because we knew it was from the Lord. We thought maybe God would direct us to do an IVF later this year or we were just supposed to adopt our second child. So as soon as we called the doctor and told her we were putting this IVF on hold, I begin training for my first mini triathlon. I had always wanted to do one and there was one coming up in six weeks so I stopped talking all my medication and I got ready training for this event.

Five days before the triathlon in August...I find out...I'M PREGNANT! It was the biggest shock. Never in 5 1/2 years have I gotten pregnant on my own. I had two pregnancies in 2006 but I was on fertility medication and they both ended in an early miscarriage. This doesn't happen to me. I'm infertile, I have bad eggs, bad everything. TO GOD BE THE GLORY! Luke 1:34 " For nothing is impossible with God." I've had so many people tell me stories about how they know someone who this happened to and I believe with all my heart God still does miracles. But I wasn't going to hold out for the rest of my life that God was going to allow this to happen to me. He could have chosen not to allow this. But for some perfect reason He did.

I am 14 weeks along right now. I have to admit I have been scared; scared that I'd loose this baby too and scared of the loss; the heartbreak. But I've had to just trust the Lord each day. I want to enjoy this pregnancy, it may be the only one I have. We are so so so excited and still in awe of this that the Lord is doing. Mark 12:11 "This came about from the Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes." As I start showing I will post some belly pics...wow I can't believe I get to do that!!!!