One Step At a Time

In case you're wondering, this is NOT our child.  But, I AM a proud new auntie to my little niece Rylie Spruill Ellis (born April 10)!  Since the day she was born, Talen & I have only missed seeing her for 2 days.  Yep.  This auntie/cousin duo gets to love all over this little sweet pea almost every day...one of the many benefits of my sister living just a smidge off the 'headin' home from work' path.  Since I'm so proud, & I think there is no cuter baby alive on this earth, I felt the need to share her awesomeness with you all! :)

On to the topic at hand today...

I had the privilege of speaking with a lady from our church that has walked the same path that I've already walked (infertility) & am now embarking on (adoption).  If I ever questioned whether it was necessary to find a 'journey friend' to walk beside you through either of these ordeals, last night answered that question.  I know that Jesus is enough for all things, but I also believe that He gives the gift of earthly friendships to give us that extra boost of energy we need to finish out a particular task.  I NEEDED last night in order to give me the boost I needed to get over the initial overwhelming feeling about what tasks are before me in order to expand our family by means of adoption.  It was SO helpful having a person to identify with me about all the mountains & valleys of our life the past 4 years, as well as paint a picture of what my next several months or years may look like as we wait for the right baby.  The best piece of advice she gave last night: take one step at a time.  What a simple piece of advice, & yet it was just the piece of truth I needed to hear.  Anybody reading this that is struggling under the weight of a heavy burden, my advice to you is to share your story.  This person approached me after hearing the cliff notes version of my story in an e-mail.  Boy am I glad I wrote that e-mail to ask her a question!!!

Jonathan has been a SUPER partner to share the journey with, but for anybody that knows my husband (or most guys for that matter), after about 3 minutes of listening to me talk non-stop about new tips, opportunities, discoveries, completed paperwork, research, etc regarding our upcoming adoption, he's checked-out to some tropical happy place.  After dishing to him last night about all the goodies I had learned that day, I finally had to ask the question "Are you hearing me?"  It's good to ask this question occasionally in order to help me evaluate whether I've communicated to him in HIS conversation style.  The answer is almost always 'no' since I'm the "gotta tell the WHOLE story without leaving out ANY of the details" kinda girl, & he's the "get to the point" kinda guy.  After his affirmation that he DOES want to hear everything, just in a different style, I've decided on a new way to share with him my daily discoveries:  Sticky Note conversations - make a bullet-point list of all the learnings, write only what I can fit on a standard sticky note, share those things with him, then ask he'd like to hear any more detail about any of those learnings.  Do you think he'll ask for more detail from me, the queen of long stories? ;)

Mommy & Daddy Are Looking for You

If you've been following our journey to this point, you know that God has closed the door for another biological child at this time.  We DEFINITELY believe in miracles, & if God chooses to surprise us, we're more than excited to accept as many of them as He chooses to give us!

We've begun the process of adoption.  We've received a referral for an adoption attorney that some friends of ours used & were very pleased with.  Now we wait to hear back from him to set up an initial meeting to talk about the process & what his role in it would be.  We've asked him for a referral on who to get a home study done thru.  We may need this done quickly as we have a lead on a possible baby already!

Many of our family & friends have shared our situation with their church family, friends, & prayer groups.  One of our family members was approached by a fellow church member that knows of a pregnant woman that is giving her baby up in an open adoption.  We are not as familiar with the open adoption option, but have begun doing our research & contacting family members & friends that have chosen open adoptions.  In the few e-mail conversations & Facebook messages I've had with some of these people so far, I have already been blessed just by building relationships with our fellow club members, the 'adoptive parents club'.  Many of these people are able to relate to our infertility journey & have been willing to share their story with me...another source of blessing.

Our current lead: I was given a contact # to speak with somebody re: the situation mentioned above.  After talking with her, I am cautiously optimistic of the possibility of this being our future child.  As hard as it is, I really am TRYING not to get too excited at this point as we are just starting out & this process CAN take YEARS before our child comes along.  Please, please, please keep our entire family in your prayers as we wait as patiently as possible for GOD'S WILL to be revealed to us in His timing.

Angry - To Be, or Not To Be? That is the Question!

Today is the day.  Test day.  Result - negative.  Seems fitting that it would be a rainy, cold, & gloomy day today, but tomorrow's forecast calls for sunny, warmer weather!

As this day has drawn closer, many well-wishing family & friends have been making it a point to text, call, e-mail, or catch me in person to hug me, tell me they're praying for me, ask me to let them know what the outcome is.  All of this is great, but I have to wonder if, behind it all, they're a bit concerned about how I will react to the news if it's 'negative'.  Well friends & family, wonder no more.  Here's how it is for me today.

