A few pics from Thunder's fireworks

Our friends, Abbi & J.R., playing with Raegan

Korissa found a new friend in Elaine
(Elaine shared her food! :-p)

Aunt Heather, Korissa, and Uncle Chris

Elaine & Larry Harold (Chris' college friend)

Uncle Chris, Korissa, Kim, Aunt Heather, & Raegan

"I can't HEAR you!"

Korissa & Uncle Chris watching the fireworks
(I LOVE this pic!)

Waterfall of fireworks off the 2nd St. Bridge

Of course, if you know me at all, you know I took WAY more pics than this. Again, you can check them out if you're a friend of mine on Facebook. All 200 of them are posted there! LOL

Pics of Kim, Korissa, & Raegan's visit

Just a couple of pics from the girls' visit

Kisses from Aunt Heather

Sisters, Korissa & Raegan. We bought them these matching shirts for Christmas

Korissa & Raegan
(Raegan had JUST pulled the paci out of her mouth...)

Aunt Heather, Uncle Chris, Korissa, Kim and Raegan

Still Alive...

Hi, everyone! Yes, I'm still alive! I can't believe how lax I've been about posting lately. I was just looking at the "count" of blog posts... 201 in 2007, as compared to this being the 32nd post of 2008! I've been busy reading EVERYONE ELSE's blogs... and I'm addicted to Facebook! So, there you have it!

Well, August was very busy for us, as has this first week of September!

The first week of August (3-7) was our Youth Conference at our church, Shawnee Baptist, here in Louisville. We had 961 teens from (I think) 34 different states and 4 different countries that attended the conference. Our Youth Conference is different in that the kids come to hear the preaching of God's Word... 6 times a day for 3 days straight, then on Thursday they get to go to Kentucky Kingdom. It was absolutely AWESOME! You can check out the pics that I posted on Facebook here:

Youth Conference pics #1 Youth Conference pics #2

The following weekend, the 15th, Chris had free tickets given to him for a Cincinnati Reds baseball game. We called our friends, Steve & Joy Francis, and met them at the game. We enjoyed their company, the game, and the fireworks after the game that we watched as we were walking back over the bridge from Cincinnati to Florence, KY. I had to work EARLY the next morning, so I was VERY tired, but it was fun anyway. More pics here

The next day after work, Chris and I headed to Lexington, KY. Chris had mandatory training for his work that Sun/Mon, and we have friends that live in Lexington. Since Monday was my birthday (happy birthday to me! :-P), I didn't want to spend it by myself or working while Chris was out of town. We called Kevin & Beth Busch, and we spent the weekend with them (and their son, Silas,) instead... well, I spent time with Beth while Chris was in training. I also got to visit some friends... the Valentine's... that we hadn't seen for a LONG time! Their kids are adorable! Beth made me a cake for my birthday, and we celebrated Sunday night. See more pics here

On the 23rd, we had free tickets to a Bats game, so invited our friends, Scott & April Mohler to join us at the game. We enjoyed the fellowship with them, and were greatly entertained at the game by the presence of the San Diego Chicken mascot. It was fun! Click here to see more pics

I left on Aug. 29th to drive (all by myself) to Watertown, WI, to see my whole family together (except Chris couldn't go... SOMEBODY has to work around here!) :-) It was Maranatha Baptist Bible College's Alumni "scrimmage," and my older brother, Steve, and middle brother, Greg, were playing on the alumni team against my baby brother, Nathan, who was playing on the Crusaders college team (for the last year.) It was so fun to watch them play again, and also to see my family together. I got to meet my newest nephew, Colt... who is absolutely ADORABLE! (of course). I really wish Chris could have come with me, but he is saving his time off for another very special occasion later this fall that we are praying God provides the time off/money for us to go. It was a good time with my family though, and it's rare for them to all be together at the same time. I tried to upload pictures to Facebook, but I couldn't get it to upload the other night, so I'll have to post a link when I get them up there.

This weekend, our church had their Ladies' Retreat. I had to work, since I was gone last weekend. Fortunately, I work only 30 minutes from the camp where our Retreat was held, so I went there from work, spent the night, and drove back to work this morning. It was a shorter distance to drive to the camp than to drive home, so it worked out well, and I enjoyed the short time I was able to spend there. It was a blessing!

