Christmas with family

Christmas was great with family this year :) Even though a child would have made things so much better, we had a great time :).

We went to Travis's parents house on Christmas eve and then that evening we went to my parents. On Christmas Day we went to my grandparents house down in Hickory.

Here are a few pictures of the evening (I will add some from his parents house when I get them).


My gift from Travis (well, I picked them out a while ago)

Me and my brother, sister and parents. 

  Travis and I at my grandparents house

Update on Foster Care...

I thought I should post something since I haven't posted since October!!! I am a bad blogger :-/.

Lets see.. nothing new really.

November 19 was our last MAPP class (the classes needed for foster care) so we are officially done with that. Alice (our social worker) came out and did our homestudy, which we passed of course :). The fire marshal came out and looked at our house, which we passed as well. Travis also did his CPR/First Aid course and we turned in all our final paperwork a couple weeks ago. I figured with the holidays, it will take a while for our social worker to get everything together and sent it, which is fine. We have to have one more home visit and wait for our social worker to send it all in, and then wait some more. We were told that the wait could take up to 40 days, so we are looking like Spring before we can accept any children.

Other than that, we couldn't be more ready!!! The holidays would have been great-no-AWESOME-with a child (or 2) but God has perfect timing and He knows which perfect child will soon be in our home!!! We are so excited. So until then, just keep praying.

Nursery Pics

I guess I never did post pics of the nursery. We finally got the crib together, we have had it since last year but never had it in me to put it together. I was always afraid I wouldn't get a baby if I did put it together. We finally realized we needed it together since we will eventually get a child through foster care, whether they are our forever baby or not!

So here are a few pics of the nursery.

We absolutely can not wait to have a child in there!!! May it be for a couple of weeks, years or forever. We eventually will get a toddler bed to go in there as well!! We are so excited for this adventure to begin and know that God is the real reason we are going through this :). Its all His plan and we just need to go with the flow and accept His plan in all we do :) Please continue to pray for us during this time as well :)

The Bible and Infertility

I posted on this topic once before on my infertility blog, but it's been on my mind lately. How there was also infertility linked in the Bible.

Yes, even way back then, there was women w/ infertility... 


Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth
Just to name a few...

There are many stories of women in the Bible who struggle with infertility and the pain of not having children.

The Bible not only shares the stories of these "barren women" but also offers hope and comfort during these times.

God indeed is the creator of life and the God of comfort and peace.

I will share some of their stories from the Bible and other verses that offer hope to those who may also consider themselves "barren" today.

But more important than finding out about the stories of these women is the possibility of finding our own hope in this journey; to be encouraged in whatever stage of our journeys we are at.


Sarah's Story 
the wife of Abraham

Sarah is married to Abraham. She is unable to conceive, although married for many years. Eventually she is not only unable to conceive but beyond childbearing years. (ie she is old as well...)

Ironically she is married to Abraham who has been promised descendants that will number like the stars in the sky and the sand on a beach. A great promise and yet for Abraham and Sarah, the fulfilment seems beyond all reach.

It is at this point that The Lord comes to Abraham once more.

"Then the LORD said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him.

11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.

12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought,
After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?

13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh and say, 'Will I really have a child, now that I am old?'

14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.

And the result??? Not long after this Sarah and Abraham's son Isaac is born, one of the great patriarchs of the Jewish people.

"For nothing is impossible with God" (Luke 1:37)


What does the story of Sarah teach us? 

God is faithful to his promises. What he promised to Abraham and Sarah he was faithful in fulfilling. God does not make this exact same promise to each of us but we do learn something else from Sarah's story:
God is the giver of life and he can bring about miracles. We do not know what God may be doing in our lives - even when it seems like he is not doing anything at all.
God can surprise us!

Hannah

Hannah's Story
Hannah is perhaps best known for her struggle with infertility.


The book of 1 Samuel begins with the verses
"1 There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. 2 He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none." (1 Samuel 1:1-2)

I always reflect on what could be worse than feeling you have disappointed your husband by not being able to get pregnant? To be one of your husbands two wives, always being compared to her and her abundance of children. Not only was her husbands other wife extremely fertile; it was not a healthy relationship...

"6 And because the LORD had closed her womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. 7 This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. 8 Elkanah her husband would say to her, "Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons?" (1 Samuel 1:6-8)

Yet one thing I love about the image we have of Hannah in the Bible is of her honesty and of her pouring out her pain and heartbreak to God. Rather than become bitter and turn from God she reaches out to him at her time of need and calls on him to answer her prayer.

