Finding a doctor...

Hi, everybody! Well, this morning a big load was taken off my mind. I've been hunting for an OB here, and I've been worrying that I wouldn't find the right person, wouldn't be able to get in with them for months, would be halfway through my pregnancy without seeing a doctor again, etc. I know some of these fears are irrational, but I was worried. It's tough when you don't have anybody you know that can recommend a doctor to you. What hospitals are good? How are you supposed to know? I've been praying about this for a littlle while now, and it looks like I got this answer to prayer! We'd asked around our new church for recommendations, and we found out what hospitals in the area are good for women's care, good NICU, etc. Unfortunately, it was looking a little more tricky to find a doctor. Some kind and thoughful women at our new church referred me to a doctor, but his more natural approach to childbirth is something that doesn't appeal to me right now with my history of infertility and miscarriage. At this point, I want a hospital with the most state of the art equipment available, a NICU on call if my child even looks funny when it comes out, and ultrasounds available if the baby stops moving for two minutes. =) I know that the success of this pregnancy isn't up to me, it's God's decision, but it makes me feel better to have a medical team on standby. After we got that referral, David remembered a friend from DC clerkship days who still lives in this area and whose wife has been pregnant here. This guy was so enthusiastic about their OB that he called us five minutes after David sent the email to recommend this practice. He said they'd used 3 other OBs who hadn't even come close to being as good as this practice. They had also experienced the heartbreak of miscarriage, and he said that their doctor gave them extra ultrasounds and wonderful treatment when they were worried along the way. It sounds like they have our concerns and our outlook on things right now, so they were the perfect people to get a referral from. I called to make an appointment, and I was really impressed with the receptionist. My appointment is only a couple of weeks away, but she assured me twice without being asked that if anything happened before then, I should call right away, and they would fit me in. It felt like being with my clinic in Birmingham. I almost cried with relief. I'm praying that this place is the perfect doctor's office for us, and at this point, I'm thrilled to have an appointment scheduled. Thank you to everyone who's been praying for me to find a doctor.

More pictures of our apartment...

Ok, here are more pictures. The lovely view is what we see out of our living room window. When the sun is shining and there are nice fluffy clouds, its especially nice. The kitchen looks small, but it has two doorways, so it feels open. I actually have a lot more cabinet space than I did in our last apartment, though I did lose counter space. I love cooking with gas. I've missed it, and now I have it again. Everything is very newly renovated and clean. I didn't take pictures of our big walk-in closet or the loo, but they're nice, too. We do have a lot of storage space, and that's great. I like this apartment. I wouldn't want to be throwing too many dinner parties for 30 here, but it can accomodate smaller groups with no problem. =) The couch is a sofa bed, for those of you who are planning a visit. We put in extra towel racks for you, too! I thought I would miss my washer and dryer, and I do a little bit, but we have had some big loads of laundry because of moving and vacation, and I have really enjoyed doing 5 loads at one time in the basement laundry room. There are about 25 washers and dryers down there. It's also nice that we just go around the corner from the elevator to empty the trash. Trash chutes are lovely. By far, the best thing about the apartment is it's excellent location. You take 395 to get here, and right before our exit coming from the south, you turn a bend and see the Washington Monument and the Potomac River. You also see the Pentagon, since we're about 2 miles from it, if that. Our apartment is right across from the Pentagon City Mall and Metro stop. We literally cross the street, and we're at the Metro. This is very important for David's commuting time to and from work, and its the main reason we feel very fortunate to have been able to get in here. It's also nice to be able to cross the street and go to the drug store or World Market or a ton of other stores. I'm going to have to resist temptation. I've never lived this close to a mall before. I know this has been rambling, but I did want to give you a peek into city living. It's a very different world from suburbia. =)

High-rise living

Hey, everyone. I thought I'd post some pictures of our new place. This is the living room/dining room. It's kind of long, so the way we laid it out seemed like the best use of space. I'm taking the picture from the little hallway that comes from our front door. That hallway has a large closet with two high shelves. The computer desk and the entertainment center are on one wall (since that's where the cable connection is. Great windows, huh!

