These pictures were taken

one year ago

today,

which was right around the time

Sweet Pea was conceived.

Today, I am so incredibly thankful

God had already written Sweet Pea’s story.

Even though, at that time, we were completely clueless as to the miracle God had already started.

Praise the Lord!

This year has flown by!

It seriously seems like Christmas was just last month.

We are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the beginning of the wild ride that was started on December 13th when my lawyer called me to tell me that Tracy (Little Bug’s birth mother) was pregnant again.

That immediately threw us into our journey to #2, even though we had not planned to start that journey until Little Bug was at least two years old.

But, as usual, God knew what He was doing and as we begin the month of November, I am so incredibly thankful that God is in control of my life and I am not.

There is no way I could have orchestrated this on my own accord.

One of the things I am most thankful for in my life is my infertility. Without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today and I wouldn’t be Little Bug and Sweet Pea’s mother.

There was a time I didn’t know how I would do life with infertility in it, but now, I can’t imagine life without it.

We are back, safe and sound!

We had a wonderful trip, although several times I know I said that I was never going to travel with TWO little ones again! (I know I will.)

For the most part, everyone did very well. Flying with Sweet Pea was…fun! I love to fly and at this age, Sweet Pea was very easy to fly with. She never made a peep on any of the flights. The only real challenge was making it to our connecting flights. I only had 30 minutes to navigate a HUGE airport with baby and luggage in tow, but we made every flight with minutes to spare. Little Bug enjoyed her trip and all the attention she got from her Grandma and Grandpa and her Uncle. I’ll do a post or two soon about our trip.

It’s been twelve days since I have posted and I think that is the longest “blogging vacation” I have ever taken since starting this blog almost four years ago.

Honestly, I was using that time to decide if I was going to continue this blog or lay it to rest.

I love this blog. I really do. I love writing. I love that God has given me the ability to record my journey through infertility and beyond.

I never dreamed God would turn this blog into a ministry, but He has. I love that. I love hearing from readers through email who need encouragement.

While on vacation I received an email from a reader asking me to please call her because they are adopting a baby who is going through withdrawals and she would just love to talk to someone who has gone through this before.

I love that.

But as with everything in life, there is the good side and the bad.

The bad side of this blog is something you don’t see.

I don’t know how many of my readers believe in the attacks of Satan on the work of the Lord, but it is never-ending for me.

Satan’s attacks, that is.

I cannot tell you how many times I write something straight from my heart about the faithfulness and goodness of God and….BAM. Satan attacks me.

Satan hates this blog.

For twelve days this blog was quiet and for twelve days my life was quiet, too.

I know this all may seem crazy, but it has happened too many times for me to not recognize the correlation.

So, while on this trip I spent some time thinking about this blog and what I should do.

It was stressing me out just thinking about it, so I stopped trying to figure out what I should do.

I know that I want to lay this blog to rest. It would just be easier to stop writing so Satan will stop attacking.

But I know that he will just find other way to attack me. And I love to write. It’s my way of processing things. If I am not writing here, it will be in a notebook.

So, as the airplane was making it’s decent into my hometown yesterday afternoon, I realized I had yet to decide if I was going to continue writing, or not.

As the plane found the runway, I found my answer.

I will keep writing.

God has done so much and I just cannot keep quiet.

For now, this is the place He has given me to minister to people who are walking the road I walked many years ago.

It is crazy that I can say many years ago.

I want people who come across this blog to see that infertility is not forever.

Yes, our bodies will be broken forever, but the pain of infertility is just a season.

If we put our faith in the Lord, He will bring us through the fire … and what lies on the other side is better than your wildest dreams.

You just have to keep persevering in the face of pain, trusting in God who promises His plans for you are good and will not cause you harm and will bring you hope and a future.

If you don’t see anything else from my journey through infertility, I pray you see that.

It’s good to be back.

I can’t promise God’s Faithfulness Through Infertility will be around forever, but for now, it’s here and as long as God gives me this place as my ministry, I will be here, too.

I’ve heard it said a million times that “God won’t give you more than you can handle!”.

