The cavalry has arrived...

Ok, we can breathe now. We have reinforcements. My parents showed up last night, and Vance and Terri and kiddies flew in from MN. They'll be arriving here in about 10 minutes. Mom and Dad came last night with a trailer load of furniture I haven't seen in awhile. I'm looking forward to being able to use it in our new place.

The paint is coming well. I'm very glad that we didn't attempt to do this ourselves. We've had two-three professional painters working full time on our house since last Wednesday afternoon. And they're still not done. I'm just hoping they finish before midnight on Friday. =)

The cavalry brought food. A gigantic cooler load of food to be exact. My mom doesn't believe in McDonalds, so we'll be eatin' better around here for this move than we already do. Seth was inspired to learn the word "soup" after eating a bowl of her amazing beef and vegetable last night. She also made homemade whole wheat bread. Three loaves. One of which rose in the car on the way here, and she baked in my kitchen so it smelled like fresh bread when we walked in the door. Mmmmm.

Side note: In case I haven't mentioned it before, my mother is an amazing cook. But she cheats. See, I can make the exact same recipes she does, but they never turn out the same because I'm buying my ingredients from the store. She gets hers straight from her acre of garden. Every summer, my parents can fresh tomatos, can fresh green beans, and freeze sweet corn, so whatever I ate last night had nothing but fresh produce in it. You can't duplicate that unless you've got the original ingredients. Grrrrrrrr...

And now I need to finish my cereal, get my baby up, and start doing some productive. Please pray for us. David has a "moving cold". His dad used to always get them whenever they moved in the military. It's kind of a family joke. Well, I don't think its funny at the moment. It's cold out there, and he's running like a leaking faucet. Poor guy.

A look at our days these days...

Monday, 7:00 a.m.: Pull sad little carcass out of warm sheets. Shower and get baby ready to go to babysitter's house.

8:30 a.m.- leave happy baby with babysitter, make frantic cell phone calls to fertility clinic trying to get medical records I had forgotten about transferring until I was in the shower that morning faxed over to obstetrician.

9:10 a.m.- sign medical release form for records at fertility clinic, wait impatiently while every printer in their office refuses to print, then rush over to dr.'s office after extracting a promise that they will fax them over ASAP.

9:30-11:45 a.m.- the longest dr's appt. ever, involving bloodwork, going over info with nurses and a dr., a flu shot, begging some peanut butter crackers off a lab tech, and an ultrasound. Highlight of the day: seeing 9-week-old Baby B. kicking his little feet at me.

11:45 a.m.- rush back to friend's house to get Seth, take over her kitchen and make myself some lunch, then rush over to new house to let in the guy that is coming to look at the tiny spot of mildew we discovered by the window while friends were putting up crown moulding. Discover after I get there that David has taken my house keys out of my diaper bag.

1:10-1:20 p.m.- Speed like a crazy person back to old house with cranky, nap deprived baby. Get keys, come back, and have mold guy tell me that I should cut a 6 inch square out of my drywall, despite the fact that he can't find any difference between the moisture content there and the moisture content anywhere else in the wall. Shows me under the house, where he says I have a mold problem on my insulated pipes.

1:20 p.m.- Curse the name of the mold guy, who I instantly disliked upon arrival because his hair was shaggy. Call David to tell him that the mold guy had been smoking crack. Ask him to call our home inspector, who never said a word to us about mold. Put baby down for nap. Put myself down for nap.

5:00 p.m.- Wake up baby, feed him, and throw him in the car to go to the grocery store. Grocery shop for the week. Get home and start dinner right before David walks in door. Fling cranky, super clingy, teething, coughing baby at him. Allow him to unload all groceries other than the ones I am currently using for dinner.

6:30 p.m.- Finish dinner, get in car for our 5,387th trip to Lowes. Watch baby say "Yay!" and clap his hands as we enter Lowes. Follow him around, trying to keep him from sticking a metal paint can opener in his eye. Pick two new paint colors, as the old ones looked weird on the wall. Take paint by the new house. (Discover today that I need another brown because the new one is now too dark.)

