"Lord I believe, but help my unbelief!"

I've been struggling today to decide where to draw the line between my sharing my story through my blogging and keeping my story and fertility struggles private. I'm not an overly private person and often launch into TMI with random people who are probably thinking "Oh my goodness, I did NOT ask to hear all that!" On the other hand, fertility is a very intimate thing. The act of conceiving a child is meant to be shared between a husband and wife in private. Unfortunately for us, that's not how our lives have played out (but trust us we would much rather it be that way!) I started to fear that I may be sharing too much information and should hold back a little. Secretly, the main reason for my sudden nervousness and concern is that I started worrying if people would be judging me for sharing so much. What if they think that I should keep it private? What if they think I'm using my struggles to gain attention in some twisted way?

After much thought, I remembered that I very clearly felt God calling me to share my story after Kinley's death. It took me awhile to get to the point that I was ready to actually start blogging, but through conversations with people and even facebook, I started sharing our journey right away. It's still amazing and humbling to me that God could use me through our pain, but I've heard from enough of you that I really feel like He is. Of course, I'm just a vessel and I'm trying my hardest to let His Spirit speak through me. I also said from the beginning that I wanted to be open and honest, so I feel like I should also let my flesh show as well. No matter how hard I try to "die to my flesh", I'm still human and I still hurt and get angry. I want to continue to be honest. More selfishly, I think you can all pray for us better if you know exactly what we're going through and how to pray.

So, I'm planning to continue to share our journey in it's entirety. With that being said, we got some news today that we could really use some prayer about. I saw my doctor this morning and the following things came out of our meeting:

1. I'm in need of another surgery to remove my endometriosis. Although I just had one done in March, I had some blood work that indicated that the endometriosis has returned. It greatly decreases your chance at becoming pregnant, so we feel like we should move forward with another surgery. I'll be having that surgery on Tuesday morning at UT Medical Center. We would appreciate your prayers that all would go well and that they would be able to remove as much of the disease as possible and make any necessary repairs.

2. I also had some blood work done that indicates that my ovarian reserve is low. Basically, I have a low egg count. I haven't responded well to stimulating medication, so the doctor has suspected this. Because of the blood work, he feels that my time for having children is probably limited. He suggests that we move ahead with an IVF cycle as soon as possible. He said that he would typically be fine with a patient my age waiting 2, 4,or even 6 years to try IVF, but does not think that would be a good idea for us. It seems that our window for having babies is going to be much smaller than that of most women. The problem with that is that we don't have the money for the $11,000 IVF procedure. We'll be looking into some financing options, but could really use your prayers for wisdom and guidance as we make our decisions.

3. With the new information, I'm feeling in an almost constant state of panic. Although I've had the surgery before, I'm nervous about it and what they might find this time. I'm fearful that we won't be able to do the IVF soon enough or that it won't work if we do get the chance to try it. All of this coupled with the fact that today is the first day of September and Kinley's birthday is fast approaching, and I could really use your prayers!!

My thoughts today keep coming back to this "Lord I believe, but help my unbelief!!"