I was reading my journal from this year and I came across something I wrote back in the spring as we were waiting to hear from the first lawyer whether we were going to be chosen, or not.

I was already a little worried about the possibility of my children being just over 2 years apart and I wrote, “If God knows I can’t handle two children two years apart, we won’t be chosen.”

Well, here I am.

The mother of two girls born two years apart.

God must have known that I could handle this, right?

Wrong!!

In fact, the complete opposite is true…

God gives us more than we can handle on our own so that we turn to HIM for strength!

What would the point be in trusting God if we could handle everything on our own strength?

In my own strength, I cannot handle raising my two daughters.

It is beyond my capabilities.

I need more.

I need Jesus and the strength, love, joy and patience HE has to offer.

So, I do not agree with that statement at all.

To say that God does not give us more than we can handle means that we are capable of doing life in our own strength!

We wouldn’t need God, then, would we?

But if life’s circumstances land us in a place where we need more that we can find within ourselves to make it through, we turn to God and trust in HIM to get us through and give us what we need during those trying times.

I’m definitely in that place right now and it is a good place to be.

Within myself I cannot find all that my husband and my daughters need me to be.

And so I turn to my Lord asking Him daily to give me what I need.

… my house was spotless.

All the time.

Now, everywhere you look, there is evidence of a toddler and baby.

In the living room…

…in the kitchen…

…the hallway…

…our bathroom…

…and yes, even our closet.

And it is a very beautiful site!!

We arrived at the hospital this morning to find the doctor and nurses doing the paperwork necessary for discharge!!

Heading out of the NICU!

Driving Home!

Home Sweet Home

Holding Sweet Pea wrapped in the Faith Blanket in the Faith Rocking Chair

Little Bug could not wait to see her baby sister!

“Hold, Sweet Pea!!”

It is absolutely wonderful to have my family of four under one roof tonight!

Another day in the NICU.

Sweet Pea is sleeping, Dave has gone to Panera to use their internet to work and it’s just Sweet Pea and me in the NICU.

As I look at her sweet face I think, This is the baby that my friend Jennifer text me about on March 8th!! This is the baby that I started praying for not knowing if she was my child, or not. This is the baby that Emily told me about on May 2nd, three months to the day before Sweet Pea was born.

And this is the baby that I first laid eyes on not even a week ago now and she was already completely mine.

I can hardly begin to describe what that was like.

I have mentioned before that Little Bug and Sweet Pea’s adoptions have been totally different. I can’t go into great detail about all that at this time but I will say that being there for Little Bug’s birth was a moment in my lifetime that I will never forget.

Seeing her enter this world, especially after all I had just been through with infertility was like I was reborn myself. Her birth signaled a new beginning for me.

The beginning of motherhood.

As euphoric as those moments were surrounding Little Bug’s birth, I can hardly begin to describe what it felt like to hold a baby not knowing if she was really going to be mine or not.

Holding Little Bug on the night of her birth before TPR had been signed.

I was not there for Sweet Pea’s birth. In fact, I have never met her birth mother. I would not change anything about being there for Little Bug’s birth and God carried me through those 81 hours I had to wait to know Little Bug was in fact my daughter.

Just like I will never forget how I felt seeing my firstborn enter this world, I will never forget when I realized what was going to happen with Sweet Pea.

I was going to lay eyes on her for the very first time and she was already going to be mine!

That thought alone kept me from being able to go to sleep last Tuesday and Wednesday night right after Sweet Pea’s birth. I would lay in bed imagining what that was going to be like and my heart literally felt like it was going to bust out of my chest from excitement!

My eyes would tear up and I would have to stop myself from even thinking about it because I knew I was jumping the gun in even entertaining these thoughts because Melody had not yet signed and I knew if I didn’t stop thinking about it I would never go to sleep.

But about 5 seconds after Emily’s text on Thursday at 12:31pm, my mind was consumed with the thought that I was about to meet my baby girl for the first time and she was already mine.

We arrived at the hospital and were lead to Sweet Pea’s bedside where Emily and two others from the agency were there waiting for us.

