Young people
Do you ever hear people talk about our world “going to Hell in a hand basket?” Or mention that people would be crazy to bring kids into this world where so many bad things are going on? It’s easy to see…just watch the evening news. We are bombarded with talk of war, poverty, drive-by shootings, sinking cruise ships, child abductions, career-ending neck injuries, child abuse, and terrorist threats. It’s hard to keep a positive perspective on life. And believe me, working in a prison where I see the people who are able to do the worst unthinkable things to other people, the weight of it all can be pretty depressing.
But then I spend a weekend with teenagers.
When was the last time you sat & talked to a junior high or high school student? Do you listen to their thoughts, their hopes for the future, their fears, their views on the world? This past weekend, I spent 3 days on a winter retreat with about 20 high schoolers & had lots of uninterrupted time to talk to them, listen to them, laugh with them, and cry with them. And I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else for those 3 days!
These are young people who have been raised in a society where being a Christian is no longer a standard in our culture as it was even a generation ago. Their faith is challenged by their peers, their teachers, and sometimes even their parents. They don’t have the luxury that their parents did of just going to church because that’s what most middle class families do on Sunday mornings. They go to church because they choose to. They read their Bible because they choose to. They pray because that’s the only thing that gets them through the day at a public (or even Christian) high school without giving into temptation. And as a result, they have a faith that I would hold up against most adults in our church who have been going to church for 40+ years. And they have a hope for the world around them! They are a constant reminder to me that the generation that is currently coming of age is one that stands on principles, is hard working, is motivated, and will change the world.
I have previously referenced the saying “it takes a village to raise a child,” and I truly believe that statement. Every child needs their parents, their grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, parents’ friends, adults in the church, anyone who can positively influence their lives. If we all make an effort to pour into the life of a young person, we can be true instruments of change in the world – so much more than just voting for the right politician or donating to a charity. In exchange, we are changed by them.
I love the fact that this year we are going to 3 weddings of young people who grew up in our youth group & are marrying Christian spouses. I love that over Christmas break I got to hang out with college students who are enjoying the college experience that they worked so hard in high school to get to. I love that one of our youth group students is spending 4 months serving in a third world country this semester & I get the opportunity to pray for her. I love that junior high girls ask me to go get Mexican food with them so they can just talk through life. And I love that this my baby is already loved & prayed for by a huge village who is ready to be a part of his/her life just as Scott & I have been a part of other children’s lives.
I pray that as this child grows, all of you are able to influence him/her in a positive way throughout the different stages of life. Some of you are wonderful with arts & crafts for toddlers (I am NOT, so please help me out here). Some of you are great at teaching children to play a sport. Some of you are good at stimulating the imagination. Some of you are just simply wise & able to pass that wisdom along at just the right time. This baby is going to need all of that and more, so I praise God for planting us in this place at this time in life to be able to provide such an amazing gift to His child. Thank you all for being that gift!
On a side note regarding the pregnancy itself….I am at 15 weeks and doing well. I have been blessed with a fairly uneventful pregnancy so far. I was pretty tired for the first trimester & somewhat nauseous at times, but no vomiting! 
I’ve had 4 ultrasounds, all of which look good with great movement. Scott said little Skeeter was dancing in one of them. We won’t find out the sex of the baby until later in February or early March. So for now, we’re just hanging out & praying for good development!
8 1/2 weeks strong!
I don’t really know what to say as I look at this picture, other than PRAISE THE LORD!!
We had our 2nd ultrasound today & our last appointment with the fertility doctor, as I am officially released to my OB doc. The little guy was moving his head around & had a strong heartbeat at 175 beats a minute.
Have you ever really sat down & thought about the miracle of life?? This little guy is 1.9cm long – basically the size of a kidney bean. Yet he has all 4 chambers of his heart that are beating in sync, he has fingers & toes, he has a nervous system, and he even has eyelids! All of this has developed in the past 6 weeks from an embryo that was only 6 cells! One of the cool things about getting pregnant through IVF is that we get to see pictures of our babies starting at the embryo stage, only 3 days after conception. So we have seen him (or her) develop from those 6 cells into a nearly fully-functioning human body. Wow, God….I stand in awe.