9:00 p.m.- Put baby to bed after a late bath. Clean up kitchen and do dishes. Sit in mildly catatonic state while husband makes his lunch. Pick clean underwear and socks out of pile of clean laundry that is sitting in the middle of the living room floor. Go to bed. Sleep fitfully and dream about drywall.

Sooo tired...

I'm tired. And I'm tired of being tired. And of feeling displaced among my boxes. But we're making progress. And it'll all be over on Monday. But, man, who knew it would be so much work to move into your own house instead of a rental? Not me...

Anyhoo, I ran across this new blog, and the writer had written an interesting, and quite convicting prayer. Here it is, not in its entirety, from me to you...

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us – sinners all.

We confess that you are rarely what we most desire, though your desire for us led you to a cross atop Golgotha. We want cleaner homes, better clothes, spouses more attentive to our needs. We want children who will sit still in church, and hymns that suit our tastes. We want our pastors to speak to our needs, rather than lead us in worshipping you. We want the driver in front of us to go faster, and the one behind us to slow down. We want jobs we enjoy, and family who won’t ask us for money.

Sometimes we want more righteousness, or more personal purity, or a better prayer life. We seek religious virtue, Lord, but we do not seek your Cross. We are afraid of what you will ask of us should we seek that Cross, and so we make you smaller and tamer. We make you an intellectual puzzle, or an emotional experience. You are an all-consuming Fire, and we have turned you into a Bic lighter.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.
Forgive us that we approach your Holy Word like we already understand you.
Forgive us that we pray when it’s convenient, that we talk too much and listen too little.
Forgive us when we seek the company of those who please us, rather than those who need us.
Forgive us that we have sullied your name by attaching it to political ideologies and national pride.

Forgive us when we hold ourselves above our brothers and sisters because they are Baptists, or Catholics, or Orthodox; because their children are in public schools; because they do trick-or-treat or they don’t trick-or-treat or because they only pass out those butterscotch candies that nobody really likes.

Forgive us that we see unrighteousness everywhere but in our own mirrors.

Oh Lord, we are a country founded in rebellion, and we have fallen into grave sin. We have made greed a virtue. We have borrowed until there is no grain left in the storehouse, and now we throw the costs onto our children and grandchildren. We have cultivated a hyper-sexualized culture. We allow our children to reach their teens without knowing how to behave like men and women. We have sanctioned the murder of millions of unborn children.

Amidst all this, we have the gall to proclaim this God’s most favored nation. We boast, oh Lord, when we should tremble.

If you, oh Lord, would count our iniquities against us, who could stand? We are shot through with sin, as a nation, a city, a church, as individuals. But you are faithful where we are faithless, and you have promised that when we confess, and repent, and lay hold of your Cross, that you will cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

So we praise you, Lord. Thine, oh Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and the earth is Thine. Thine, oh Lord, is the kingdom, and Thou art exalted above all.

We praise you and we beg your mercy, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen."

Go to Sand in the Gears for more...

State Fair...

Yeah, I know. Today we were supposed to be packing all day, but since it was David's official off Friday, and since we can't get much done with Seth in the morning, and since the State Fair is in town, well... we went. =) We found free parking!, and Seth got to pet the living, breathing animals he's been talking about and making noises of for weeks now. He got to pet a real, live baby duck! And a really nice farmer let him pet a cow for as long as he wanted. He grinned, and he kept mooing. It was very, very cute. Considering how into animals he is right now, this was the best opportunity I could think of for letting him see and touch the real deal.

And then things degenerated. We walked through the midway. All we could smell was the sweet scent of fried oil. We were getting hungry. And then we saw it. The booth where they deep fry everything. I succumbed to temptation first. There is, indeed, nothing like a deep fried Milky Way. The candy bar itself melts, and it's on a stick, covered with cake batter. And since I was having a deep fried something, David couldn't stand it. He ordered a bloomin' onion.