So - that's the major run-down of things going on here. In other news, I FINALLY went to the doctor to get a sleep study done. Chris thinks that it's very possible that I have sleep apnea. My sleep study is scheduled for Sept 23, so please pray that they can figure out what is wrong with me so that I can get it fixed (hopefully without medicine!) I have been SO incredibly tired lately (more-so than usual!) I've been dozing off when driving to/from work a lot lately, which is very scary and dangerous! So - please pray for all of that.

That's it for now... see you next month! :-) Just kidding -I'm hoping to blog a little more frequently now.

So, here's what's been happening...

ST. LOUIS TRIP


On Saturday, May 3, Chris and I, along with Curt Nicholson and Justin Lockhart, headed out for a day trip to St. Louis, Missouri. Curt kept us entertained the whole time with stories and discussion. :-) We stopped at a Waffle House for breakfast about an hour into the trip. Chris got me a Waffle House coffee mug there. (We collect coffee mugs from the places we travel, since my kitchen is decorated with a coffee/gingerbread man theme). When we arrived in St. Louis, we went to the St. Louis Gateway Arch. We watched a film on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In watching that, we learned something that we hadn't known before. Did you know that Sacogowea - the Shoshone Indian woman that helped Lewis and Clark - was actually a captured slave? And did you know that when Lewis and Clark's expedition met up with the Shoshone Indians, Sacogowea learned that the chief of the Shoshone tribe was her BROTHER? I didn't know that, but I thought it was really cool that God had that all worked out for them!


ANYWAY, we also went to the top of the arch this time... not something you want to do if you are claustrophobic or scared of heights! (But really cool if you AREN'T!) Here are some pics:

Chris and I at the top of the arch - 630 feet in the air!
The windows that you can look out of... we were actually LYING down to look out the windows

Chris is now a CONEHEAD (and I think he's CRAZY!) :-P
Our second annual self-portrait (timed) at the Arch

From the Arch, we walked over to Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards were playing the Chicago Cubs that day, and Curt is a Cards fan; Justin is a Cubs fan... good times! The weather was a little chilly at 60 degrees with a cool wind blowing through. Eventually the sun came out, and it was a much nicer day!

Here we are at the Stadium

UNWANTED GUEST
Sunday night, May 4, we came home from church and saw this big black spider dangling on it's web between some boxes/bags of tools in the front of the garage. When we pulled my car in, the headlights spotlighted the nasty thing. As we were walking in, I stopped to look more closely at the spider. The spider was hanging upside down on its web, and much to my dismay, I noticed a VERY VIVID red hourglass marking on its abdomen! YIKES! It's a black widow spider! I told Chris to come and look, but by the time I moved out of the way, and he got to where he could see it, the spider had crawled under the bag, and we couldn't find it. (That makes for a GREAT night's sleep for one who has crazy nightmares anyway!)

The next night, I decided to clean and spray the garage with a pesticide before we left at midnight for our trip to FL. Chris was catching a little shut-eye before driving the almost 9 hours. I proceeded to pull out all of the tools, and saw the spider on the floor with its legs all curled up like it was dead. I was relieved to know that it had not adventured into my house, and that it was already dead. I took a broom and swept all the dead bugs, spiders and dirt into a pile in the center of the floor, and then sprayed the area with bug spray. When I went to sweep the pile outside, I touched the what-I-thought-was-dead spider with the broom, and the spider's legs flew out to the sides! YIKES again... It was NOT DEAD! I ran inside and grabbed a glass jar and captured the spider. Now, I'm sure many of you are wondering WHY IN THE WORLD I DIDN'T JUST KILL THE THING! Well, I wanted to see for sure if it was a Black Widow spider, and I wanted Chris to see it. When I got it in the jar, I discovered that I was right the first time... it definitely is a Black Widow!:

I didn't know that we had Black Widow Spiders around here, but apparently we do! I think that I've sucked up two more of them (before this) in the vacuum cleaner in the house, but I didn't see their bellies because they were up against the ceiling in our living room. (** shudder**) Time to call TERMINEX!

PENSACOLA TRIP
At midnight on Mon night/Tues morning, Chris and I left for Pensacola, FL, for PCC's graduation. Chris' youngest sister, Tiffany, graduated with her Master's Degree in Bible Exposition from Pensacola Theological Seminary... with a 4.0 GPA! She is SO smart, but so humble about it... she's amazing! Chris' youngest brother, Jon, graduated from PCC with his Bachelor's in Business Management. He actually graduated in December, but walked in May. My youngest brother's wife, Caroline, also graduated with her Bachelor's Degree in Mathmatics. Caroline also graduated with honors! We are so proud of all of them.