I rounded the corner and there she was.

My first glimpse at my baby girl.

She was already on the triple light therapy with her “sunglasses” on to protect her eyes. She was very jittery and I remember turning to Dave and saying, “She is already going through withdrawals.” I wanted to scoop her up right there and hold her but I just leaned in as far as I could and took in the sight of my glowing second born “sunbathing” on her lights.

While I know that isn’t how “normal” moms meet their babies after giving birth, that was one of the sweetest moments ever of my entire life.

I was looking at my baby and she was mine and, in that moment, that was all that mattered.

And then Dr. Marvelous made her first appearance and whispered to me, “Have you held her yet?”. When I told her I had not, she told the nurses, “She needs to hold her baby.”

Two minutes later, I was holding Sweet Pea for the first time.

Even though I can’t go into specifics right now about certain things, it is amazing to me that everything I worried about concerning going through the adoption process again, God took care of.

One example is that I dreaded having to go through the 48 hour wait for TPR to be signed after holding and falling in love with a baby that wasn’t mine yet.

God spared me from having to go through that again.

He has blessed abundantly by giving me unique, special moments with both of my daughters in the hours and days after their births.

God is so good and so faithful.

I know my blog has been filled with some pretty emotional things as of late. This is one more.

Saturday night, July 23rd, 2011, one of my friend’s two year old daughter, drowned, but it was not her time to go. Erin was resuscitated after being pulled from the pool from by her aunt and has made a complete recovery!

Another miracle.

The following is something her mother, Morgan, wrote the day after the drowning. This is hard to read because it deals with every mother’s worst nightmare: losing a child to death.

What Morgan wrote is powerful and a HUGE testimony to the greatness and faithfulness of our God and I felt lead to share it here on my blog (with Morgan’s permission, of course).

*****

God you are strong, I am safe in your arms

I know there are a lot of people who are curious about what happened last night. I have no problems talking about it and I wanted to share the details while it is still fresh in my memory. I can only speak for myself here but I feel like talking about it has helped the healing.

Last night we celebrated my mother in law’s 50th birthday party at her neighborhood pool. At 9pm I had walked to their house to take Jordy to the potty and left Erin in the care of my mother. Eddy and I bypassed one another as he was returning with Caiden doing the same thing. When I returned, I told Eddy we need to get going, and by the looks of it everyone else was leaving too.

At this point Eddy had removed Erin’s water wings in preparation of us leaving. Eddy had written a special note for his mother that he wanted to read before we left. We took care of that promptly.

I never recalled seeing Erin when I returned from the house but it didn’t say much because Erin had been all over the place all night. For some weird reason I felt uneasy about her absence because of it being so dark. I know now that it was only the Holy Spirit prompting my curiosity of her whereabouts because like most of you know, they are always accounted for when it really matters.  Surely we won’t be that family whose child dies or gets kidnapped.

All night I kept feeling worried about her for some reason and Eddy kept assuring me she was fine. My first instinct was the park connecting to the pavilion/pool area. I went to the park calling her name and heard nothing. I was still pretty calm but managed to ask Eddy if he saw her at the pool and he said she wasn’t there. Eddy’s sister was trailing close behind him double checking everything and started to walk with him away from the pool. She later told me that she didn’t know why but she felt the spirit tugging at her to take a double look in the pool.

From the moment I first asked where she was, about 30 seconds had gone by when I heard the terrible news. “Morgan, Oh my God she’s in the pool!” What happened next is something you only experience in your worst nightmares. I sprinted from one side of the gate to the other as Jennifer pulled my precious baby from the water yelling in hysterics. She was limp, she was blue and she had no pulse. The noises that came out of me were uncontrollable. “Oh God no, no, no no!!! Oh God! Jennifer put her down!!” I knew CPR couldn’t begin in her arms and I started to walk away screaming for someone to call 911. I didn’t want want my last memories of Erin to be spent watching her dead body on the concrete.

