Baby Pictures!

We got to have another ultrasound today! We feel really blessed that, at nine weeks, we've already gotten to see the baby twice! We hope that trend continues! Last time, the baby just looked like a blob, but today "he" looked like a gummy bear! The heartbeat is strong, and it's so good to hear that little sound! Today we officially graduated from the Center for Reproductive Medicine, and I see my OBGYN for the first time in two weeks! They gave me this great tote bag full of cool stuff, including a teddy bear! I joked that I guess you get stuff like that when you pay so much for your baby! Actually, we were blessed and could have had to pay a lot more!

I'm doing well overall. I've definitely had some times when I felt yucky, but I know it could be worse. I'm definitely tired all the time! Dan asks sometimes how I know I'm tired from pregnancy because it's normal for me to be tired! But believe me, I know! We're just so excited to be having a baby! It gets a little more real every day!

That's the big stuff in our lives. We had a fun time with Dan's family celebrating his sister, Megan's birthday on Sunday. She's getting to bond a lot with my parents now that she's attending NGU! She gets homesick for down here, and when she's at my parent's house, I get homesick for there! But I'm so glad she has a home away from home!

Well, that's about it for now!

Great Update!

We saw our baby today! It was so wonderful! It has taken the reality of being pregnant to a whole new level! To be honest, at first, when the doctor said he saw the heartbeat, I thought I did too, but I wasn't even actually looking at the baby. Our sweet baby looked more like a blob, but then again, he is only 8 mm long! But we got to hear the heartbeat, and it was beautiful and strong! Hooray! For the record, I am six weeks, five days today, and my due date is April 10!

On a different note, we had a really fun, albeit busy and tiring, weekend! We went to Birmingham to our friend Chad's wedding. Dan was in the wedding, so he was busy, but I was also able to keep busy visiting with friends! We stayed with our friends, Anne and George Lawton. It was so great to catch up with them! And I also got to visit with my friend Deanna and her husband, Adam, and their baby, Reese! It was so refreshing to be with all of these friends!

Dan's sister headed off to college today! She's going to North Greenville University, where my dad works. I think she's both nervous and excited! But I think she will love it up there! We are definitely praying for her!

If we get a scanned copy of our baby picture that will look good on here, we'll post that soon! Thanks for your prayers, everyone!

GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, you know that 0%/100% thing I wrote about in the last post - about whether our IUI would work? Well, looks like God gave us the 100%! We found out Monday that I'm pregnant!!!! We're so excited! I had a blood test on Monday and again on Wednesday, and everything looks good! It's very early, of course. We just had the procedure a little over two weeks ago, but we're staying positive. And we're way too excited to keep it a secret (besides, how could we when almost everyone knew about the IUI?). So we're letting people know so that they can praise God with us and pray for a healthy and successful pregnancy.

I don't have an official due date yet, but it should be some time in the beginning of April. I have an ultrasound scheduled for August 20th, so we should know more at that time. I can't wait to see that little heartbeat! After over two years of waiting, it's sooo exciting!

Well, we do thank you for your prayers. We know that they made all the difference. We rejoice and praise God for his goodness to us. It's really very overwhelming! We'll keep you posted.

PS: We had a great trip to see my parents last week. It is so beautiful up there, and it was very relaxing. We'll post some pictures soon!

Prayer Request

Well, today was a big day! I had my first IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). It has been quite a weekend. Friday, I went in to the doctor's office to have my follicles checked. There were only two, and they weren't all that big. Then, I was supposed to get a call or a message that afternoon. Then, I didn't hear anything. Then, I had a meltdown! To make a long story short, I found out from the nurse on call on Sunday that they were having me come in on Monday for another scan. The scan on Monday showed two big follicles that seemed ready to release their eggs. Last night I had to give myself a shot to induce ovulation...in my stomach! Yikes. But I survived! And today was the procedure.

Everything seemed to go well. It was not anywhere close to the most pleasant experience I've ever had. It was quite uncomfortable. But the mission was accomplished! Now I have the two week wait to see if it worked. Oh, how we hope it worked! Technically, we have a 20% chance of success. But we figured that, if it's God's will, we have a 100% chance. And if it's not: 0%! We'd love your prayers during this time. Pray that God will prepare our hearts for whatever the outcome is.

