Now what?

Now what? That's the question we're wrestling with now. I'm feeling done with IUI and some part of me is ready to move on....while many other parts of me are mourning, sad, questioning, struggling and in a bit of disbelief that we're here. Here at the crossroads where we make a completely life-altering decision about how to grow our family. Here where we accept that, for now, we apparently are unable to conceive. Here where life-long dreams flash before our minds and crash to the floor unfulfilled. Here where we come closer to accepting, or at least acknowledging more fully, what this all really, truly means. This is happening. And it's happening to us.

For me, the sense that God is writing our story and that he knows where this is going, that he knows all of the joys and pains in store for us yet, that he knows the faces and bodies and every hair on the heads of the children who will be ours- this is so tangible to me, so undeniable that we are in the flow of God's plan for our lives. It is unfolding as I write this. His plans made long, long ago are now being revealed one heartbeat and heartache at a time it seems.

I told my sister yesterday that I have this picture of driving on the freeway trying to get to some destination and then you encounter a detour. "Road closed. Exit freeway. Detour." Crap. You're in a hurry. You're gonna be late. It's the long route. The detour is always the long, slow route. And it's not the scenic route either. Are we there yet? Turns, uphills, curves, steep cliffs, long stops. This is taking forever. Where the heck is this taking us? Are we still heading in the same direction? Yes. All along you are still heading toward your destination. The Designer of the detour made sure it's the same destination. He's just having you take a much different, unanticipated route to get there. And we cannot fathom the joy that awaits us there.

So if parenthood is the destination we desire, and that we believe God gave us the desire for, He certainly has us on quite the detour to get there. We'll arrive one day, for sure, but everything along the way is totally different than we ever imagined it would be.

Please pray for us as we're on this journey, this detour, towards parenthood. We sense now that God would have us consider more seriously than ever before foster care and/or adoption. We think that's where this curvy, bumpy road is taking us. The decisions are not simple or easy. Nothing at this point will be simple or easy. Everything feels extremely weighty, fraught with pain, scary and totally unknown. I am thankful for a couple people in my life who I can talk to about their experiences with foster care and adoption. Tonight we started reading a book about one couple's experience. And we're just talking about it and letting all the questions and fears be out on the table. And as we feel ready we'll be talking with others in our lives about these possibilities also.

What to pray: We need God's direction, discernment from the Holy Spirit, freedom from fear or any other manipulating emotions/idols, lots of holy wisdom, unity and strength in our decisions as a couple, healing for our very aching and mournful hearts and specifically to hear from God about whether we should pursue regular adoption first or foster care/fost-adopt first (that's our question right now- which one).

I can't say enough how much we value your prayers for us through this journey. We need them, and we know that it will truly take a community around us to support us through this. While this is an extremely personal experience, we also recognize and really desire a community of people who can support us, encourage us, speak wisdom and truth to us, and love on us as we go through this- and one day to love on our kids too :) If you have anything you'd like to share or any questions you want to ask please don't hesitate to email or contact me/us.

Carrie

No again

Big fat negative. Not pregnant.

Finding myself in between these:

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life." Proverbs 13:12

"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 hope and a future."Jeremiah 29:11

Nerve-racking and thought-provoking

Lots of weird-feeling things have been going in my body these last 2 weeks. I won't go on and on with all the pains and twinges and cramps and every little weird thing I've felt over the course of the days- but it's just been weird. It turns in to a guessing game (except this not a fun sort of game) and I sorta go crazy. My brain gets like this: "Is it implantation? It's too early. Maybe? Doesn't seem like it should feel like this. Can it happen this early? Would the feelings go on this long? No it's just cramps. The IUI didn't work. This is dumb. Such a waste of money. I'm tired of this. Oh the pains went away. Maybe it was just implantation and I'm pregnant! Maybe there's more than one and that's why it feels so different. Oh wait that doesn't feel good. Blah. This sucks. I feel soooo tired and my chest seems really tender. Those seem like good signs. Uh oh here are the cramps again. What the heck is going on????"

Nerve. Racking.