Happy Thanksgiving
As we all know, today is a day set aside to spend some time recognizing the blessings in our life & expressing thanks for those blessings. I am so incredibly blessed & have been all of my life, so I could go on & on about the many things I have to be thankful for!
However, if you’ve ever been in a time in your life of deep depression, or going through very difficult circumstances, you know that the holidays become the hardest time of the year and the thanks on Thanksgiving are painful. Not that the blessings aren’t still there, and not that you’re not still thankful for them, but there is pain in the offering of thanks. The past 2 years have been very difficult for Scott & me. The hurt of our infertility struggle was so deep and so strong that it was almost a physical pain. In addition, we had turmoil in our jobs & some serious financial struggles. There were times that our future looked incredibly bleak, and life to us was just a matter of getting through the day. So during the holidays, I didn’t want to celebrate, I didn’t want to take pictures, I didn’t want to sing, I didn’t want to gather with family, I just wanted to get back to the drudgery of life because at least there my feelings matched my circumstances. I couldn’t even bring myself to put up a Christmas tree.
But I still did all of those things (except the tree). And I still gave thanks. And believe it or not, the thanks was genuine & real. Even in the midst of it all I could still see the glory of God & know that I was resting in His hands. It wasn’t that feel-good emotional high that comes when the Holy Spirit is allowing you to experience that emotional joy. Instead it was a simple knowledge that, through it all, God is good. It was a peace that passes all understanding. I still didn’t like it, and I was still miserable inside, but I knew that my faith in His promises was the only thing that would carry me through the valley.
Now this year is completely different. Obviously, we are so elated that God has blessed us with this miracle of life! We heard the beautiful heartbeat 3 days ago, which made the miracle seem even more real to us. In addition, we have both been blessed with good jobs that we enjoy & that meet our financial needs, so a lot of our financial burdens have been lifted. But the blessings don’t stop there. I am thankful for the depth of my faith that has come as a result of our struggles. I am thankful for the steadfastness of the Lord & His faithfulness to me even when I was angry and bitter toward Him. I am thankful for the timeless stories of people in the Bible who had similar experiences to all of us & showed us the nature of God through their stories. I am thankful for the people in our lives, the relationships that have been strengthened, and the love our family & friends have shown us. I am thankful for the way our church has been the Church in our lives. I am thankful for the ways I have been changed, molded, & shaped through this experience.
Family, friends, jobs, a house….all of those are wonderful blessings for which we should definitely take time to give thanks. But true blessings from the Lord happen in the heart & in the spirit. These are blessings that change who you are, allow you to know the Lord in a deeper way, teach you how to love your neighbor as yourself, and grow your faith. Unfortunately, these blessings usually do not come without a struggle. As Romans 5 states, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
This is the song that I sang over & over in order to maintain a faith that I didn’t “feel” like maintaining…
Blessed be Your Name, in the land that is plentiful/ Where your streams of abundance flow/ Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your Name, when I’m found in the desert place/ Though I walk through the wilderness/ Blessed be Your Name
Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise/ When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say
Blessed be the Name of the Lord, Blessed be Your Name/ Blessed be the Name of the Lord, blessed be Your glorious Name!
Blessed be Your Name, when the sun’s shining down on me/ When the world’s all as it should be/ Blessed be Your Name
Blessed be Your Name, on the road marked with suffering/ Though there’s pain in the offering/ Blessed be Your Name
You give and take away/ You give and take away/ My heart will choose to say, LORD BLESSED BE YOUR NAME
This year during the holidays, I pray that I can joyfully give thanks, heartily sing praises to the Lord, and recognize the blessing of the Lord – not what He has done or given me, but just the blessing of who He is.
And I think we’ll put up the Christmas tree this weekend!
