Gatlinburg Nov 08

I am almost 15 weeks! It seems crazy to me at times that I have made it this far. Sean and I feel so blessed to know that in six months our little jellybean will be here. My next doctor's appointment is Dec 2. We are hoping that my doctor will allow us to schedule the big ultrasound the week of Christmas. (I will be 19 weeks Christmas Eve). We dont really care if it is a boy or girl as long as the baby is healthy.

Sean and I spent 3 nights in Gatlinburg! We realized this may be our last vacation before little Jellybean makes and appearance and we had a great time. We went to several places we visited back in March and then some new places we had not been before.

Sean built a fire in the fireplace all 3 nights we were in Gatlinburg. Another view of our room. This is our second trip to Gatlinburg and we have stayed at the Rocky Water Motor Inn both times. We love it. Its not a fancy hotel but it works for us. Not to mention that all of the rooms in this hotel overlook a stream.

Sean and I at the Village in Gatlinburg.

Sean playing in the trees at the Christmas Place.

Me playing in the trees at the Christmas Place. This store is actually in Pigeon Forge, but its my favorite place to visit and play!

10 weeks and counting!

Praise the Lord I am 10 WEEKS today!!!!!

I am so very excited to be at this point. After all of the miscarriages I never thought I would be sitting here praising God for 10 weeks of pregnancy. Sean kept saying it would happen and I didnt believe him. Nor, did I believe that the Lord would grant me (us) this miracle.

So far things are going pretty good. I have some moments of spotting. But nothing has come of it. I am still on strict restrictions until I hit the 12 week mark. I think even after that there will be some restrictions, but I am fine with that as long as there is a healthy baby come May.

People keep telling Sean to take good care of me. All I can say is that he has been GREAT about everything. Sean has been doing pretty much ALL of the housework with the exception of a couple loads of laundry here and there. He is doing a large majority of the grocery shopping and the errand running. He has even made me several meals in bed, just so that I can relax and not be on my feet. I dont think there is really anything else he can do to take care of me. He should win the award for Husband of the Year! He is doing all of this in addition to his regular work. For those of you close to us, know that he has had some very long weeks and weekends here lately. If you see Sean, please give him a word of encouragement. Bless his heart there are still 30 weeks left of this pregnancy and there will probably be many, many, many more things that he will have to do for me and the house. I love Sean so much and there is no way I could do this without him!

Have a blessed week!

Our MIRACLE!!!!!!!!

If you notice the baby is holding a balloon. Proof that it is Sean's child!

Well folks, it looks like God is still a God of miracles. Sean and I are expecting a little blessing on May 20, 2009! It has been quite a journey this far.

I was a little late and decided to just wait a couple of days and see what happens. I took my first HPT on 9/8 and it was positive. At that point based on my history I told Sean give it a couple of days and it will be over. I didnt believe that the Lord would bless us with a healthy pregnancy. On Thurs 9/11 I took another HPT and it was positive, so I called my Dr and they had me come in for round of beta's pn 9/12. They called back and sure enough I was pregnant my level was 780. Now I had to endure the weekend to wait to take round 2 of beta's. I did throw Sean a surprise b-day party that Fri night. Mon morning I went back in and they called that afternoon to say that my numbers were 3060. My numbers had more than tripled and all we needed was for the numbers to have doubled. On 9/23 I had an ultrasound done and the baby was measuring 3/4 of a centimeter and 5 weeks and 6 days. I went back for my 8 week ultrasound on 10/7 (the day before my birthday) and the baby was measuring right at 8 weeks!

We are so excited to have this little blessing and very appreciative of the friends and family who have prayed for us and with us so far on this journey. We are not out of the woods just yet. Once I reach about 13 weeks, we should be good for the rest of the pregnancy. At this point I have some restrictions as far as what I can eat or drink. I am not allowed to exercise. I am hoping that once I reach the 2nd trimester that some of the restrictions will be lifted. Please pray for Sean and I as we take this journey.

As we get farther into this I will be posting more pictures and updates. Thank you for all of your prayers. We love ya'll very much and feel very blessed to have all of you as friends!

The start of fall

I didnt realize how long it has been since I have posted on our blog. Life has been crazy and busy to say the least.