On Tuesday morning, we met my bro&SIL, Nathan & Caroline at IHOP for breakfast. We spent almost 2 hours catching up with them.From there, we headed over to Chris' brother's house, and hung out with his family for the rest of the day. 8 family members weren't able to make it, but we enjoyed the time with the other 13! We also got to meet our newest niece, Jacquline, who is 9 months old. I know that we're biased, but our nieces and nephews are ADORABLE! Here are some pics of the day:

Jacquline with me
Chris & Jacquline

Nathan, Kailey, & Kimberly

The gang at Logan's Steakhouse for dinner

That night we stayed at the home of our friends, Rob & Emily Hazewinkel. No pics of them, since they were so tired and dressed for bed, but here are their kiddos, Stephen & Katie. They are expecting #3.

The next morning we got up and make a VERY quick, 15 minute visit with our friends, BJ and Adrian Escamilla and their brand new baby girl, Peyton. The visit was so quick, I didn't get a pic of them, either.

From there we headed to graduation. Here are some pics of the graduates. Congratulations, you guys! :-)

My bro&SIL, Nathan & Caroline
Nathan, Caroline, me & Chris
(Nathan, Chris and I are slouching down so that Caroline looks taller!)

Tiffany & Jon
Chris' family that was at graduation
(his SIL stayed home with the younger kids)

MY FIRST MOTHER'S DAY
I was not looking forward to my first Mother's Day. In spite of the fact that we, as Christians, believe that life begins at conception, unfortunately we often do not recognize ladies that have been pregnant and miscarried, or even expecting moms as "MOTHERS" on Mother's Day. However, as soon as a lady is pregnant, she truly is a mother, whether or not she gets to hold that baby in her arms!

That said, I was struggling with that thought some the week prior to Mother's Day. On Monday, the 5th, I was at work. The little boy I work with was really sick, and very cuddly. As I was holding him on my shoulder, all of the sudden it hit me and I had an emotional meltdown! I started sobbing uncontrollably, and cried out, "God, I want a baby to hold SO BAD!" Poor D raised his head and looked at me like I had two heads! I only cried for a few minutes, and I was over it, but it was kind of crazy! I just kept thinking that I know that I'm a mom, but who else is actually going to recognize that?

Well, I have some very thoughtful friends/family members... and THEY recognized it! First of all, I got a Mother's Day card in the mail from my best friend on Thurs. Then, on Sunday morning, we were getting ready to walk out the door to go to church, and there is a card sitting on my purse. Chris told me I had to open it right away, so I did. It was a SUPER sweet (and funny) card, and inside he included a gift... he bought me plane tickets to go see my best friend over Memorial Day weekend! Not only that, but he had already called the guys at my work to rearrange my work schedule so that I didn't have to worry about it! Of course, I cried! :-) But I also couldn't stop smiling at the card... it was perfect for us! Here are the cards:

Then, I was scheduled to be in the nursery for the AM service (for which I was kind of glad - I don't know that I could have sat through a sermon about mothers without crying!) Anyway, as soon as I walked in, one of my closest friends here walked up to me and gave me a huge hug and told me "Happy Mother's Day." She told me that she had been thinking of me and praying for me all morning. It's so great to have compassionate friends! Several other women said, "Happy Mother's Day" to me as well, including both my mom & MIL. It just soothed my heart to know that even though all of my babies are in Heaven, I still am a mom... whether I get to hold my own babies here on earth or not! They definitely have it made, being in Heaven with Jesus!

I also got this rose on our bus route... all the moms riding the buses received roses.

Monday, I received this card that my mom made for me.
All in all, it was a wonderful Mother's Day, in spite of the circumstances! God is SO GOOD, and I have an AWESOME husband!

Well, that's about it for now! Thanks for bearing with me through this LOOOOONG post! Have a GREAT weekend!

Busy, busy, busy...

Wow - our lives have been busy the past couple weeks. So - here's the rundown of what has been happening here, and I have just linked words to pics so I don't have to download them...