I kept looking around for someone to comfort me. But all I saw was panic. She was dead and nobody could do anything about it. The next thought that came to my mind was from the devil himself. This is your fault, you have too many kids. I stopped immediately and got flat on my face before the Lord and I remember praying, Lord what do I pray for?! Help me! And then it began, something that cannot be explained by man. A perfect peace that truly surpasses all understanding. Then the prayers began as though I put no effort into them, Lord nothing happens apart from your will. I believe that your Hand is in this! I had made my peace that my baby was dead and I realized in that very moment that while it was such a terrible pain I would be okay despite hating it with the fiercest of hate. God’s promise came ringing into my ears, all things happen to the glory of God to those who love Him! And then I thought about his deliberate sacrifice of his very own son. How horrible he must have felt, and then it hit me. God you lost a child, and now I have lost a child. You will carry me through this storm and you will receive Glory. You know how I feel! Please help me.

I then ran to the street to wait for the ambulance. It was then that I began brainstorming how I would cope with this loss. First I would get rid of all her clothes, and Devyn would wear nothing of Erin’s. Next I would have to get rid of her bed, her passies and her blankets and all of her favorite toys. How did I become that parent?! The one everyone snickers about saying “Where were the stupid parents when this happened?”…How was I that mom now?! You know that you do it, we all do.  

I realized then I was collapsed in the middle of the road alone. I was thinking of all the people in their homes perfectly safe, and I had just lost my baby. I just wanted someone to comfort me. And then came another answer to prayer. My brother in law hopping the fence telling me my baby is breathing and holding me as I sobbed. He is telling me she was okay, but all I kept thinking was how brain damaged would she be?? When did she go missing? How long was she under?!

As the ambulance came I ran back to where she was, she was crying and she had pooped and peed on herself. Eddy’s uncle had done CPR on her the entire time and said her heart had not beat for 2 minutes solid. My first thought was, how long was it not beating in the water?! Eddy hopped on the ambulance, and for once I wished I weren’t breastfeeding Devyn. I don’t remember them carrying her off, but I stopped to comfort Caiden a moment before I rushed off to the hospital. What a horrible thing to see at his age.

I get to the hospital and Erin is awake. She is crying to go bye bye and wants to get off of her table. I was not shocked to see her alive, but I was shocked to see her talking to me. I saw her bathing suit in a ball on the floor and asked them to dispose of it. Never again do I want to see my baby in that suit. My sister in law said Erin was floating head down but she almost didn’t see her because it looked more like a life jacket than a person. I hated that of all people she was the one to pull Erin’s lifeless body out of the pool but praise God for his prompting in her spirit to do so. As the night progressed, Erin was fussing over juice cups and asking for Yo Gabba Gabba. I knew she was going to be okay.

I later learned this morning that 2 people had noted Erin being present as I read the letter to Eddy’s mom. It was exactly half a page length and took no more than a minute and a half to read. We don’t know exactly when she wandered away, how long she played on the step before she drowned, or how long she struggled before she quit breathing…but my closest estimates are 2-2.5 minutes from the moment she walked away to the moment she was pulled from the water.  Maybe less.  We are so blessed because it could have been so much worse.  You never think this will happen to you.

I am forever grateful for God’s grace on my Erin and my family, but we have been left distraught. I did not lose my Erin forever, but for a short 5 minutes I did. And that feeling has left a hole in my heart that will take time to heal. So please pray for us, all of our friends and family that were present.

I believe that my God is a Sovereign God, and a God of divine intervention. Today at the hospital we met another couple whose baby also drowned yesterday. Her parents are close in age to me and Eddy, and like Erin baby Bristol was only 2. It was her second birthday in fact. We are so blessed for our daughters recovery. So I ask again that you pray for this precious family. Kayla, Mike and Bristol. I can’t begin to tell you the comfort I received in knowing another mom who felt exactly like me. We exchanged a few words mostly rehashing our experiences…but it left me feeling peaceful. And again, in his divine sovereignty I discover that I have been friends with one of her cousins for years.

When I close my eyes to sleep, I hear Jennifer, I see Erin being pulled from the water blue and limp and I hear my scream. It replays over and over like a record and I can’t make it stop. I am praying for rest for me and Bristols family tonight.