The picture above is of a family who has allowed its child to fall into sin with them. =) And that picture makes me laugh. A lot. Check out the wide open little piehole on the munchkin.

Imagine that he keeps saying, "Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck!" over and over again. Then you get the flavor of this experience.

Another linky...

I thought about not posting this, as I don't want another barrage of comments on the same topic, but this article made so many of the same arguments that I did earlier, except much more coherently, that I decided to do so. So go here if ya want, and don't if you don't. And if you want to comment, Randy Alcorn has a great comment section there.

Makin' lemonade...

Thanks for your support, guys, especially Meredith. I am feeling better today. I went over to the house this morning to let in one of our deacons, Steve, who was helping us with a couple of projects. It's a pretty, sunny day, which always helps my mood, and there were about 6 fat robins trying to drown out the traffic noise I find so objectionable. (That's my problem with the house.)

I think I've decided that cold weather makes noise travel better, and that's why it seems so much worse than when we bought the house in the summer. So Seth and I walked around the backyard, and I tuned my ears to focus on the wind in the trees and the birds singing. It helped. It also helped that Steve has to put up with it, too, and he lives in a slightly more expensive neighborhood right down the road. Maybe its nice to know that you're not alone.

But I thought I'd tell a little story today about a car wreck and what came from it. On Monday, on his way home from work, David got into an accident. A lady in the lane next to him decided that she would like to be in his lane, so she hit him hard on the passenger side. She admitted total fault, and he is fine. But... we have thousands of dollars in damage to David's car, and the body shop won't get it back to us for a few weeks. Our insurance does cover a rental car.

Problem. Because of the High Point furniture market, Raleigh was all out of rental cars. When we got to Enterprise on Tuesday morning, that's what we were told. Well...there was one other option. There were two cargo vans sitting on the lot. David, in a hurry to get to work, said he'd take it. A couple of hours later, he called me.

"This thing is HUGE! We could load it full of boxes. I even think we could get the crown moulding in here."

Last night saw my suit-wearing, lawyer husband loading 12 ft. crown moulding into the back of a cargo van. It was very funny. He was a total imposter around the other cargo vans and their owners, who actually do use their hands for something other than pushing papers. But... the crown moulding fit perfectly! We're hoping we get to keep the van for awhile longer. =) How's that for making lemonade out of some lemons?

I told him that tonight we're going to start ripping stereos out of cars, and we have to kidnap at least one person. You gotta get your money's worth...

Keys...

And this is what we did this morning.... Imagine that my hand is the one on the bottom, waiting to receive said shiny things that open doors. It's over. We're homeowners. And I'm started to get a little bit excited. And that's big for me, actually.

For the last week or so, I've been battling buyer's remorse. There. I said it. There have been days when I've been sorry that I ever said "yes" to this house. Not because this house is a bad deal or ugly or doesn't have the things that will be best for our family in the coming years. All of these things get a big, practical, check mark beside them.

The thing I've been struggling with is that I had a certain criteria that was important to me, and I let myself be talked out of sticking to it. And I have been regretting not being true to myself in insisting that it does matter to me, even if it doesn't matter to lots of Americans. It was probably the right thing to be talked out of making the straw that broke the deal's back. I think all clues seem to be pointing to God wanting us in this particular house. But it doesn't mean I haven't been struggling with letting go of a deeply held desire.

David was kind enough to ask me if anything was bothering me or disappointing me about the house decision. If he hadn't asked, I don't think I would've let myself admit the cause of my sadness about leaving this place. Who wants to say to themselves, "I'm moving to my first home, and I don't want to right now." ? At this point in our marriage, we have a system for these kinds of conversations. David lets me talk out things and figure out how and why I feel a certain way by doing so, and he doesn't get angry with me if whatever I'm whining about isn't the end of the world because I admit that I'm spoiled and shouldn't be feeling this way and I know it... but I do, and it will be easier to get over if I can talk it out. It works for us. =)

So now I'm putting on my big girl panties and moving on. I'm thinking about all the great things about this house, and I'm looking forward to watching the wonderful house painter work his magic and turn it into something fresh and bright and new. I'm thinking about the incredible generosity of the friends from Sunday School who will be spending their Saturday putting up crown moulding for us in the living room. And I'm thankful for the mother of the seller, who came in and cleaned the house from top to bottom so that I don't have to. I have a lot of things to be grateful for...