The first week of April, D (the little one I take care of) was in Cincinnati, OH, for pre-surgical testing. Thanks to all of you who prayed for him. Thankfully, he does not require throat reconstruction surgery. He only needs his tonsils/adenoids removed, and some minor eye surgery to correct a muscle condition resulting from prematurity. This condition causes his left eye to drift in toward his nose when looking at things close to him. Other than that, things are going pretty well for him. His mom is hoping to get her doctor to authorize him for nursing at least through the surgeries, and hopefully for another 4 months until he can get his feeding tube out and recover from surgery. We'll see...

Anyway, in the few days that he was gone, I was able to visit 2 of my good friends here. I spent over 5 hours at my friend, Beth's house. She is such a blessing to me. Her hubby, Luke, was teasing me when he came home... asking me if I was working on another calendar. I printed out the date pages for the family photo calendars at their house since we didn't have ink in our printer. (We now have ink for our printer... we've gone without it since we lived in MD)! I worked on it for several hours I think 3 or 4 different days, so now it's a standing joke that I only visit when I have to work on the computer. It was nice change to be able to spend a few hours visiting and not having anything else to do.

Tuesday of that week, I stayed home all day waiting for an overnight package that was supposed to arrive at 10:30am. Apparently all the FedEx planes coming here from Memphis were grounded due to severe thunder storms. Chris called them around noon, and the person he spoke to assured him that the packages were being trucked here, and would get there sometime in the afternoon. When the package STILL wasn't here by 6pm, Chris called again, only to be informed that the earlier person had misinformed him, and the package would be here 10:30 am the NEXT day! I did get a bunch of stamping done, though! It's just difficult to be waiting all day, and thinking of all these things that you could do if you could just run down to the ___!!

Wednesday, the package showed up at 10:15 am! YEAH! I then went and visited another friend who had been having a difficult time the past few months. I was glad to be a blessing, and amazed at how I could share with her what God has been doing in my heart & life through IVF, even though her circumstances are completely different - God's word still applies! :-) (DUH!)

I then got to take Chris' package to him and we ate lunch together. That's always a nice surprise. He got a new watch... it's REALLY nice! He was going to resell it on Ebay, but he liked it so much that I told him that he really should keep it. It's not very often that Chris finds something that he REALLY likes/wants, so I was glad that he found that and I believe he is keeping it. Now, if only he could have waited until his birthday... :-)

I also joined the gym again! My chiropractor finally OK'd me to do cardio workouts again, as long as I don't over do it! I'm excited to be able to be active again!

The Friday night of that week, I was at the gym just getting ready to work out when Chris called me. After he asked me about 20 questions, he asked me if I could get changed back into my normal clothes so that we could meet Jeremy, Misha, Tommy & Corey Frazor for dinner! They are close friends of ours that travel in evangelism, and we don't get to see them very often. However, they manage to travel through Louisville every once in a while, so they usually call and we meet up for a meal or something. Anyway, we were able to meet them for supper and then they came over to see our house for a little bit. Although the time was WAY too SHORT, we enjoyed seeing them again. Last time we saw them they came through on Chris' birthday last August. They are great "iron-sharpeneth-iron" type friends, and they are also the type of friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen them, you pick up the friendship like you saw them yesterday! What a blessing to have friends like that!

The following week (the 7th - 10th) our church hosted the Revival Fires conference. With that, the choir sang every night for the services, so it was a busy week! I was busting my tail just to get home from work and then rush off to church in order to sing and attend the services. It was a blessing, though.

Early that Friday morning (the 11th) Chris and I headed north. We stopped in Indianapolis to visit some friends of ours... Jeff & Colleen McQueary (and kids, Cole & Sage). We were able to enjoy breakfast with them before our friends, Steve & Joy Francis met up with us. They came over from Cincinnati, and we left one of our vehicles at the McQueary's house. Steve, Joy, Chris and I then drove up to Chicago for an overnight "double date." Steve is a big Chicago Bulls fan, so for his birthday, Joy bought him tickets to a Bulls game (vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers). Well, they bought the tickets in October... and put them in a safe place. So safe, in fact, that they couldn't find them for that weekend! We all decided to go ahead and go up there anyway.

For lunch, we went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Brazazz. It's all you can eat - meat! It was SO DELICIOUS! They had little discs sitting beside each plate. One side is orange and says, "Yes, Please." The other side is black and says, "No, thank you." The waiters, all dressed in authentic Brazilian outfits, come around with these long skewers of all different kinds of meat (and roasted pineapple). If you want some, they cut you a slice and lay it over toward you. You then take a little pair of tongs, and put it on your plate. Joy is a missionary kid and she grew up in Brazil, so she was talking to the waiters in Portugese and stuff. It was pretty cool. I felt like I didn't have to eat for about 3 days after that! We enjoyed it immensely!