Sometimes you can hear God speaking directly to you
For those of you who did not have the privilege of hearing the sermon this morning at Chapel Rock by Danny Smith, please allow me to give you a few of the highlights and talk about the ways it spoke powerfully to my heart. Danny, if you’re reading this, I hope I do it a little bit of justice, but I’m quite sure that I can’t deliver it as effectively as you did!
He spoke on the story of Lazarus in John 11. Through this story, he addressed questions we ask of God when we are praying for Him to act in a certain way in our lives. The first question is our questioning of God when it seems that He is inattentive. In verse 6, Jesus is told that his dear friend Lazarus is sick, but the scripture reads “so when He heart that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.” What? How do you think Mary & Martha would have felt if they knew at that moment what Jesus’s reaction was to this tragic news and their plea for help? I really think I know how they felt. For the past 8 years I have begged, prayed, bargained with God for the opportunity to have a child. I know He has heard my prayers, but the return silence was deafening. Just like Mary & Martha were sitting by their brother’s bed wondering if their Lord was going to show up, I cried out to the Lord numerous times & wondered when He was going to show up. But then there’s verse 15 that I don’t remember picking up on before. Jesus has heard that Lazarus has in fact died, so he says plainly to his disciples, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe.” Wow. OK God, I see. The glory of God is so much more complex than just having the pieces fall into place in our lives. When God acts in the timing that is perfect for the furthering of His Kingdom, His glory is revealed in a way that would not be revealed in our timing! I hated the wait, the heartbreak, the sorrow of the past 8 years, but today I can see God’s glory in a way that is far beyond what I would have seen had I not had to rely on my faith & hope in Him while I waited. Danny also referenced verses 9 & 10 and made a statement that I wrote down. ”When we act in faith, we can grab a hold of a light that we never grabbed a hold of before and walk down a path we’ve never been down before.” Looking back over the past year, we have definitely been down a path of dependence that I would never have imagined for myself!
The second struggle is when it seems that God is being uncooperative. After Lazarus had been dead for 4 days, Jesus arrived in Bethany. Mary was kind of ticked off so she stayed home, and Martha went out to see Him. She was also kind of ticked off & said “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Now, I’m imagining myself in her shoes, so I might be interpreting it through that lens, but I can imagine her saying that in a not-so-nice tone of voice. I know I’ve been there. God, you have the ability to create life. You allow the crack-addicted prostitutes to get pregnant, knowing they are just going to abort the baby. Even our screwed up reproductive systems are not beyond your reach. You’re surrounding me with people who are reproducing like rabbits. But yet, after we poured all of our resources into treatments and begged you for a baby, you did not intervene to make sure the procedure worked. If You had been here, we wouldn’t be in this heartbreak! Yeah, I had those thoughts. And I said them very plainly to God in a not-so-nice tone of voice, which is why I imagine Martha having that same attitude. (truth is that she was probably much more mature than me & was actually more respectful!). But Martha was just holding on to one little puzzle piece of a much bigger picture and couldn’t see how her tragedy fit into it. In verse 40, Jesus says to her “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” I know that to be true, but when your puzzle piece is so small & the sorrow involved in it is so big, it seems impossible to hold on to that faith strongly enough to believe in His glory in the midst of it. Today, I can see the glory of God that has been revealed to all of through His Church & through months of answered prayers. But a year ago, when things seemed hopeless & bleak, it took a tremendous amount of faith to continue to hold onto Him.