If I have any shred of nerves left after this whole experience is over, it will be a wonder. Because I really think every last nerve I have has been frazzled and then fried- over and over again. For real- I'll be feeling nothing and thinking things are cool and then bam! I feel a cramp and my stomach totally sinks. You know that sinking feeling? Ya it's been happening like several times a day or whenever I feel something weird inside. And yes I was a nervous person before the whole trying-to-get-pregnant thing came in to my life. It certainly hasn't helped the anxiety levels.

But in the midst of that, there have been some good talks between God and I- some good thoughts provoked. Because there's nothing like feeling cramps when you're hoping you're pregnant to make you have to walk through the possibility of "what if I'm not pregnant". My prayer has been "Lord, please help me deal with whatever your will is". I'm so thankful for the work the Lord has done in my heart to heal me more and more and open my heart up more and more to the other ways he may grow our family. So when He and I talk through the "what if I'm not pregnant?" question he keeps showing me the hope that is there and that the story doesn't end there. There will be pain, but there will be hope and redemption in the midst of the pain.

Suffering and redemption- good timing for thinking about Easter and all that Jesus went through.

We test on Tuesday. What the heck is the result gonna be? This has been crazy and I'm ready to get off this rollercoaster. I told my hubby last week I just wish we could fast forward a few years and see what's going to happen, see what God's plan is and how all this turns out. How will God build our family? I'm sure whatever way he chooses for us will be part of a grand story of his hope, his love and his redemption. And although this is really painful and so hard to go through, I'm humbled to be part of this story and I pray above all that He is glorified through all this.

Carrie

Here goes!

Today we did another IUI. Like I explained in the last post, we changed the meds this time and I got to feel like a pincushion after 5 days of injections. Not fun, but hopefully worth it! I mentioned that we were praying that my body wouldn't overstimulate from the stronger meds and create too many follicles, in which case they would have to cancel the IUI. Praise God the ultrasound last week showed 3 mature follicles which was just perfect! So that means 3 eggs are releasing this time. The doctor made a crack about triplets this morning and I said "We'll take anything, hopefully at least one." For real, it's beyond my brain to think of multiples when seriously all we've been asking for all this time is just one, at least just one. So now starts another 2-week-wait. We wait on the Lord. He is the author of life and it's all up to him.

In other news- for the past couple months we've been in the process of buying a home. We went house hunting for a couple weeks and found one we just love. It was a short sale and we were pretty nervous about that process really dragging on and on, especially as our apartment lease is up in June and we didn't want to be racing the clock. Miraculously the bank accepted our offer in only 4 weeks!!! This past Saturday was the home inspection and some not-so-good stuff came up, ie the roof (boo!). We don't know how it will all turn out, but we're hoping for an easy, not expensive solution and that the house becomes ours! We have a closing date set for May 7th, but with the possibility of a total roof replacement (or best case scenario- just a patch job), we're just gonna have to wait and see how all this plays out to see if we can wrap things up by that date. Being in the house again on Saturday just confirmed how much we LOVE that house- it's so nice and bright and open and we can totally imagine ourselves settling down there- especially with little ones running through the rooms and having tons of fun in the big backyard. As seems usual for us, it's another huge thing that we're waiting on and trusting the Lord with.

I'm camped out on the couch today since the IUI makes me crampy and not feel so great. I've got my Aubrey Hepburn DVD set and my kitty is snuggled under the blanket with me. Tortilla soup is in the crock pot so I won't have to spend time in the kitchen at dinner time. I ordered the latest Donald Miller book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and it just arrived a couple days ago so I think I'll crack in to that- a book about this idea of your life being a story, which is very much on my mind lately.

All in all- we're loving spring and just waiting on the Lord to see what his plans are for these next parts of our journey. Flowers are blooming like CRAZY in my garden- fuchsia gardenias and dark red and yellow snapdragons and these tiny dark purple ones that I don't know the name of . The ducks that live in the lakes around our apartment complex have had their ducklings (something I'll seriously miss when we move)- a total crack-up to watch and all I want to do is gather all those fuzzy-wuzzy little ducklings up in my arms and kiss their fluffiness. Yes I'm a sucker for small fuzzy animals :). And we especially love keeping the patio door open for the cool breezes- it's like heaven for our little indoors-only-kitty to sit there and sniff the air. Yes I just mentioned my cat for the 2nd time in this post. So I'm officially an animal nerd. Mmmkay.

Adios y'all- updates soon to come. Stay tuned.

Carrie