From there, we went to the John Hancock Building, and went up to the Observatory. We had fun with some of the photo ops (Window washers, & construction workers)! Of course, Chris and Steve were being silly. It was pretty cool. When we got on the elevators to go down, Chris and I were by the doors that would open when we got to the bottom. Just before the doors opened, we stood really close to the doors and made funny faces. The doors opened, and there was a man and his family sitting on the floor facing us, waiting for the rest of the family. He cracked up laughing when he saw us, and we were laughing hysterically! I wish we could have gotten a picture of his face when he saw us... Priceless!

From there, we wandered down Michigan Ave. for a little bit. I was extremely tired and not wearing the best shoes for walking, so I'm afraid I wasn't super good company! I tried not to complain, though! It was really cold and windy, too, so not a GREAT day to be wandering outside in the city. Chris had a little fun in the Disney Store... I think he'd make a GREAT Pirate! On the way back to the car, we had to stop and take some more silly pictures with a statue of a man with an umbrella hailing a cab in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. The placard on the statue said, "Allow Me!" Chris took a little too much liberty with that statement, see the pics here and here! Joy figured she could get up close, too, but not that close! :-)

We left after that and headed down to the United Center to see if we could get tickets to the game... again! We did, and got pretty good seats! It ended up being a good game... the Bulls actually WON! The highlight of the game, though, **insert sarcasm**was the Swinging Seniors!
Actually, Chris and Steve both got free T-shirts, and since the Bulls scored 100 points and won, we all got free Big Macs! Chris also got a free coffee at Dunkin' Donuts since his character won the race on the JumboTron! All in all, it was a good game (even though I was so tired, I almost fell asleep!) We even got to see a BUNCH of dunks, and Joy even managed to get a great picture of one of them!

The next morning we got up and went to Navy Pier. It was rainy, so we stayed indoors. We left around noon and headed back to Indianapolis to go our separate ways. Jeff & Colleen had an all-nighter youth activity Friday night, so we didn't get to see them. However, we did stop at the Edinburg outlets on the way home, and Chris let me get two pairs of shoes. I really needed them... the only real shoes I had were a pair of black, ankle high boots, and brown clogs. I got these two pairs of shoes for a really good deal:

I love them! I wear skirts or skorts most of the time, and they look really cute with them. Chris found some really nice basketball shorts, too, that he needed. It was a profitable stop! :-)

Oh, yeah...I mentioned here that I got new sunglasses... here's a pic of my new shades!

That Saturday night, we arrived home, bundled up, and headed out again to enjoy Thunder over Louisville. Thunder is the 5th largest fireworks display in the world, according to the travel channel. We missed most of the air show, since we didn't get home until after 7pm, but the planes were flying right over our house! We joined a bunch of our college kids and friends of ours to watch the fireworks. It was very cold out, but we were pretty well dressed for the weather. The only thing that we didn't like is that we were so far away, we could see the fireworks alright, but we didn't get the full affect with the sounds and vibrations of the fireworks as well. We enjoy that part, too! The other thing is that we had 4 or 5 rude kids that put their chairs up in front of us... so we moved to see around them. They then moved again, partially blocking our view. I was highly frustrated at this point. Then, on top of all of that, right in the middle of the show, 2 of the girls stood up right in front of us so we couldn't see at all. I had had enough, so I loudly said, "There are people behind you who would like to SEE the fireworks!" They turned around and gave me nasty looks, but I didn't care! People should be more considerate of those around them! You can see my pics of Thunder here.

Since then, it has pretty much been life back to normal for us. Chris let me buy these vases for our living room (I've been waiting to buy them since we bought our house last July, and they went on sale this week, so Chris let me get them):

It's hard to tell in the picture, but our paint color is beige, and the vases are red, but not as dark as they appear in the picture. I LOVE them, and they fit perfectly in those niches. I'm finally almost ready with the family photo wall, too, just waiting for pictures from a couple of family members still. I'll post pics when I get them up, too.