I started back to work on Aug 1st. The first week of so was busy trying to get things ready for the kids to come back to school. My first full week with students was crazy and full of drama to say the least. I am very grateful that things have calmed down and everyone is back in the swing of things. Choir is back in full swing and I am loving every minute of it.

Sean has started a new position within our church (and I couldnt be more proud of him!!!). He is the creative director of children's worship. Aug was a slow month for him, but this month has been absolutely busy for him which is great.

I have to say in our house right now the Lord is teaching us to trust in Him and to have hope. I am not at a point where I can elaborate on this yet, but it has been hard. We have prayed harder and longer than we have in a very long. We are very grateful for close friends and family who are walking through all of this with us. We continue to ask you to pray for us as we make decisions about what the Lord would have us to do. We are still hoping to adopt sometime in the near future. At this point we are saving as much as we can and waiting on the Lord to show us what direction we need to take.

I know this is a short update, but I will try and post more later!

Summer Update

Well, I didnt realize that it has been 2 months since I have updated the blog. I guess I spend more time on facebook and updating our lives there than I do here. I will fill you in on our summer as well as adoption news.

Sean and I started out planning on having a nice quiet summer at home, and just a couple days in we realized that would not be the case. My 2nd day of summer break started with my car failing inspection. So, that started a week and a half of my car being in and out of the shop. We dropped a large sum of money and my car passed inspection. Then, I think that the hardest part is over and that it will be a piece of cake to get my tags. Wrong again! I needed to have my title. Even though we paid off my car last summer Nissan never mailed the title. I call Nissan to a) get the title and b) have my maiden name changed to my married name b/c I never got it changed. Nissan tells me that they never released the title from the vault, but they will send it out and I should have it within 7-10 business days. They also tell me that they cant change my last name.

For our 3rd anniversary Sean and I spent a very relaxing day at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Sean and I ate a picnic lunch and then headed to the falls. We spent a great deal of the afternoon sitting in our chairs reading. The sun was out and for a little while we actually most of the place to ourselves. Later that afternoon we packed up our stuff and headed out of the park. Sean decided to treat me to a little bit of shopping at the Outlets of Lebenon and then onto dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

As I am dealing with all of the car stuff, I get an invite to be a substitute chaperone for a mission trip to Miami, FL. I was excited and nervous about the trip. So on bright and early on a Sunday morning I board a plane with the senior high students from West End United Methodist. We served for a week through the DOOR organization. We slept on the floor of a Methodist church there in Miami. We would do service projects during the day and then in the afternoon we would go to a public pool to swim and then shower. (The church had NO showers). On Monday served lunch to about 250 homeless men and women at Missionaries of Charity. On Tuesday we led recreation for a group of kids through a poverty initiative group. On Wednesday we spent the day working on a Habitat for Humanity Home. That night we went to see Tampa Bay take on Miami in baseball. Thursday we went to Camillus house and served about 350 homeless men and women lunch, bagged popcorn and wrapped about 1000 sporks in napkins.

So, while I am off in Miami with a group of teenagers Sean is back here working like a dog. He had a ton of gigs and got very little sleep. When I came home Saturday night, the poor guy was exhausted.

The next day I get in my car and head north to MI to my sisters. Sean joins me on Wednesday night after a very exciting lightening filled flight. Flights had been delayed and cancelled because of a very large storm system. He flew from Nashville to Cincinnati and then into Grand Rapids. His flight from Cincinnati to Grand Rapids had to be re-routed to fly around the storm. Meanwhile my sister and I are sitting in the airport in Grand Rapids waiting for him to fly in. Eventually he made it in and we had a wonderful rest of the week. On Fri we spent the 4th of July at my brother-in-laws parents house on Hutchins Lake. Sean was brave enough to get on the wave runner with me again. I only almost knocked him off a couple of times. He was also brave enough to allow Matt to pull us around on the tube. That night we enjoyed a dinner of hotdogs, macaroni salad, chips, salsa and several types of desserts.

While we were in MI, I recieve an email from Nissan stating that they would place a lien on the title (reporting that it was paid for) so that I could change my last name. After we get home I take all of my paperwork along with a copy of our marriage certificate to T-dot and was finally able to get a TN tag. The next day I was able to get a TN drivers license and register to vote in our county.

