A Rough Night

WARNING - I'm about to whine for a minute...

I'm just having a bad night. It happens from time to time. One disappointment or hurt leads to another and I just can't shake it.

I kind of had a "weird" cycle this month on the new medicine. I'll probably feel like sharing more later, but for now, I'll just say that it was disappointing. I was especially feeling down this morning and then a dear lady at church prayed an 'amazing, stop in your tracks, that was just what I needed' prayer over me. It gave me strength and peace through the rest of the day.

Then this evening, I felt that fear, disappointment, and raw hurt seeping back in. I'm not angry at God, I don't feel that He let me down, and I still feel like He's in control. But I am hurting.

Being upset about infertility naturally leads to me thinking "if only I had Kinley here". It wouldn't hurt so much not to be able to get pregnant again if I could sneak into her bedroom and watch her sleeping for a few minutes. It wouldn't be so hard if I could hear her say "I love you Mommy!" If I could just snuggle up on the couch with my little girl, that might just be enough to wash the pain of it away.

So tonight, I'm sad because after 3 years of trying, I still don't have a baby to hold. I'm sad that I don't have Kinley and I'm sad that I don't have any more children. I think it's okay to have a bad night from time to time. It's okay to feel some of that ache that's almost always knocking on my heart's door.

Please pray with me that tomorrow will bring a new joy, a new sense of hope, and a new peace.

Letting Go of the Fear

Around the time that Jacob and I started trying to get pregnant for Kinley, I stood in church one Sunday morning and was overwhelmed by fear. I was afraid that we would have trouble getting pregnant. Somewhere in my spirit, I guess I sensed the journey that lay ahead of us. I went to a woman in the church that I admire and trust and asked her to pray with me. Unfortunately, as much as I tried to rebuke this fear it held on to my spirit. I couldn't shake it. I prayed and prayed that God would take the fear from me, but it didn't budge.

Around Christmas time a fellow teacher whom I loved and admired gave me a Christmas gift. It was a small book that she had put together of scriptures dealing with infertility. It had a beautifully written and sweet card with it and as I opened the gift I immediately began to cry. From that night forward, I read and prayed those scriptures.

Praying His Word became part of my nightly routine. Soon the fear subsided and I began to trust the will of God. By March, I was pregnant with Kinley and tucked the book away for another season of my life.

Sometime after Kinley died I pulled the book back out and would occasionally read through the scriptures again. I even made similar books for a few of my friends and gave them to them as gifts. (By the way, they all now have babies!)

Now here's my shameful confession...I've rarely used the book in the past year. For some reason it's not a part of my nightly routine anymore. Looking back over the past year, I see how Satan has regained a foothold of fear in my life, and the sad thing is, I see how I allowed it!

As a matter of fact, in some strange way, I think I wanted to just sit in that fear for awhile. I was angry that just a short time later, I would have to pull that book out again. Isn't that silly? I felt so bad for myself that I actually wanted to just be miserable for awhile. It's only fair right? I mean look at how my life was playing out.

For some reason tonight, the scripture book came to mind. So, I've decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and to stop allowing fear to plague my life. I'm pulling my scriptures back out, and this time I'm going to share them with you too! Not all of them are specific to infertility, so hopefully you can all get some encouragement from them too.

This one is my very favorite, I recite it in my head often...

"He makes the barren women abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!" Psalm 113:9

"And everything you ask in prayer believing, you shall receive." Matthew 21:22

"Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it." Psalm 37:4-5

"Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

New House and New Medicine

I'm finally sitting down and finding time to write a blog....unfortunately, it's because I'm not feeling well tonight! I have no idea what happened, but I was fine all day and then tonight I got very nauseous and am running a low-grade fever. Blah! I honestly think all the craziness of the past couple months is just catching up with me.

I hadn't said much about our house finding process, but am so excited that we did find a house that we love! We'll be closing on it at the end of the month and moving in during the first week of August! It's the perfect little house for us.

It's 3 bedroom and 2 bath and has all of the things we had talked about wanting in a home. We were blessed to find it after it had only been on the market for a few days and were even more blessed by the fact that the people were motivated sellers and we got a great deal! My absolute favorite part of the house is the big fenced-in backyard! I'm envisioning many get-togethers with friends and family, many afternoons of playing with my nieces, and even seeing my own babies play in that yard.

Which bring me to the next thing on my mind tonight...

As I mentioned a while back, I'm taking a "low-dose" fertility med right now and we're trying to get pregnant "on our own". To be honest, the last few months haven't been promising at all. Even though doctor's have told me that it would be difficult for me to conceive, I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around it and it still crushes me when things don't go well. I had a few months of strange and even non-existent cycles. I saw my regular OB here in Indiana and asked about a different medicine that I hadn't taken before. We decided that we might as well give it a try! So I'm now on something new. I had a progesterone level done that revealed that I did actually ovulate this month, so that's a good sign. I know it's a long-shot, but I'm really hoping that this is the medicine that will work for me.

Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that we're not doing any major treatments, but I'm still praying and believing for a miracle. Are you still believing and praying with us?! Please add it to your prayer list. We know that what we need is a complete intervention by God. We'll give Him all the glory when our prayers are answered!!!