Rainy, Cold, & Gloomy - I'm a bit unique as a girl in that I react to upseting things a bit more like your typical guy.  I get a bit upset, maybe even pout or brood for awhile, but overall, it's short-lived.  What's the point of being angry longer than that?  I've done what I could to try & fix the problem.  It didn't work.  Ok.  Give me some time to be a little angry as I tally up all the $$$ & hours we've spent trying our best to make this happen, but with no results.  I won't say I'm entitled to have this day to be angry though.  Even though I know God can handle my anger, I feel like He's saying the same thing to me that He did to Jonah in Jonah 4:4 - "Is it right for you to be angry about this?"  It seems that the moral of this entire scene between Jonah & God in Chapter 4 is "Is it right for me to be angry because God's bigger, better plan doesn't seem to be lining up with my small, selfish plan?"  Jonah chose to stay under the emotional rain cloud & stay angry at the unexpected turn of events.  Well, Jonah, I'm choosing a different path!

Sunny, Warm, & Bright - Ok, God.  This is where I need You to hold me.  I'm a bit weak after this recent downer-of-a-moment, but I know You're bigger than this.  I know You have a WONDERFUL plan in store for my family; I just don't know what it is at the moment.  But, I look forward to the day when You pull back the curtain & show us what awesome things You have in store for us!  We believe adoption is one of the things behind that curtain because You've placed such a burden for this act of love on both Jonathan's & my heart.  We don't quite know what form this will take - newborn baby, elementary-age child, white, black, girl, boy - but we are excited to see Your plans unfold!!!  I believe You've been preparing us for this our entire marriage, & even our entire lives.  We're ready!  Bring it on!

Worry No More

I started to text this blog entry while I was laying on the table for the required 10 minutes after the end of the IUI procedure.  Apparently it is not feasable to use any characters other than lowercase letters when typing a blog entry using your phone.  This is all I could get out before I became frustrated:

chillaxink

I was trying to say "Chillaxin' ", but the capital C & the ' character would not work.  To finish this unfinished thought, I was doing my 10 minutes of chillaxin' before leaving the office.  I make sure to bring a magazine, my phone, or some other form of entertainment to pass those 10 minutes.  10 minutes.  You would think I could just sit there & stare at the ceiling in silence for that long, but that was not a characteristic God planted in me.  I've always got to be doing something...unfortunately.  But in this case, if I wasn't doing something to keep me busy, I'd be thinking about every little detail of what has happened so far in the infertility process as well as what MAY happen.  Every scenario.  Don't you just hate that?  When you see or hear somebody doing that, overanalyze everything before it's even happened, you just want to search for their brain's 'off ' switch to help give them a rest.  Well, since there's nobody with me at these appointments to help me do that, I have to take care of it myself.

That's a significant issue in dealing with this process - analyzing what MAY happen, or what you HOPE happens, or what you prepare yourself to ACCEPT happening.  I'll admit that I still do my fair share of this, but it's gone down significantly as I continue to progress further into the process.  Somewhere along the line, God opened my eyes & my heart to the real meaning of "not worrying about tomorrow".  Isn't that what we're REALLY doing when we try to plan all the possible options for the future?  God's given me plenty of opportunity to experience & practice differentiating between helpful planning & wasteful worrying.  I'm sorry to admit that most of my time in this whole ordeal has been spent doing wasteful worrying.  But after my little revelation, I've discovered first-hand that life is so much more peaceful if we allow God to do his job & just let it be at that.  I do everything I can that's within my power to assist in the process, but now, I release it to God & rest in the fact that He is in charge of the outcome, knowing that His outcome will be WWAAYY better than anything I can imagine!

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING; instead, PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING.  Tell God what you need, & thank Him for all He has done.  If you do this, you will experience God's PEACE, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.  His peace will guard your hearts & minds as you live in Christ Jesus." ~ Phillippians 4:6-7 ~

Glimmer of Hope

Last Wednesday's & Saturday's DR appointments seemed to shows signs of being the 'beginning of the end'.  Nothing had progressed to a point that we could do anything.  However, this morning's DR appointment proved otherwise.  Between Saturday AM & Monday AM, my system kicked into gear.  And not just enough to give us 1 egg to work with, but 2!  DR Gehlbach has prescribed 1 more shot of the medication (tonight) in order to boost the eggs' size a bit more, then Tuesday night (tomorrow), I'll administer the hcg shot which tells my system it's 'go time'.  Last step in the process is that I'll go in Thursday AM for the IUI.  From there, it's prayer warrior time!  We'll have to wait 2 weeks 'til April 18 to find out if my body accepted the IUI. 

Waiting for the results last month was terrible.  But this month, waiting shouldn't be as big of a deal.  I say that because there is so much to keep me busy between April 4-18.  I have a 5K this Saturday, April 6.  The following Saturday, April 13, I'm co-hosting a baby shower for my sister Tylie & her husband Ryan.  That brings me to the best time waster...my new niece!  I plan to waste all kinds of time going to see Rylie!  She's not here quite yet, but if she doesn't come on her own by April 9, they'll go in to be induced.  So, either way, I'll have a new niece during my waiting time. :)  Other than those things, I do still have taxes to get done in this time as well.  I'm in crunch time, so I'll be nothing short of a crazy person 'til April 15...some may argue that April 15 does not mark the end of me being a crazy person! LOL. :)

Please continue to keep us in your prayers, especially this week.  Updates on the results to come in a few weeks, whether it's positive or negative.  Either way, it will mark the beginning of a new adventure for the J&T McMurray family!