We're going over there tonight to take some measurements before we head to Lowes. I'm praying for a thankful heart. Please pray that I will see only the good and not focus on the less than great. I'm trying...

Political roundup...

I'm a little crazy busy right now throwing out a bunch of my clothes that I'll never have a prayer of wearing again to make room for the maternity clothes that I already seem to need to cover up that "has she been eating too many donuts?" look that I seem to have about, oh, 12 weeks early this time around... =)

But, I have not forgotten you, gentle readers. And so I present this roundup of stuff I have come across lately. An excellent blog post from Sallie, a little somethin' somethin' from Ruthie, and a thoughtful post provided by Luke. Thanks, guys, for providing so much food for thought this political season...

On another note, I listen to NPR. (Ducking and covering). Hey, you gotta know how the other side thinks. And I was listening to the BBC World Service. Their commentators were practically gleeful about the recent mortgage problems. One of them said, and this is almost a direct quote. "We're sure to see more regulation now that looks like what the Americans got after the Enron Scandal. (Insert name of act here) scared off some foreign investors, and that was Britain's gain, because they came here." I think one can find a direct application to Sallie's post from this.

I do not think that Obama is sure to win. I just don't. Those of you who live in blue states have probably given up all hope, but I haven't just yet. Obama is outspending McCain 9-1 because McCain stuck to his promise to take public funding, and Obama decided he didn't need to keep his word on that little ol' promise after all. Despite that, they are tight in the polls. Why is that? I think people are still thinking about this one, and some are really asking themselves, "Who is this guy, and where did he come from?" But regardless of who we get, we're bound to get some socialist policy for the next four years, which is equally certain to hamstring our already struggling economy. Because there isn't anybody in charge up there that has any more sense than my stupid barking neighbors that I will be thrilled to leave behind in two short weeks. =)

Minestrone day...

We had our reinspection this morning over at the new house, and it went well. There were a couple of things to be fixed, but nothing major. And the painter came, and he was confident he'd have plenty of time to paint the place from top to bottom. =)

David clearly didn't want to go back to work afterward. He came home with us to "change clothes," and spent a good, long time reading to Seth. Seth decided he wanted to wear his "hat" (bike helmet) while reading. Very funny. I think it's very sweet when David would rather stay with us than go to the office. I realize even more that its a sacrifice for him to provide for us so we can stay together during the day.

And, it's turned into soup weather here. Rainy, nasty, and coldish. I'm making my favorite soup of all time, and I realized I hadn't shared the recipe on this blog. So here goes!

Minestrone a la Ellen

1 large leek, chopped
2 carrots, cut into coins
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 T. olive oil
12 c. chicken stock (I use Natural Goodness)
1 14.5 oz. diced tomatos
1 t. basil
1 t. ground thyme
pepper to taste
1 can french style green beans
1 can light red kidney beans
1/2-1 c. small pasta shells

Put the leek, carrots, celery, and oil in a large stockpot. Heat to sizzling, cover, and sweat for 12 minutes. Then add broth, seasoning, and tomatos, bring to a boil, and then simmer for 25 minutes. Add all beans and pasta and simmer 10 minutes longer, until pasta is cooked. Serve with shredded cheese. Mmmmm!

Sacrificing to Molech...

* I will be deleting any comments to this post from now on. If you would like to give your opinions about this topic on your own blog, that would be a more appropriate place. This is my blog, and I think that comments on this post are becoming more off topic and unhelpful, and I don't have time to respond to them now, as I am in the middle of a move.*

"The LORD your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, "How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same." You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods."- Deuteronomy 12:29-31

For the last week or so, I've noticed a theme in the things I've been learning in my Bible study. Specifically, the sacrifice of infants to Molech has come up twice in a week. Now, I don't know about you, but that isn't something that comes up often in my Bible study.