The final point (and we all know that sermons must have 3 points! ) is the struggle we experience when it seems that God is late. Obviously, it made the most sense to Mary & Martha for Jesus to show up while Lazarus was sick, so He could heal him. Doesn’t that make sense to you? Why wait (purposely) until he is already dead? I mean seriously Jesus, you could have saved Mary & Martha from tons of despair, heartbreak & sorrow if you had just come when they called for you. And healing the sick is pretty impressive, so I’m sure your glory could have been shown that way too. Don’t you care about their feelings for crying out loud? Yep, I felt that way too. Why couldn’t You show up after just a couple of years of infertility? I would have been thankful & praised you for that gift! Why wait so long?? When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He did something that had never been done. The people of that time were used to healers & had even seen Jesus heal the sick. So even though it would have been cool, it would have been nothing compared to the way He ultimately worked. Do you realize that in 4 months time this year, God provided almost $20,000 for us!! That’s a stinkin’ ton of money!! There is no way that Scott & I could have come up with that money on our own. It took complete dependence on God for that to happen. And you are witness to it. So is everyone around me. People hear this story & marvel. Even my doctor sat with his mouth dropped open as I recounted the story to him. Talk about God’s glory being revealed in a mighty way! Would I have planned to be pregnant at age 35? No. Would have I asked to go through 8 years of pain to get here? Heck no. But seeing God’s glory on display and knowing my faith has been tested & deepened, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Thank you God for the timeless truth of Your Word. Thank you for the perfection of Your timing. Thank you for revealing using such imperfect unworthy beings to reveal Your GLORY! And thank you Danny for allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through you today.
WE’RE EXPECTING!!
Yes, it’s true. We found out on Friday that the IVF treatment worked, and I am in fact PREGNANT!! :)
The biggest question that everyone has at this point….is it 1 or 2? We don’t know yet. We have an ultrasound in 2 weeks where we’ll be able to hear the heartbeat & be able to see how many are in there. Of course, as Scott keeps reminding me, there’s always the possibility that both embryos could split, giving us 4! (Dear God, please make it 2 )
I am so overwhelmed with emotion right now that I’m not sure if I can write this all out in a way that will make any sense. A few weeks ago, Scott compared finding out we’re pregnant to winning the lottery. To us, it was one of those things that you know actually happens to people, you know it could theoretically happen to you, it would be really cool if it did happen, but deep down inside you don’t really believe that it ever will. After 8 years of trying & being disappointed, that’s the point we had come to. So this news is so unbelievable that we’re having a hard time making it real in our heads.
The main thing we feel right now is an overwhelming joy. Not the giddy happiness we all felt when the Colts won the Superbowl or even the true happiness I feel around the holidays with my family & friends. This is a deep-rooted, peaceful joy that comes from knowing that I am experiencing a direct answer to the prayers of hundreds of saints around me. It’s a joy that comes from knowing that God has taken me through the valley, provided His people to walk the path with me, and is now allowing me to experience His miracle from the mountaintop. It’s a joy in knowing that we came through this trial of our lives with a greater faith, a stronger marriage, a deeper knowledge of Christ, and stronger relationships with the people around us. And of course, it’s a joy in knowing that I now have a life growing inside of me – one that has been given by God and is the product of us.
Psalm 30
I will exalt you, LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
2 LORD my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
3 You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.
4 Sing the praises of the LORD, you his faithful people;
praise his holy name.
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
6 When I felt secure, I said,
“I will never be shaken.”
7 LORD, when you favored me,
you made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.
8 To you, LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:
9 “What is gained if I am silenced,
if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?
10 Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me;
LORD, be my help.”
11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
12 that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.
LORD my God, I will praise you forever.
They’re in
Sorry it took me so long to post today. I got home around noon & the valium they gave me kicked in & I’ve been asleep for 4 hours! Sheesh, if nothing else, this process is going to force me to catch up on some sleep!
The procedure this morning was very short, sweet, & to the point, as it only took about 15 minutes. They place the embryos in fluid in a catheter & use ultrasound to place them in the optimum location in my uterus. They grade the embryos on a scale of 0-4 based on their quality & viability, and mine were a grade 2. Very few ever get a grade of 4, and the highest percentage of embryos they put in are a grade 2 or 3, so mine are “average.” I spoke to the biologist & she said she was very happy with them & felt optimistic. I asked the doctor what he thought & he said “I’ve been doing this long enough to know to keep my mouth shut about predictions & let the Lord do what He does best.” :)
So most of you are asking, what happens next? Now comes the worst wait of all. Over the next few days, the embryos must embed themselves into the lining of my uterus (yes, you may pray for my uterus now) in order for this to be successful. We will return to the doctor in 2 weeks for a pregnancy test to determine if it’s successful. So in addition to praying for my uterine lining, please also pray for peace!
