Thursday, November 19, 2009

Long time no blog...

It's been awhile since I've posted a blog on here. We've been just living day to day, waiting on the Lord. We've been walking in the "wilderness" for awhile now, wondering where we're supposed to be...what we're supposed to do with our life as a family...when we would see God's plan for us start to unfold...We've given it to the Lord.

More...
Well, I don't know where to start really. First, I do want to give the Lord Praise in being with us as He's been molding & preparing us for our future!
He's done so much for us!
Our journey is getting a jump start partly due to my dad losing his job. I won't say much but that he was done 'wrong' by some of the church folks where he was pastoring a church in Due West. It's for a reason, we know but it's caused him undue stress.
Eddie & I have been praying for guidance & direction steady for years. We were on the verge of re-opening our foster home & trying to decide if we should. I emailed the case worker we'd worked with & for one reason or another, she took a while to get back with us. In the meantime, we just waited on the Lord.
The "wilderness" I mentioned earlier is actually a sermon series our preacher is doing. You can hear his sermons online @ www.northsidebc.org. Every day we've stepped foot into church since we've been going to Northside Baptist, we've experienced the Holy Spirit moving! Jeff, the preacher, hit the nail on the head when he described our very situation as we prayed, waited, grew frustrated, wondered, tried to be patient...wondered if we were in God's Will at all; wondered what we were doing wrong, reason God was so 'quiet'...
As we've grown recently, we've recommitted our lives & prayers to be God's Will & not what "we want" or think is what's best for us. Since then, we felt led to ask my parents if they wanted to consider us moving in with them to help with their finances, vs us renting the home we're in. We really didn't think they would say yes, but they did. One door opened...the delay in moving towards re-opening our foster home before the deadline of March 2010 (in order to not have to start all over) was for a reason. We're now packing, throwing away stuff, transporting boxes to our storage building. The storage building was also another "Yes, you're headed in the right directon" smack on the head...Eddie & I stopped by a place that sells storage sheds. First, we saw they finance thru a finance company we just paid our last loan payment to the previous Friday...we wouldn't have needed a storage shed if we were staying put...we got thru to the finance company 20 minutes before they closed...everything including the setting up of the building went 'too' smoothly for it not to be 'of the Lord'. Oh & we can't forget being able to buy a kennel for our German Shepherd, Ginger, who has shown she will not stay in the chainlink fence...We got the kennel at the same place we got the building from.
Saying all that, we hope to be moved by the end of this month. We will stay as long as the Lord wants us too. We won't be setting a time frame for ourselves but will work on grooming ourselves for whatever the future might hold.
Wherever we are in God's Will, there we pray to be!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Getting better

Thank you for listening to me wail & most of all for praying! We could not have made it without prayers! Eddie & I both are doing good considering. Even though we only "knew" for sure for a week that we were expecting, it was hard for a few days but has gotten alittle easier to look ahead now. I went to the Dr & my hCG was 43 so alot lower & heading where it needs to be (weird to say that). Now it's a matter of seeing how long it takes for my body to heal & hope/pray will work right again...after all it did take almost 3 years to get this first "positive". So we're praying & striving for stable blood sugars, exercise & for my body to work like it's supposed to. Hopefully it won't take long to announce that we're expecting a "keeper"! Please keep praying!

