Coming to the End and the Beginning

As my pregnancy is coming to an end I find that I am reflecting back over the past 5 years and what we went through to get to this point. It is crazy that the one thing that we have wished and prayed for for so long is about to happen. It just a couple of days I will go in for my c-section and we will finally welcome this baby to our home and lives-it has been apart of our hearts for 5 years and it is so exciting to be able to finally put a face and a little person behind our dream. Almost exactly 5 years ago Troy and I felt such strong promptings on the exact same day that we were suppose to have another baby. It freaked me out! Tanner was only 9 months old and still my baby-needless to say I was not ready at all. It actually took me a couple of months to come around to the idea and jump in. Needless to say I didn't think that we would have any problems because we hadn't before. So I was shocked by the struggles we faced in getting pregnant-it just didn't make sense to me. After several rounds of clomid I prayed that we would find the right path to bring this child into our home. I started researching adoption and instantly my heart felt at peace- I thought that I had finally found the answer I was looking for. I researched and researched and fell in love with the sweet faces I saw coming home from Vietnam and Asia and felt that we were suppose to go and find our child there. Money was a huge concern for us and it just felt like we were never going to be able to afford an adoption. I watched and waited and prayed and still felt that Vietnam was the place for us-we just needed to save up some money. Then the Vietnam program began to experience problems and closed down. I was devastated! I felt that we had missed a chance-but Troy was ever optimistic and knew that somehow we would find the right path to grow our family. My heart was set on adoption-I have grown to love it. The families I have been able to learn about just truly touched my heart and I found that everywhere I turned I was meeting someone whose life had been touched by it. I was so excited to be apart of it-so I was reluctant to even try any more fertility drugs-I didn't want to get my hopes up-and I felt truly at peace with the decision to grow our family through adoption-but my new doctor wanted to just try clomid again. So I went on it-and was told I didn't ovulate-so imagine my surprise when 2 weeks later I find out we are pregnant. It was crazy-my emotions were everywhere-I just didn't know what to think or feel. Of course I was soo excited and humbled and just felt so blessed to be pregnant again after so long, but apart of me mourned for the loss of adoption as an option for our family because it had become such a part of me and my plans for the future. I know it sounds silly but is was such an array of emotions it is hard to describe. I think that I will always have a love for adoption and I hope that maybe someday we will get to adopt-It is hard to know and understand the why things worked out the way they did for us. We obviously had something that we were suppose to learn from this trial-whether it was to open our hearts to adoption-or something else I just don't know at this time, but I do know that my heart was changed and opened to so many things through this trial and I am grateful for those things.

It is crazy to think that we are now ready to start a new chapter in our lives. We are so excited to move to this next stage of our lives. I have been lucky to not have to hard of a pregnancy. And we are sooo ready for this sweet spirit. The kids can hardly wait and will just be huge helps to me. This baby will definitely not be lacking in love-I will post some belly pics and then next week sometime update to let you all know what we had and how we are doing.

Christmas 2008

We had a wonderful holiday season. We had tons of snow which the kids loved to play in. My family came up the weekend before Christmas and we had a nice time visiting with them. Troy's parents were here and we spent Christmas Eve all together at his sisters house. The kids had a great time acting out the Nativity and seeing what Santa brought everyone. We were very blessed to have a wonderful Christmas with our great families. We are especially grateful for the wonderful Gift of the Saviors birth and what his life means for us. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season!!