After having gone through this 2 years ago, it’s impossible to not compare this time to last time. Last time I had my transfer, I cried the entire day because I knew in my heart that it didn’t work. I’ve blogged about that day, so I won’t rehash it, but there was something about it that made me know. Today I don’t feel that way. I’m not sure if I feel that it DID work, but I feel a peace in knowing that it is in God’s hands. I told the doctor that there were about 100 people praying for us & him at that moment, and I know that that knowledge made all the difference. Since the day we started fundraising for this, every time something got me down or I felt that things weren’t going as they were supposed to, God showed up & blew me away with his provision & goodness. So I am resting in the knowledge that He loves us & wants the best for our family. I also stand strong on His promises to hear the prayers of His Church. And His Church has been more than faithful to us & to Him.
We ask for a little more privacy during this time than we have previously asked for. I have no problem being open about the process, but this is a very difficult 2 weeks. Here are some questions that were asked last time that I would prefer not to hear:
“Do you feel pregnant?” I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant.
“Have you started thinking about baby names?” No, please let me take this one step at a time.
“Have you heard anything from the doctor?” No, there’s no reason to go back until the pregnancy test.
“Why don’t you just take a home pregnancy test?” Those won’t work for me because I have been given HCG injections, which is what the home tests test for, so I would get a false result.
So overall, please don’t be offended if I tend to stick to subjects other than my ovaries & uterus. There isn’t a moment that goes by that it’s not on my mind, so I need to work on distracting myself a little to help pass the time & maintain my sanity. The other thing we ask for is that you allow us to announce the results (either way) in our own time. There is a special moment that exists for couples when they are the only 2 people who know about this new life & they get the excitement of announcing it to their family & friends. We are in a unique position because we have been so public with this, so this is the one thing that we want to keep for ourselves. If you call, text, email, or FB message me 2 weeks from today to ask, I will probably simply not respond. I’m not being mean or rude, I’m just preserving some privacy for Scott & I. And if it’s negative, we will need some time to process that information together before making it public. But trust me, we will not hold on to the information for long!
Last, but certainly not least, we want you to come out to our CELEBRATION PARTY this Saturday night as we spend some time worshiping, sharing testimonies from people involved in this process, praying & eating! There will also be a hayride for the kids (and adults). All of the food will be provided, so come hungry! We are going to the Reitzel farm at 4:30 this Saturday, October 29th. The address is 2214 W. Co. Rd. 1000 S. Clayton, IN 46118. Please let me know if you plan to attend so we have enough food for everyone. We are so excited about sharing our stories with you all & glorifying the Lord!
In all things, Glory to God.
Today!!
I just got a call from the biologist at the lab & she said that we have 2 embryos that are looking good & ready to go, so they are doing the transfer today at 10:00. We have one other one that is looking a little sluggish & 1 that isn’t looking good at all. If either or both of those look OK by Wednesday, they’ll freeze them, but we are going forward with the 2 good ones we have.
So we’re heading out in a few minutes to get up there. It’s a very short procedure, so I’ll be home by noon & resting for a few days (as if I haven’t done enough of that lately!). Please pray for successful implantation today!
Now God’s just showing off
I got a call from the biologist this morning saying that 4 out of the 5 eggs fertilized! She was even pretty surprised as she was telling me about it because that is an unusually high percentage of successful fertilization. I guess God knew what He was doing!
Now they watch them over the weekend & will decide on Monday morning if they are going to do the transfer Monday or Wednesday. So again, we wait & pray. Now we’re praying for them to develop.