We got our lawn treated by company called Weed Man. The weather has been mostly beautiful lately, so I've been able to take D to the park, and the sunshine has also helped our grass to grow like crazy. Chris hasn't been able to mow it yet, so it's almost a jungle out there! Seriously, some of the grass is almost 2 feet tall! He was going to mow Sunday afternoon, but couldn't get the mower started. :-( He was rather frustrated, to say the least! Here's some pics:

Well, my hubby is home, and I think I've pretty much filled you in on everything recent that I can think of, so I gotta go! Hope you all are doing well!

Oh, wait, one more thing... another niece or nephew is on the way in our family... this makes the 3rd one that is expected this year! Two of my brothers & their wives are expecting babies, and we just found out that one of Chris' sisters is expecting a baby, too!

Our Babies' Names...

After our last IVF was unsuccessful, I was talking to a dear friend. She encouraged me to make memories of our babies... whether it was a memory box, scrapbook, memory garden, or whatever we chose. She also encouraged me to name our babies.

Since we believe that life begins at conception, every one of our fertilized embryos is considered, in our opinion, to be a baby. Since it's impossible to know which gender the embryos were, we decided to name 5 boys and 4 girls. So - here are our babies' names with their meanings. We didn't necessarily pick them FOR their meanings, but some were picked b/c of names of family members, etc.

Girls First:
Janae (God has answered) Ruth (companion, friend)
(this name was picked to be similar to my mom's name - Janet Ruth)

Katie (Pure) Anne (Grace)
(this name was picked to be similar to Chris' mom's name - Kathleen Ann)

Mary (Beloved) Dorthea (Gift of God)
(Both of my parent's mom's names are Mary Ruth. Dorthea is my mom's mother's name {she died when my mom was ten.} One of Chris' grandmother's name was Dorothy, too, so I figured we came close with Dorthea.) :-)

Adelyn (Good humor, pleasant) Janine (Gift from God)
(Chris' other grandma's name is Jeanine, I just spelled it different.)

And the Boys:
Brady (spirited) Quinn (wise, counsel)
(I just LOVE this name for some reason!)

Aidan (Little Fire) Gregory (on the watch)
(I really like the name Aidan, and my middle brother's name is Greg)

Jeremy (exalted of the Lord) Burton (from the fortified town)
(Burton is Chris' grandpa's name, as well as his next youngest brother's name.)

Ethan (Strong) Samuel (Asked of God)
(Again, I just liked these names!)

Drew (manly, strong) Joel (Jehovah is God)
(Joel is my baby brother's middle name.)

There you have it... the names of all 9 of our babies! :-) I only have pictures of 5 of them, though. God is good... it's nice to know that they are all in Heaven with Jesus right now. I wonder if we'll recognize them when we get to Heaven...

Results of the Pregnancy Test

A dear friend sent me a CD with the following song on it soon after we had found out that we miscarried our babies in December. This song has become very dear to me, and again fits the situation that we find ourselves in at this time:

For My Good and For His Glory

words by Rebecca J. Peck

I must admit that I don't understand

why God would let me face this painful circumstance

All I have to cling to is His word and His name

But that's enough, so I will trust

It's for my good and for His glory,

This trial's not the end of the story

There's a bigger picture God alone can see

Faith will take me through this sorrow,

For I know He holds tomorrow,

And He assures me

It's for my good, and for His glory.

Because I love the Lord He's promised me

To work all things for good, through tears I still believe

That His ways are higher than any of my own -

Though my heart aches, He makes no mistakes.

It's for my good and for His glory,

This trial's not the end of the story

There's a bigger picture God alone can see

Faith will take me through this sorrow,

For I know He holds tomorrow,

And He assures me

It's for my good, and for His glory.

Again, I am sorry to send a mass, impersonal e-mail (or blog post!) like this, but it would take me forever to type e-mails to each one of you that have prayed for us through this in vitro fertilization cycle. We are SO disappointed to have to tell you that our pregnancy test and bloodwork both came back today - NEGATIVE. For whatever reason, God has chosen NOT to give us a baby to hold through this process. As the lyrics of the song indicate, this is very painful for us, and our hearts ache... but we also know that God can see the bigger picture and has a REASON that He has chosen not to give us the desire of our hearts at this time. We are thankful, though, that we now have 9 babies up in Heaven waiting to meet us when we get there. Though we would LOVE to have them HERE, they are so blessed to not have had to live through the trials of this life, but to go directly to an eternity in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm sure many of you will wonder what we do from here... and we have no answer for that at this time. We believe that had God wanted to give us a baby through the IVF process, He would have done it in these 3 tries. So, unless the Lord gives us a HUGE sign that He wants us to go through that again, we do not plan on that. (Not to mention, it is expensive and emotionally draining!) At least we can now look back and not have regrets at not having tried that option when it was available to us. A couple of people, even today, have asked us about adoption. At this point, we do not have any peace about pursuing adoption. Of course, God may just choose to give us a baby on His own... I mean, if He can make a virgin conceive, NOTHING is IMPOSSIBLE with Him, right?!?!? :-) (I don't mean to be sacriligous, just finding a little humor there!)