David and Ellen and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good, Very Bad Move

Ok, so maybe it wasn't that bad. But it was close. =) I can say that with a bit of perspective since I am sitting here in my unpacked living room with my newly installed cable internet connection and my single allotted 12 oz. soda for the week sitting next to me. This move was definitely a test of endurance and our ability to let go of personal control over things and circumstances. It all started when we rolled out of Birmingham on Saturday, June 10. We had professional movers to load all our things onto the U-Haul truck in Birmingham (thanks to the generous contribution of Bill and Diana, David's parents), and that went great. I didn't do a whole lot to pack thanks to the tireless efforts of my wonderful mother. She wanted to keep Peanut safe, so she didn't want me doing much. So I just sat back and felt guilty. =) So that part went just fine. All of our problems started and ended really with U-Haul of Vestavia Hills. Birmingham friends and family, if you're thinking of using them for anything, please think again. Incompetence seems to be a hallmark of the organization from management on down. We rented a tow dolly to pull our Camry with the U-Haul, and though we loaded the car on it and attached it to the truck at the U-Haul center, we had to take it off in our apartment parking lot to load the truck with our things. When we went to reattach it to the U-Haul truck, the hitch wasn't connecting well with the ball. The professional movers tried to fix it with no luck, and we kept working with it. Then we called the U-Haul center, and their answer was, "Just fiddle with it. Sometimes they get jammed." So we did, and we thought we finally had it fixed. At that point, David, Mom, and the cat headed out to drive to NC, and I went to Bill and Diana's to stay and wait for my flight to DC on Monday morning. I got a call as soon as I got there. David and Mom hadn't made it a mile down the road before a kind motorist flagged them over because the Camry was weaving. Sure enough, the dolly came loose from the hitch. All that was holding it on the truck were the chains. It began weaving, and as a result, the tow dolly banged against the sides of the car, bashing one side in pretty good. Since it hit on the door, we estimate several thousand dollars in cosmetic damage. Thank God for comprehensive insurance, but those rates are going up for sure now. Fortunately, its still drivable. The dolly was broken in the process. U-Haul sent a tow truck for the car and dolly, and David drove the truck back to the U-Haul center. He then proceeded to wait more than four hours for the manager to fix the paperwork to reflect that we no longer had a tow dolly, but now had a new auto transport dolly to haul the car with. This time also included the time it took to put the car on the new system. Most of the extra time seems to have been taken up with the manager disappearing into the back for long periods of time. David is sure he had a pool table back there. During this time, the well intentioned, but inexperienced tow truck driver was trying to figure out how to get the Camry off his truck. He had loaded it on with the dolly still attached, and he couldn't figure out how to get it off. When he did finally get it off, he pulled our front bumper up, scratching it in the process. Poor David. He had to witness all this. Finally, Mom, David, and Kitty left for NC, staying in a hotel that night outside of Atlanta. Once they got to NC, they headed to the storage unit that we'd rented a few miles from my parent's house. The plan was to unload storage things on Sunday and leave Monday morning in time to pick me up at the airport and get to the apartment complex in time to sign paperwork before closing. So on Sunday, David went to the storage unit to find that there was no one there. He had the gate code and what he thought was the storage unit number. But when he got to the unit, it had a lock on it. Since we'd paid for a lock, he figured it was ours. Nobody answered the emergency numbers he called, so he took matters into his own hands. It took three men and a pair of bolt cutters, but he got the door open, only to find that someone else's stuff was in there. There was nothing to be done but wait until Monday morning, messing up the scheduling for picking me up. Fortunately, the storage unit people were very understanding, and we didn't even have to pay for the lock. David called me, and we concocted a new plan. The new plan involved me getting off the plane, taking a bus to the Metro, riding the Metro to our new place in Virginia, and then calling a taxi to take me to the hotel. It was an exhausting day, but I made it there before they did with time to rest. The next day, Tuesday, went smoothly, with movers to unload everything. Mom and Dad followed David up in the minivan to help us unpack everything. Things seemed to have calmed down, until David and Dad took the truck to the U-Haul drop off point. When David handed the man there his paperwork, he said, "How did you drive so many miles over?" David thought, "Hey, maybe 20 miles over the limit for all the little trips back and forth to storage." But the man said, "This says that you drove 3,000 miles over your allotted 874 miles." This is flatly impossible. We would've had to have driven 4,000 miles in 3 days. Vestavia U-Haul had improperly recorded the starting mileage, since the ending mileage was correct. The man had no choice but to charge us $1,400 dollars for the extra miles! That's far more than we paid to rent it in the first place. Also, the manager at Vestavia U-Haul hadn't properly recorded the tow dolly situation during those four hours with our paperwork, so it was showing that we had two tow dollys! As you can imagine, we were pretty upset at this point. It got worse when the national U-Haul hotline wanted us to work it out with the manager at Vestavia U-Haul. After 4 hours and 8 phone calls to him, with him being "busy," "there," and then after being on hold for 8 minutes, "not there," we gave up. He still hasn't returned those messages. Big surprise. We finally got ahold of the right person at national U-Haul, and our money has been refunded and the tow dolly situation rectified. Praise the Lord for that. Factor in a cell phone that just quit working with no warning, a phone that hadn't been hooked up yet because our apartment complex disconnected it for painting, and a car that smells like garlic because we got a bad jar on a grocery run, and you have two frazzled people. During all this and the vacation that followed it, I decided to read a biography of George Muller. He was a late 19th century minister who decided that God had led him to rely only on Him to supply all his physical needs. He did not tell anyone what he needed, even if they asked him directly. He only told the Lord what He needed. And God always provided, not a minute too late, and sometimes not a minute early. His life was an amazing testimony to God's provision. He housed and taught thousands of orphans, and all of their needs were supplied this way, because Muller believed that God will not leave His children who are serving Him to go hungry. These last days have been a challenge to me to believe that God is going to take care of us, even if we meet expensive accidents and fees that we didn't plan for. This life and this adventure is not of our making. We are not in the driver's seat. That has been made abundantly clear to me again and again in the past weeeks. When things are stable, Christians sometimes have the illusion that they control their own lives. When life becomes chaotic, the illusion doesn't hold anymore. Maybe its better to lose the illusion, no matter how uncomfortable that is. At least then we know to go straight to the source of all ultimate comfort and security. I'll write more later about how we're doing now, but I thought I'd give you the story of the journey first.