In our video lesson this week in Sunday school, the practice of Baal infant sacrifice was explained and dwelt upon. In the Canaanite fertility ritual, Baal died each year in the winter, and in order to get him to return to life in the spring and bless the crops, his worshippers thought they had to mimic his sexual behavior with Asherah. This would encourage him to come back, mate with Asherah, and give them good crops. It was all about doing/sacrificing whatever they thought they had to to get what they needed for the year. Sometimes, the sexual and animal sacrifice wouldn't be enough. They would give their infants to the flames as well.

And I thought about what it means when a culture sacrifices its infants in order to get something it thinks is more important... whatever that is. For the Canaanites, it was a good grain crop. For us, it might be an easier single life or not having to worry about a child placed for adoption.

I've heard a lot said about how evangelicals have "social issue" fatigue. They're tired of dealing with and talking about abortion over and over again. Some among the younger generation think that they should be voting on other important things, like the environment, or the economy. They think, "Well, I don't see that Roe will be overturned in my lifetime. I don't think anything I do will do any good, so I'm moving on to issues I think I can do something about."

When I read what God thinks of cultures that practice infant sacrifice, I am sobered about this mindset once again. There is never a time when it is ok to get tired of taking a stand for innocent human life. And there is never a good time to cast a vote for someone who says that he or she believes that children can be sacrificed for the sake of expediency.

Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion senator in the U.S. Senate. He has taken stands that most other Democrats have not. He wouldn't even support a measure that was identical to one passed by an overwhelming Senate majority that would provide medical care to an aborted baby born alive. He said it would place an undue burden on the mother to make the decision about abortion all over again. This is a living, breathing, human child we're talking about, and he wouldn't act to save it. Go to http://www.bornalivetruth.org/ for more information on that.

We have never seen a major presidential candidate before that was so strongly pro-abortion. And it scares me. I do not want to be a member of a majority culture that says that wrong is right. And I'm afraid that people who do not believe in abortion might vote for this man because they're tired of Republicans and looking for a change.

So I'm putting this out there because God seems to be bringing it to my attention this week, and I don't want to let the moment pass me by. Please, until every child has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, don't get distracted by the other issues. They're important, but none trumps this...

Staying home...

Yesterday, as I left MOPs, a friend called to me, "See you tomorrow!" Pushing through the doors, my heart sank just a bit. I remembered that I am signed up for a free gym play time on Wednesday mornings. And its not that I don't usually like going to it. It's just... we're getting overscheduled.

I knew the sinking feeling meant that it was time to step back and pull us out for a breather. So this morning, we didn't go anywhere or plan anything. It was just me and Seth and a beautiful day.

And since I didn't have anywhere to be at 9:30 a.m., we could slow everything down to a nice amble. When I'm rushed, I don't always let Seth feed himself his morning oatmeal. This morning, I did, and his happy, messy face showed me what he'd been missing.

We went on the porch, and I identified everything to his delighted cries of "Dis! Dis!" for quite awhile. I sipped my morning cocoa, and he enjoyed getting to play on his slide in nothing but a diaper and a t-shirt. There was no quick tugging on of clothes before we had to go, go, go.

We had a ticklefest, we stacked blocks, and we even put away toys together. It was just us. And I'm glad that today, I said "no" to one more thing and one more place to be. It's hard to find the right balance at this age, I think. I don't say "no more" often enough.

A beating heart...

I couldn't find a picture that didn't make Itty Bitty look like an alien, except for this one. This is a baby's hands at 7 weeks. Aren't they adorable?

We went for our first ultrasound this morning. Morning sickness has been kicking my tush a little harder than I would like, so I didn't enjoy the appointment as much as I did with Seth because of the nausea. But... I saw everything I needed to see.