So - all that to say, I guess we would just ask you all to please continue to keep us in your prayers. Pray for wisdom for both of us as we seek God's will concerning our family. Although we know that God's grace is sufficient, please pray for God's hand of grace and comfort to rest on us. Pray that we are able to truly trust God for His will in our lives. It is far too easy to do "lip-service" and pretend that we are OK, but the words not getting through to our hearts. Also, please pray that we will continue to grow closer to God and each other.

Again, we cannot thank you all enough for all of your prayers on our behalf. They mean so much to us, and we often are overwelmed at the love, care, and support you have shown to us through this difficult time. We pray that someday we may be able to share with you that our family has grown... though how that will happen we are just waiting on the Lord to show us!

We appreciate you all so much. Thank you for your prayers.

Serving Christ,
Chris & Heather Beth
Ps. 91:1, Lam. 3:22-23

A few memories...

I wanted to post a few pictures today. These are the few memories that we have about our precious babies, and I'd like to share. Hope you all don't mind! I also wanted to say that we so much appreciate your outpouring of love toward us in this difficult time. Your prayers mean so much to us! Thank you, thank you!

Chris and I the day we found out we were pregnant (12/19/07)

Chris and I get a personalized ornament every year. I bought this one, and then wrapped it up and gave it to my mom and dad for their "anniversary." They didn't get to keep it, though! :-)

My parents didn't know about us going through in vitro fertilization, mostly because I wanted to surprise them. They arrived here on Saturday night (12/22). Their anniversary is 12/18 (celebrating 37 years!), and I hadn't sent them a card or anything. I couldn't wait for Christmas to tell them about the baby (especially since we had been pre-warned about the possibility of miscarriage.) So, I bought this little photo album and made a small scrapbook for them.
My parents love lighthouses, so I thought this was the perfect cover for them... especially since the bottom says "Life is filled with wonderful surprises..." This was the first page of the book... this pic was taken after the Christmas program 12/16.
These were the second and third pages. I think if you click on the pictures you can see them bigger. Anyway, these are both pictures of the embryos they transfered this time. The page on the left quotes our promise "Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, to be the joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD." The second page (which is difficult to see) says "Our baby's picture" and the little pregnant girl stamp says "You Grow, Girl!"
These pages are pictures from our doctors office. The one on the left is a picture of the sign in the dressing room. I think it's hilarious. On the right are our babies' doctors and the IVF nurse coordinator... Dr. Bastias (embryologist), Dr. Homm (fertility specialist) and Kara (IVF nurse).
These next few pages of pictures are some we took during the transfer process. I kind of combined pictures from both cycles.


I also have the pregnancy test from our second cycle. I was so nervous the morning we went in for the test (more nervous than I've ever been in my life, as a matter of fact), that I had to use the bathroom twice before we even got to the office. My urine was VERY diluted, and the pink line is SO faint that you almost can't see it. Our nurse practitioner told us it was no problem... as long as it was there, that's what mattered.

Oh, yeah... my parents opened their "anniversary" presents (we did video it, but can't seem to get the CD to work), and the look on my mom's face was priceless when she figured out what we were trying to tell them. She squealed and raised both her hands up over her head, and then started pounding my dad (who was sitting next to her) on the back! It was great! Of course, we had to tell them right away about the probability of miscarriage, but at the time, I was pregnant, and Chris had me on bedrest, so we chose to tell them anyway. I'm so glad we did.

God is good, and we are thankful for the little things. Lord willing, the promise we are claiming will be fulfilled shortly: Psalm 113:9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, to be the joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD. :-)

Thanks for letting me share my memories. Though this is difficult, I'm glad God allowed us a few days with our babies.