And yet another adventure...

This may be my last post for a little while. I'm sitting here, completely surrounded by boxes, wondering how I'm going to get out of this room. The computer is going bye-bye for several weeks, depending upon how quickly we get internet service again. My dad always said, "Don't do too many major life things at one time: moving, getting married, having children, changing jobs, etc." I love you, Daddy. Sorry I can't take your advice this time. =) God seems to have other plans for us, and His plans for us must not include quiet and calm and serenity right now. =) The movers are coming to load our U-Haul tomorrow morning, and we're off to another adventure at our new home in Arlington, VA. My mom is my hero. She's been here for a week, singlehandedly packing our entire apartment with a smile on her face. I haven't been much help. I've been afraid to get too tired out because of how early I am in the pregnancy, so I sit around feeling guilty instead. Oh well, I'll never be able to repay her for everything anyway. Just add on to my tab. But I did take her to see her new grandchild! I had my last ultrasound at my clinic this morning, and I thanked the doctors and nurses for all their good care over the past year. This was my last chance to see Peanut one more time before I change doctors. (By the way, if any of you can recommend a good obgyn and hospital in northern Virginia, please let me know.) He/she's just beautiful, and that little heartbeat was comfortingly as strong as ever. I found out that once they see a heartbeat, the chance of miscarriage goes down dramatically to less than 10%. I know that nothing is certain, but sometimes statistics do make me feel better, and this was one of those times. Things are going really well with my hormone levels, and the doctor told me that I'm not considered a high risk pregnancy now. Praise the Lord! David and I have been loved on a lot this week. If we ever had any doubts that we have been appreciated in Alabama, those are gone. I got to go to David's last work Bible study, and I was amazed by the love and prayers that have reached out to us over these years. My friend, Melanie, even wrote a song for us and played it on her guitar! Thank you to each of you who have made our time in Alabama so special. Your prayers and support have made all the difference in our lives. We are humbled over and over again by the unselfish agape of the family of God. We won't forget you. That would be impossible to do. There are going to be challenges ahead, and we continue to ask for your prayers. And we know that you'll lift us up to the Father just as you've always done. You have made Birmingham truly "sweet home Alabama" to us. Roll Tide (sorry Auburn fans)! =) We love you.