There is, indeed, only one baby. (Heaving significant sigh of relief now.) And this teensy weensy wittle ting has a nice, beating heart! The very efficient doctor at the practice did our ultrasound, so it lasted all of 30 seconds, but there isn't a lot to see on these particular ultrasound machines at this age anyway.

I'm hoping that this will help me feel like this is more real and lasting. I remember how I felt after my second ultrasound with Seth. It was at about 7 weeks, and this time, they'd given me a little pamphlet that they must've forgotten to give me the first time around.

I remember sitting in the parking lot at a store in B'ham, waiting for Mom to buy some spices (she was down packing us for DC and went with me), and reading it. The thing that made all the difference in the world to me was when I read that after you see a heartbeat, there is a less than 10% chance that the baby won't make it. And that statistic was comforting.

As I suspected, I probably did ovulate a little late after the trigger shot this time. Looks like my due date is June 1. Baby measured at 6 weeks and 5 days today. I'm wondering if we'll have a Memorial Day baby... Great time to have a birthday, if you ask me. You'd always get a 3 day weekend to celebrate. =)

David has been amazingly sweet and understanding this weekend. We have finished going through the shed. (Break into Hallelujah Chorus...) It went like this... David unpacked a box, I sat on the loveseat covered with a sheet trying to keep my tummy calm, he showed me stuff, and we debated keeping or trashing it and why. The shed is a lot emptier, and our local Goodwill now has a wonderful selection of graduate history books ranging from the Boxmaker's Rebellion to Reconstruction. If we see a bonfire toward the west very soon, I won't be surprised.

Thanks for all your prayers. Please keep them up for the next few weeks. I have to go through all our closets and sort and store a ton of Seth's old clothes. The reinspection is this Friday, and the painter will be coming to go through the house with us. I still have to pick some fixtures and a lot of paint colors. =( And I really want to feel up to all of it, so that's a little hard right now.

Enough randomness now. I am incredibly thankful this this little child that God has given us. We took a walk yesterday, and I teared up thinking about how gracious God has been, in everything lately. Being pregnant is an incredible gift....

Moving stress...

I'm hoping that writing this out will make me feel better, so here goes. For the past couple of days, I've been feeling the dreaded moving stress creeping up to club me over the head. Today, I feel almost panicky and definitely weird.

See, David has carved out tomorrow afternoon through Tuesday to get working on packing stuff. He has an obscure govt. holiday on Monday, and every other Friday he has the option of taking off. (Ha! Like that ever happens.... ) But this time he is, and we have to get to work.

And I'm remembering all the times we've moved before and how much I loved it. Not much. Actually, I usually become emotionally paralyzed right around moving time. I look around, feel completely overwhelmed, and think I would just like to crawl under a bed and hide until its over. I hate, hate, hate moving. I've done it a lot. I know what it always looks like. And I want to shoot it right between the eyes before it can come within 10 feet of my house again.

Having a toddler and morning sickness doesn't make me any more joyful about it than usual. I hate the feeling of powerlessness I get every single time. And I feel useless compared to David, who always wades in with a shovel and just plows the never ending mountains of stuff into submission. In moving, I am definitely the weaker sex. I'm just glad that he's so nice to me about it.

We'll get started, and I'll feel better to be started instead of sitting around and dreading it. But if you could pray for me over the weekend, that would be great.

20 month cutie...

Have I mentioned that he's finally walking? He took his first steps to my dad a couple of days after he turned 20 months. It was really funny because he didn't know what he'd done, and he seemed shocked that we all were cheering for him. The next day, he seemed to get it that he was walking without holding our hands. He did a few circuits back and forth between us, and he was pleased as punch at his achievement. At this point, he walks on his own at least a little bit every day. I've got to get some video before he gets really good at it...

Mom read to him a lot this weekend in the car, and he's really gotten back into books after a period of not being that interested. He brings me books and wants to climb in my lap and read all the time. He can tell me what sounds a horse, cow, and a cat can make. And he recently learned to say the word "bumblebee." I was impressed. It's in his current favorite book, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" Whenever we get to the page with "boom boom" and "splatt splatt," he always laughs.