Erin is completely back to normal, sleeping on the sofa right now actually. This little girl has one powerful testimony and I know the Lord has great plans for her!! Thank you Abba!

Thank you so much for your prayers, and your encouraging words. It gave me great strength when I needed it most. He is my strength and my rock!!

This is Erin, a couple days after all this happened.

Her shirt says “My Future is Bright”!

I have seen God move and perform another miracle and I am completely in awe of his loving faithfulness.

Here is the story that brought Rebecca her miracle baby boy, Levi Luke:

Rebecca and her husband, Luke, decided they were going to to put in their application to Emily’s agency (the same agency I use) so that they would have a little more exposure.

July 18th, Luke and Rebecca had a phone conference with Emily at 6:30pm.

The next day, Rebecca was away from home and when she returned that afternoon she had a message from Emily that said, “A situation has come up. Please call me as soon as you can.”

Rebecca put her son down for a nap and called Emily.

Expecting her phone call, Emily answered right away but then asked if she could call Rebecca back because she was in the middle of taking care of something.

My cellphone alerted me that I had a new email in my inbox. I checked itt. It was Rebecca and she simply wrote “you around by chance?”

I got on my laptop and we started chatting. Rebecca told me that Emily wanted to talk to her about a possible situation.

We were both beside ourselves in excitement thinking there was a birth mother due in couple months that Emily wanted to show their profile to.

As we were chatting online, Rebecca typed, “phone” and I knew Emily had called!

Several minutes later, Rebecca was back online to give me the scoop.

It wasn’t a birth mother that was going to deliever in a couple months…it was a birth mother that had delivered (six weeks early) a 3lb. 15oz baby boy the PREVIOUS NIGHT and Emily wanted to know if Rebecca was interested!

To say Rebecca and I were shocked is an understatement.

Rebecca started seeing if the details could come together this quick on her end and I started praying. And praying. And praying.

Knowing and believing if this was Rebecca’s baby, God would make it happen, one way or another.

By that evening (July 19th), Emily had told Rebecca she would be at the hospital at 11am to show the birth mother Rebecca’s profile.

I told Rebecca I was leaving my house at 11am the next morning to go to the store to buy some preemie clothes in FAITH that this baby was hers.

I left my house right at 11am and just as I pulled onto the highway, my phone alerted me to a new email.

As I got to the parking lot of the store (safe driver that I am ), I checked my phone to read the email, expecting another update from Rebecca.

Instead, it was a forwarded email from my mother that my mother’s friend, Cindy, had written her.

As I read the email my heart sunk to my knees.

This is what the email said:

I work with a lady whose expecting daughter had planned to put her newborn baby boy up for adoption when he arrived. The baby boy was born premature (3lbs.) this week, but he’s a little fighter and is now breathing on his own. They are working through [the name of my agency] (is that the one your daughter & husband went through?). The lady I work with said that the people they have lined up for them to interview so far already have children, and she said they would really prefer a couple who cannot conceive and have had no children as of yet. Do you or Elaine know of a couple who would meet their criteria for this adoption?

My mother was meeting me at the store, but I called her immediately after reading this and said, “I just read the email you forwarded me! I need Cindy’s phone number. I need to call her right now!!”

She was already waiting for me in the parking lot and came over to my car where she looked up a number she had for Cindy.

I called but only got voicemail, so my mom called the church office and asked for Cindy’s work number.

Cindy answered on the second ring!

I told Cindy that I was Norma’s daughter and she said, “Well, you must have gotten the email I wrote her earlier today!”

I said I had gotten it and that I knew the family that Emily was going to present to the birth mother today!

She was astounded.

I told Cindy that Luke and Rebecca do have one biological child but they are infertile now and have been told adoption is their only option to grow their family.

Before we hung up, Cindy said she would call the birth mother’s mother and tell her that from a very reliable source she gives Luke and Rebecca a very high recommendation.

I hung up with Cindy and just cried. My mom was right there and ready to tell me, “Elaine, GOD is in control!!! He’s got this!!!”