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Woe is me...warning

I don't know where to "start" so this is probably going to be a rambling, whiney mess when it's all said & done. This is more of a venting for me so if you don't want to continue reading, I won't be offended in the least...
I never dreamed "I" would be one to have a miscarriage..."Why not me??"
After all I had Matthew with no problems..."Every pregnancy is different..."
We have prayed for 3 years to have a baby. It happened & suddenly was gone. Why??...God has a Plan for our lives...
This week has been one of the hardest weeks I think I've ever been thru. Eddie will agree, I'm sure. We're trying so hard to keep our Faith strong & not waver. Some days that's easy & some days it's not.
More...
I feel like a failure at times. I don't think I completely blame myself for losing the "baby"/pregnancy (if there was even a baby & not a blighted ovum or something)...See, we'll never know if there was a baby or if it would've been a baby...or if I'm mourning something that wasn't there in the first place...I guess if there was a baby, we'll "see" it in Heaven...??? I do feel "comfortable" for what it's worth to say I had a miscarriage because I was pregnant, according to blood tests, the way I felt & physical changes I was starting to go thru. So my hormones call it a "baby"...here again, something we've been praying for 3 years now...
What else could I have done different to make it happen...was it all "meant to be"?? God's Plan???
Ok, we learned some "stuff" thru all this...I remember thinking (since I'd never had a miscarriage before that I know of) atleast if I could GET pregnant, then we'd know it CAN happen...with my PCOS, "diabetes", obesity, etc. It would help us confirm what we already knew about Eddie's surgery being successful. I guess I didn't realize how "bad" it would be to actually go thru the m/c just to see that it CAN happen & hope that we'll be able to get pregnant again. It's not that I wished for a m/c, don't get me wrong...I was just desperate to see if it would EVER happen...not thinking I would "lose it".
We also believe that getting my blood sugars under control was a huge factor. I had been on major doses of Glucophage with little effect. Dr put me on Amaryl, I buckled down. I went from 8.8 (where I thought he was going to put me on insulin) to 5.9 (considered non-diabetic level) in 3 months. I was so proud & he gave me an "A+" that visit even though I'd only lost 4 pounds. It wasn't long after that, we found out I was pregnant & were elated. So I went back to the Dr for confirmation.
So many "what if's" going thru my head...What if it's in my tube? What if it's a blighted ovum? What if we tell the world & have to go back & untell it??? What if we lose what we've been praying for all this time???
I stopped taking the extra "vitamins" (Chromium, vit C, B12, vit D, etc) & kept taking the prenatal vitamins. I did keep using the "hormone balancing cream" from Arbonne in hopes it would help keep progesterone high. Dr changed my BP medicine to Aldomet since I was on Lisinopril. I was facing the possibility of being put on insulin if my blood sugars didn't stay stable, but I wasn't afraid of that. This past Friday would have been the Dr visit with the OB to discuss that possibility. Instead this past Friday was spent coping with major cramping, nausea & bl++ding that picked back up to being like a period. Another question: Is this coming from the "site" of implantation or is this the lining being shed as in my period?? Who knows?? When will my body be back to normal?? I really don't want to have to wait "4-6 weeks" to "try again"...Yes, that would probably be the "best for my body" to give it time to "heal" but I feel like it's my mind that needs to "heal" the most..."Healing" my mind would mean (to me) being pregnant, having a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy & delivering a baby mid-January like we thought would happen! "Who's" plan was this anyway?? "Who's" fault is it that this happened?? We even PRAYED for an uneventful pregnancy...We PRAYED over our baby after we knew it was there for God to "knit it perfectly" in my womb...We PRAYED before we even conceived for the baby we KNOW God is going to give us.
Ok, another thing that was brought to our attention was my progesterone level was a low 6.1 the same day my pregnancy hormone (hCG) had doubled to 920...I had the bloodwork drawn on Friday, got these results on Monday. Another question, what if I'd had the blood work drawn at the hospital, gotten "faster" results...would getting progesterone supplementation saved our "baby"?? Would it have prolonged the inevitable? So now I'm involved with my OB Dr...if/when I get pregnant again, I will surely be more aggressive at getting tests, meds, etc to prevent this from happening again. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. It took this long to be "sure" I ovulated. It was almost text book. I can't wait another 3 years. I just don't have that much time.
It's not just the physical...dealing with a period I hoped I wouldn't have for awhile. It's not "just" losing a pregnancy whether there was a baby there or not. It's not just that I was looking forward to "being" pregnant & now I'm not. It's not just that I was looking forward to me, Eddie, & Matthew & extended family bonding with the baby before he or she even got here. It's not just dealing with the tears & not believing how unfair this whole thing is. It's all one big issue wrapped up into one & having to deal with it because that's what we were dealt.
It's one thing when the housework gets left undone because I've been too tired to fool with it but that was when I was pregnant. Now it's not getting done because I'm cramping & feel like I'm bleeding like I'm a stuck pig. It was "funny" when I'd "forget" something or become the absent minded pregnant woman, oh so quickly but now feel like a failure because I don't have the "excuse" anymore. The house is DIRTY, the laundry is undone, the trash needs hauled off, the grass needs cut, I've missed a weeks worth of work & our money is stretched to the max...Our stress level is maxed. Matthew doesn't understand & is affected too...I/we all need a break from all of this! I just don't know how much more I can take.
I guess since I'm not going to be pregnant right now, I really want my body to not hold me back so I can get back to normal. I'm ready for the sensitivities (physical & mental) to be GONE. I've tried to push thru, trying to catch up on laundry & housework when I found out my hCG had dropped to 600 Tuesday...knowing there was nothing there to "take it easy" for. I did ok with that til Friday...I truely believe my levels were starting to drop even more, picturing it like I was going in reverse from getting pregnant to being "un-pregnant"...
Well I'm a pleasure to be around right now as you can tell. I think I will go crawl under the bed & hope I can get back out tomorrow morning so I can go get "stuck" again at the hospital lab, so the Dr can make sure my hCG ISN'T high anymore. It's not supposed to be going this way... Then I get to go work/play with Sadie. I think I "need" her. Hopefully the bl++ding will slow down so I can enjoy my time with her. Then I have a Dr's appt to "talk" to about getting pregnant again. I'll have to retell a different Dr that we can't possibly afford a Reproductive Endocrinologist so we need all the help they can give us. Then we will start the process all over again of hoping, praying (not that we've stopped), me watching for signs that I could be "ready", peeing on a stick, holding my breath waiting for another "positive" & worrying we could go thru all this AGAIN! I think I'd almost rather be one of the ones who goes thru the whole pregnancy "Not knowing" they were pregnant. It would be alot 'easier'!

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Our rough patch

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. It's been a fairly busy time & blogging just hasn't been first on the list when it comes to sitting & relaxing.
We had some excitement this month. The Monday after Mother's Day I had a positive pregnancy test!!! The first one in 11 years (3 years of trying). I had several tests to make sure everything was going ok. We were getting used to the idea that we were FINALLY going to have a baby! Well, I got test results the following Monday that were good as far as the pregnancy hormone but progesterone was a low 6.1...It was strange but within the next hour, I started cramping, bleeding & crying. Thankfully Eddie was home with me & we know the Lord was holding us as we went thru that time. The pain was something I've never experienced before even with having bad periods all my life. I got in bed in hopes that it would stop...praying the whole time that it would stop...It was "over" within a short period of time but our hearts were broken. We are so thankful for the prayers of our families & friends that were prayed during that time.
We haven't lost Faith or Hope. We will try again. We know God will grant this petition for the child we have prayed for.