And here we have a couple of very safety conscious toddlers. It's dangerous to push or ride a toy car without the proper headgear. They found the helmets and put them on all by themselves. Well, maybe Peter helped. He's a little older than Seth. We have a small group time every week at someone's house, and the boys play while we do our thang. We're starting a short video series on parenting soon.

Ok, time to digress. Sometimes, I admit, my heart sinks when another parent tells me about the latest and greatest parenting guru. I have read a few parenting books, I admit, and its not like I don't want to do my best at this job. But sometimes I feel like its a bottomless, never ending pit of stuff to know and do and learn. There are so many suggestions for great things to do (50 different techniques for doing amazing daily devotions, for example) that you can never take them all. Sometimes the pressure to go to parenting conferences and read parenting books just plain gets on my nerves. I feel like I'll be looked at as a bad parent if I'm not interested in going each time someone new comes to town. Anybody else feel like this sometimes?

Maybe its just me. Or the pregancy hormones. I plan to blame a lot of crankiness on the pregnancy hormones for the next 9 months, so be aware...

Preggers... happy... nauseous...

So I found out I'm pregnant on a Friday. It was early, I admit, 12 days after the trigger shot. I'd been thinking about testing before my scheduled blood test on Monday, and when David came home on Thursday and said he was thinking about taking a half day on Friday, I decided it must be a sign. He NEVER takes a half day of leave. I know I gave him a strange look when he mentioned it. He said, "Do you WANT me to come home early?" =)

I woke up Friday morning, thinking about wussing out. But I kept coming back to the fact that he'd be coming home early, and it would be the perfect day for a surprise. So I took the test. At first, it looked like all the others... a big, fact negative. I washed my face, and resigned myself, and then picked it up. Wait... was that another line? I'd never seen one of those before. I'd only had blood positive tests, so this was all new.

I started freaking out and called the doctor's office. They scheduled me for a blood test that morning, since I was worried that maybe the trigger shot had caused a false positive. It can happen, and I couldn't remember exactly how long it needed to be after that shot.

But, they took my blood, and the pregnancy was confirmed, and I went home to wrap up my test with paper and a bow. David couldn't believe it. I got the surprise I'd been dreaming about.

I walked around all that weekend, hugging my special secret to myself. We went to a wedding, and I would often touch my stomach when no one could see and think, "There's a baby in there!" It's a happy bubble of joy that's lifted me around from the moment I get up from the moment I go to bed. After all the struggle to get pregnant the first time around, this is unreal.

To put this in perspective, to get to Seth we had:

- 2 years of "trying" without meds... that would be 24 months of negatives...

- then 1 year with a clinic that included... 1 cycle of Clomid where I didn't even ovulate, 6 cycles of ovulation on Femara, 1 miscarriage, and 2 cycles of Follistism, culminating in Seth

- along the way in that year with the clinic, we had a test of my fallopian tubes, two tests of David's sperm, and a failed intrauterine insemination.

It was not quick. It was not painless, emotionally or physically. So it's still hard for me to believe I could get pregnant after one month with the clinic...

David went on a men's bike trip with the church this weekend, so I went to the cabin with Mom and Dad. They pampered me and Seth, and I really needed it, 'cause I have morning sickness worse than I did with him. I'm not puking, but mild nausea came and went all weekend. And I'm pretty tired. This is going to make this move very interesting... I'm just proud of myself for pushing through and getting stuff done, even feeling kinda rough. I guess I'm toughening up some.

I have my 7 week ultrasound with the clinic next Monday morning. It's easy for me to be a little worried about it. What's going to be there? Is everything going to be ok? I want to see a steady, little heartbeat on a single baby. =) At this point, the nurses are telling me that its likely to be a singleton. My HCG levels weren't high enough initially to point to twins, but, of course, they could be wrong. You never know.

Seth is down for the count. I think I'll join him for a short siesta before I start calling all the utility people to switch our services. Ahh, moving fun.

And at 12 days post trigger, I saw this...