The day after we returned home it was time for VBS. Sean and I taught the second grade. We had a wonderful group of kids. VBS on the whole was wonderful. The music was the best it had ever been. There were several kids that week made decisions for Christ which is the sign of a successful week of VBS!

We a week of downtime and being able to caught up with things here at the house. Then last week we spent the week doing Youth Super Summer. We had a wonderful week working with the youth. It was a time of great fellowship and worship. Watching the youth be totally free in their worship was an incredible experience and one that I was grateful to be able to witness. I also had the opportunity to hang out with some other adults in the church that I didnt know that well and develop some new friendships as well and strengthen some other friendships.

In the midst of all of this, Sean and I have been working to put more money into savings so we can fulfill our dream of adopting and expanding our family. Sean has also been called to be the Children's Worship Director at our church and he is spending time working on making that a wonderful ministry for the children of our church in hopes that the come to a saving relationship with Christ and the ones who have that relationship strengthen their walk.

On the adoption front there is really no new news to report. We are trying to decide between Mercy Ministries here in Nashville and Glandey Adoption Agency in Fort Worth, TX. We are so ready to move forward with this, but we are realilzing that this takes more time and preparation than we we thought. We want children like yesterday, but are trying to wait on the Lord to move us forward and lead us in the right direction. We ask the people continue to pray for us in this process.

We hope you have a wonderful start to fall. Sean is working hard and I start back to work tomorrow.

Holding Pattern

Hey ya'll,

Just a quick udate for the month of May. There is nothing really to report. We are not sure if we are going to go through the agency we picked. They are very expensive and we arent sure we could come up with that kind of money any where in the near future. So, it is back to the drawing board. We are now looking at other agencies again and hopefully the Lord will work out something for us soon. Please continue to pray for us as we go on this journey. I can tell you that this is not at all where I thought we would be once Sean and I picked an agency. I was hoping to officially be parents in waiting at this point. Pray that we would not lose hope and that when all is said and done Sean and I will look back on this and say only the Lord could have worked things out and that HE recieves all of the glory!

As for our summer plans.
-I am headed to Chatanooga to the aquarium the first weekend in June with my mother.
-Sean and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary on June 11th!!! (I LOVE him so much!!!!)
-Sean and I are meeting friends in Gatlinburg June 20-22nd.
-At some point we will head to my sister's in MI for a week or so.

Have a wonderful and blessed summer!!!!

Adoption News!!!

Round One of the adoption paperwork is in the mail!!! It should be to our adoption consultant in about 3 days! I am hoping and praying that we will be able to move things forward a little faster now that it is in!

1)Please continue to pray for us as we walk through process.
2) Pray that we can "hurry up and wait"
3) Pray that the Lord will provide the finances
4) Pray for the birth mother and that we will be chosen by the right one
5) Pray for our little blessing. We don't know if he or she has even be conceived yet.
6) Pray that Sean and I would be the parents that we need to be.

As I sit here and type this I realize that I am filled with mixed emotions. I so excited to see what the Lord is going to do in the life of Sean and I and how He is going to expand our family. At the same time I have feelings of sadness and loss. Tomorrow (4/15) would have been my 3rd due date. Sean and I should be sitting on the couch waiting for the arrival of our 3rd blessing and here we are with no children and no longer pregnant. I don't want it to seem that I am not excited about adopting because I really and truly am, its just that its hard to acknowledge how we got here. We have 3 angels that we were never able to meet. I know that one day I will see all 3 of my beautiful children.

I also know that many people do not accept or acknowledge a miscarriage as a loss. We are probably the most overlooked group in the church. Watching the growing bellies of expectant mothers and the arrivals of the new babies is hard. A good friend of mine should have given birth last week and I should be this week. Yet, here we both are with empty arms (my friend does have an adorable little 2 yr old). At Mother's Day and Father's Day I am reminded that while people cant see our children it doesn't make Sean and I any less of a mother or father. We ARE parents.

So, as Sean and I take this journey that the Lord has us on, know that it is one filled with mixed emotion. I know that as time goes on and even when we bring home our little blessing, the 3 little ones we never met will never be far from our hearts. I cant wait to meet our little blessing the one we will be privileged to call son or daughter!

Thanks for reading our blog and joining us on this journey!

We love and appreciate all of you!