I am doing well, just sore & tired. I took some pain medication last night & took Phenrgan with it, which is an anti-nausea but also has a sedative effect to it. Turns out I’m pretty sensitive to the medication because I slept from 9:30 last night until noon today!! So to those of you who have asked if I’ve been resting…Yes.
Loaves & Fish….but with eggs this time
I just got home about 1/2 hour ago from my egg retrieval procedure. As I mentioned in my last post, we only had 3 good follicles & the rest were little guys that they didn’t think would mature enough to produce eggs, which means the most I expected to get today was 3 (and that was being pretty optimistic!). So I asked for prayers for egg development. Well, God blessed us by creating 5 eggs!! Yep, some of those little runts perked up & had eggs in them! Man, this focused prayer really works!
I am admittedly reserved with my optimism because I feel the need to guard my heart & emotions after the heartbreak of our last IVF procedure. But somehow I managed to give this to God this week & experience a peace that I haven’t felt in a long time. This morning before we left, Scott & I thanked God for where He has brought us to up to this point & laid all of today’s events in His hands. And he took what the doctors thought was barely enough to work with & created even more! For those of you doing some egg-praying, THANK YOU!!
But our prayer needs don’t stop yet. The little suckers are being fertilized as I am typing this. Now the sperm has to connect with the yolk (not sure the correct term but that’s what I call it) of my eggs. Then they need to replicate & grow into the blastocyst stage while in the lab. So that’s where our prayer focus needs to be now.
The nurse will call me in the morning with a report of how many eggs fertilized, then they will contact me Sunday with a report of their growth. The embryo transfer – where they implant them into my uterus – will happen either Monday or Wednesday, depending on the status of the embryos. That decision will be made by the biologist on Monday morning. So now we wait. And pray. Oh, and for those of you who are having nightmarish thoughts of me giving birth to 5 babies since I have 5 embryos…no that is not how this works! I have no plans to be like the Octomom (or even a Pentomom). They will transfer the 2 best embryos, and freeze any others there may be.
As for me, the procedure went well. I was sedated for about 30 minutes with no problems. I am pretty sore & tired, but I have some good drugs for that! I’ll be laying around the house all weekend, with strict instructions to take it as easy as possible. I hate daytime TV, so if anyone needs any updates from SportsCenter, I would be a great resource for the next few days!
Thanks again for your thoughts, prayers & encouragement!
Moving forward – keep the prayers coming!
Well, a lot has happened since my last update! I went back to the doctor this morning for another ultrasound, and felt pretty discouraged by the time I left. I currently have 3 follicles that have grown & matured to the optimal stage, but the rest of my follicles have stalled out. I discussed it at length with my doctor, and we decided to go forward with the procedure, even though the overall circumstances aren’t the best, since they expect 10-15 follicles at this point. They will retrieve what they can from those 3 follicles & hope for the best.
I keep reminding myself that it’s all about quality not quantity! Last time I did this, I had 22 follicles, but ended up with only 2 embryos, and neither of those were very good. So it’s possible that there’s 3 really good eggs in there that will fertilize really well. Of course it’s also possible that none of those follicles have mature eggs in them, but we won’t know that until the actual procedure. This is where my anxiety kicks in & I have to pray a lot for peace, hope, & submission to God’s will.
So I will go in this Friday morning at 8:15 for the egg retrieval. I will be put under with IV sedation, then will be on pain medication & bedrest most of the weekend. They will fertilize that afternoon, watch them for a few days, and If they have ifertilized eggs, I will go back either Monday or Wednesday of next week for the embryo transfer.
So here’s where I need your prayers. Please pray between now & Friday morning that my eggs mature! I know, it’s pretty unusual to pray for eggs, but that’s what we need right now! Then on Friday, pray for successful fertilization. I would also like prayers for the actual procedure since I’ve never been sedated before! I will definitely update this as I have more information.
I can’t thank you all enough for all of your prayers, encouragement & help. I have never before felt the presence of the Lord & His church in the way I’ve felt it in recent months. Your prayers hold us up & hold us together!