And in case you can't believe your eyes, like me, or your monitor isn't the greatest, you can scroll down to see what my parents saw a few days later...

As of right now, I'm almost 6 weeks. Still completely stunned. A little worried, despite the fact that I'm already having saltines for breakfast. So please keep praying.... But I'm so thankful and in awe of our amazing God. This is pure grace.

If you're infertile, and you're reading this... I'm sorry. I hate telling you. I figure you'd rather read it this way than have me tell you in person, but I know I may have just kicked your day in the pants. I am praying for a happy ending for you...

10 days post trigger shot...

It's hard to wait. I hate this part of the cycle the most. It's the time when I get the most moody and irritable and spastic. My nerves are always just slightly on edge. My husband can definitely tell we're in the waiting cycle. =(

I'm supposed to have my blood pregnancy test next Monday. I've always waited before to find out from them if I was pregnant. There has never been a time when I've seen those two little lines on a home test.

But I'm thinking about breaking all the rules and taking a home test early. I would love a chance to surprise David just once. That's one of the things that infertility takes from you quite often. If he thinks I'm getting a blood test on Monday, then maybe I'll take a home test on Friday morning. Maybe it won't show anything. That's likely. It might be too early to show up anyway, even if I was pregnant. And then there's the possibility of the trigger shot giving a false positive if its not out of my system on day 12. Hmmm. How would I feel about that? I'm not sure. I wonder if taking the chance is worth the possible emotional trauma.

Looking for signs...

**** Remember, y'all, the posts you are reading currently were written a few weeks ago. This is not happening in real time, so it won't be two weeks before I finish posting this cycle.*******

When you're waiting to find out if you're pregnant, you're on the lookout for signs everywhere.

The night after I gave myself the trigger shot, David was reading from Isaiah for our nightly reading. I'd been fading in and out of paying attention (honesty here), but I started paying attention when he started read this:

"Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these- where have they come from?' "- Isaiah 49:19.

Yesterday at MOPs, there were fliers on the table for free ultrasounds for pregnant ladies. A new crisis pregnancy center is opening, and they need moms to practice on. They're taking women from 4-22 weeks. I looked at the dates. I will have found out whether or not I'm pregnant the day before their last one. Is it a sign? I'm hoping it is. =)

The problem with looking for signs is that they can be very deceiving. I thought I'd seen so many things that told me that I'd be pregnant this or that month. By the time I got pregnant with Seth, I was so disgusted with it all that the fact that my pregnancy test was supposed to be on Mother's Day was something I considered just one more test of my endurance.

But I have heard from God before. He told me that I would get pregnant last time. I haven't written about it before, because its a sensitive thing for me to talk about. After He told me, a year went by before Seth was conceived. There were many, many days that I doubted that He'd said a thing to me at all. David was the one who wouldn't give up on that.

I was praying one night, not long after we'd started our first month of treatment. We'd had Chinese for dinner, and my fortune cookie said, "Rule your desires, or they will rule you." I thought about that as I was going to bed, and I began praying that God would take this desire to have a baby away from me if this wasn't going to work out. I prayed fervently that I would be ok with adopting. While I was in the middle of trying to lay down my desires, He cut me off. A voice in my head just stopped me from continuing my prayer. It was almost impatient. He said, "You are going to get pregnant." I started crying, and then I got mad. I thought Satan was messing with me while I'd been trying so hard to do the right thing.

I woke up David and told him about it. He listened, and he said it sounded to him like God had been speaking to me, mainly because pregnancy hadn't been the agenda for my prayer. As I rolled over to go back to sleep, I heard the voice say to me, "It won't be this month." I felt very peaceful, and I believed him. It didn't happen that month... or the next... or the next. It was almost a year after that before I got pregnant with Seth.

I don't think I'm going to hear from God this way again. Since that time, voices in my head are only me talking to myself. Any attempts to hear that way are no good. It's all static. My emotions are totally up and down. One minute I'm just sure that I'm going to be pregnant... another minute I'm just sure that I won't be. Only a week and half left to go...