It was then that my mom informed me she had been to the hospital to pray with a woman and had decided to stop by the house on her way to meet me at the store. It was during this time that she decided to check her email and she read the email from her friend about this baby! Had she not stopped, she would not have gotten the email until late in the afternoon.

I looked at the clock and it was 11:30. Emily should have already been at the hospital talking to the birth mother! I wondered if Cindy had had enough time to get in touch with the birth mother’s mother.

At 12:30 I was to meet a friend for lunch. While we were siting at the table my phone alerted me to another email. It was Rebecca this time and she wrote saying she had just received an email from Emily saying she was talking to the birth mother RIGHT THEN! It was 1:15pm.

My heart soared because obviously Emily had been delayed and had not gotten to the hospital until closer to noon. This gave me hope that maybe my mom’s friend had been able to contact her coworker and put in a good word for Luke and Rebecca.

Around 3pm, my cell phone rang and it was a very excited Rebecca!

She said that the birth mother liked their profile and had chosen them!

Then she said, “But something really strange happened. The birth mom’s mother somehow knew that the couple was going to be a ‘Luke and Rebecca’. She knew this from an email or something like that.”

I told Rebecca, “You know who got that email this morning??”

She said, “Who??”

I said, “My mom!!!!”

After reading something like this, and reading how our match happened back in May, I don’t see how anyone could say there is not a GOD.

And not only a God, but a God who knows all things, controls all things and works out all things in His time and for His glory.

God’s hand is completely in BOTH of these situations.

I have witnessed TWO miracles in the span of two months!

To God be the Glory!

Click here for Rebecca’s post about all this! Very awesome!!!

My life is about to change.

I will be the mother to two little girls. Just allowing myself to type that is a step of faith because I keep myself so guarded during the adoption process, that I don’t really even allow myself to think about what will be. I live in the present, taking one day at a time.

But on this morning, God woke me up (on my sleep in morning when I should be sleeping until Dave and Little Bug come in here to wake me up!) so I figured He must have something to tell me. So I grabbed my journal and started writing and this is what God laid on my heart:

To think of where I was just three years ago…we were starting infertility treatments, had just done our first IUI and August 4th, 2008 was blood test day.

There was so much HOPE that finally my dream was going to come true.

Finally, I would see those TWO pink lines, and the pain of all the months that had passed with no pregnancy suddenly wouldn’t matter as I looked at that pregnancy test and realized I was finally pregnant.

But August 4th came and we went to the clinic for my blood draw, came back home and began the wait until my cell phone would ring giving us news that our dream had come true.

That day we had planned to work on a project outside. We replaced all the wood mulch with red lava rocks in the front flower bed. I knew I needed a distractor as we waited for the phone to ring.

We had finished the project and we were inside when the phone call finally came.

I answered immediately shaking and holding my breath to hear the words my nurse, Holly, had to tell me.

I’m sorry, you are not pregnant, is NOT what I wanted to hear that day, but those are the words that came out of her mouth.

As soon as I hung up, I started crying. It wasn’t the trickle-of-tears-running-slowly-down-my-face kind of crying. It was uncontrollable, gut-wrenching sobs. Screams of why? and a feeling as though the weight of the whole world was on my shoulders.

One of the lowest points of my journey through infertility, for sure.

But GOD had a plan! Even as I sobbed uncontrollably and screamed at God asking why He couldn’t have just let it work, God had a plan.

In a way only God would orchestrate, He picked up the pieces of my broken heart that day and became my Strength as I pressed on to what was next.

God used August 4th and all the months that were still ahead and full of more disappointments and heartbreak to grow my faith in Him and teach me about His Plan being absolutely perfect and bigger and better than my wildest dreams.

Almost three years to the day of August 4th, 2008, I stand in complete awe and amazement at what God has done in and through my life.

If my life doesn’t proclaim the truth of Jeremiah 29:11, I don’t know what does.

If my life doesn’t proclaim that GOD IS FAITHFUL THROUGH IT ALL, I don’t know what does.

And so in these final days/weeks of our journey to #2, I press on, walking in faith.