This is good timing, though, because we leave for vacation this Friday. That means we'll just be able to rest and see what happens!

Well, I just wanted to update you on our big day. All this stuff is a big step for us, but we can see a lot of ways that God is working!

Well, I'll just go ahead and update this even though I'm sure no one checks it any more...

To all four of my faithful blog readers, sorry once again for the long time between posts! It's not really surprising to me that I don't do this faithfully! It fits right in to all of the things in my life that I have initially been very excited about that rather quickly just fizzled out!!! Good thing thing marriage isn't a hobby!

We've been doing well! As usual, we've had a lot going on. If it wasn't so blasted hot, I don't think I'd realize it's summer! You certainly can't tell by looking at me since I haven't really been in the sun at all! Our biggest event is that I started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist a few weeks ago. This was a really big step for us both emotionally and financially, but we felt like it was the right time. And God has definitely given us some confirmations throughout the process. One big one is that the doctor that I'm seeing, who is relatively new to the practice, is a strong Christian and goes to our church! I had no idea until I went for my consultation! The doctor was able to tell me pretty quickly what at least one of my problems is, although there may be more tests down the road. But if all goes well tomorrow when I go in for a check up tomorrow, I'll will actually have my first procedure, IUI, this weekend. I won't go into detail about what that is, but we really hope it works!!! Please pray for us in this process.

On a lighter note, we are looking forward to having vacation in about a week. We will be headed up to South Carolina...oh actually North Carolina - to stay in my parents' new house! I'm very excited about that, and so is Alli, who loves it up there! I'm also excited to be off for a whole week because I really need a break!

I'm including some pictures just for the fun of it. These are from last Saturday. Dan and Alli went trail riding in the morning, and Dan and I went to Epcot that night. We ate at a wonderful place in Canada called Le Cellier, and I highly recommend it!!!! Oh, we also got our house painted recently, so as soon as I take a picture, I'll put that on here too!

Sorry for the Lapse!

Man, a month goes by really fast! Every week I think, "I need to update our blog," and obviously I haven't gotten around to it.

Things have been mostly business as usual for us lately. Weeks just seem to fly by, which is nice since I much prefer the weekend! On Sundays, I usually get a little blue that the week is about to start again. I need to get to a place where I appreciate each day a little more, even Monday thru Friday!

Things have been busy for me at work. We just moved into a temporary office space so that construction can begin on our new counseling center. It's not ideal - for example, it's not on our church campus - but it will do for the next 9 months to a year!

At home, we've had some changes too! Our TV died a couple of weeks ago, so we spent about a week researching our next TV purchase. Finally, we ended up picking one, but we ordered it from Amazon, so it will take a little while to arrive! Also, we had a really nice, new king size mattress given to us a couple of weeks ago (long story), and we love it, so we ended up getting a new bed last week! It's great to have a king size bed, and I'm so happy not to sleep on the soft mattress that Dan had before we got married!

I can't believe it's summer. I mean, I can believe it when I walk outside, but it's just hard to believe that school is out and it's almost the middle of June! I always miss being in school this time of year because of summer vacation. Every year I wonder if I'm really meant to be a teacher!

Well, I guess that's it for now. No one will probably read this because you've probably given up on a new post! I promise to do better next time!

Mother's Day!

First of all, happy Mother's Day to our Moms and all of you mom's out there. We've had a good day even though it wasn't as we had planned. Dan's mom wanted to go to the beach for the day, so we met her and Dan's brother and sister (Megan and Dustin) in Ormond Beach. Unfortunately, it was really overcast, so we just decided to eat lunch and walk around for a little while. It was still fun to hang out with them!

We did have a very special experience this morning, though. Our church has a tradition of praying on Mother's Day for couples who have not been able to conceive. We stood for prayer today and had a lot of people praying for us, which was so neat. It was also overwhelming! I shed a lot of tears. But we are really hoping that God will answer this prayer. We know He will at some point in some way! It's been a long wait, but we keep trusting His wisdom! The pastor asked couples to stand who have had this prayer answered in the past, and it was exciting to see how many stood.

Well, this is a short post, but other than work, that's about all that's been going on!