"10 In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD. 11 And she made a vow, saying, "O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head."
12 As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. 13 Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk 14 and said to her, "How long will you keep on getting drunk? Get rid of your wine."
15 "Not so, my lord," Hannah replied, "I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief." (1 Samuel 1:10-16)

And God answers her prayer. And this answer is Samuel, who becomes a famous priest of God.
What does the story of Hannah teach us?
What do we learn from Hannah?

God wants us to turn to him. We don't have to pretend we are without pain, but can give this to God and know that he can answer our prayers.

"In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD."
In Hannah's words - "I am a woman who is deeply troubled... pouring out my soul to the LORD... out of my great anguish and grief." (1 Samuel 1:10-16)

There is no pretense that she is not hurting, not blindly trusting God but really wrestling with the pain of infertility.

I know that I too can take my pain to the creator of the universe and pour out my soul to him.

Moving right along...

We are moving right along with our foster care classes, or MAPP classes as they are called. We got our "roadwork" last week and it was to start on our profiles. Its about 30 or so pages (front and back mostly) about questions about our marriage, the way we were raised, about how we would discipline, etc. All these questions are asked so the people looking over our papers will know how great of parents we will be!! I hope we will be great ones :).

Included in with our profile (the stack of papers) is going to be some pictures of Travis & I, our house (including the child's room, so we need to fix it up and take some pics), our pets, our yard, and neighborhood. I guess we'd better get started taking pics! We are also supposed to include a summary of ourselves and a letter to the child's parent(s). I think the letter will be the most difficult... how do you write that you are going to take care of their child for as long as they need to be, and love that child as if he/she was your own for only a short time? Def will be something we will have to pray upon before writing!

Other than that, nothing is really going on in our lives. Nothing exciting anyways. I'm trugging along w/ my classes, Trav is busy teaching on Tue nights and then doing the football games, we both are involved in the High Country Youth so we have events that go along with that.

If some of you are wondering if we are still TTC (trying to conceive a baby), well... we sort of are but aren't using any meds or dr interventions. I did start on a new supplement called Pregnitude. It seems to be doing good things so far. I am almost done w/ my 1st box. People claim you have to give it 3-6 months to start working, so I guess I will :).

I am so happy that Fall has finally arrived. I love this time of year!!! The sad part is that I need to start working on the outside of the house before it gets too cold and I need to start buying Christmas gifts!

Other than that, we are just enjoying life :)

Labor Day holiday

YAY for being off work and getting to spend the day at home with Travis.... doing nothing... NOT!
(Yay for being at home and spending time w/ Travis but I have lots of stuff to do).

I have decided to sign up for the Wee-Cycle Home Goods & Adult sale that is taking place in the next coming weeks. I have to sort through our clothes, print tags (first buy ink and card stock paper), tag things (and buy safety pins) and hang them all according to size. This should be fun! I am hoping it will provide a little extra money so we can get a few new pieces of clothes to replace the ones we just sold :). Poor Travis needs work pants!!

I also have house cleaning and homework to do today. I also wanted to get some yard work done and some things done around the house to prepare for MAPP training. I have found a great blog from a young couple who are going through the foster to adopt process and she has a lot of helpful information on there! I know all states are different but its still helpful :).

Its kind of sad when our day off consists of cleaning and doing yard work rather than going out and having fun! Either way, I'm glad to spend it w/ my honey :)

Been a while...

Its been a while since I have posted on here.

Nothing new in the fertility world... I keep hoping and praying for God to bless us in His time, not ours. You would think after 5 1/2 yrs I would be used to this... but I'm not. It hasn't gotten harder, or easier, just about has stayed the same. Please be praying for us because it just is something that will never leave... that we can't have a biological child. Yes, God does perform miracles EVERYDAY... and we are holding onto hope for one, but you never know the plans He has for us...

With our embryo adoption/donation we learned a lot. We learned about our faith, ourselves, how to lean on each other and that there are people who really care and have hope for us. We got to know a great couple and a great group of doctors. I was thankful for that opportunity, as hard as it was in the end.

Travis & I decided to start back up with adoption. We decided to start the MAPP training to become foster parents. We started the classes last year but stopped after a few weeks because we just did not feel it was the right thing to do at that time. I feel much more at ease with things now, and am ready to help out a child's life. I am not sure that we will be able to accept a child for a short period of time and watch  him/her go back to their home, where I will be unsure about their well-being but I will pray my heart out before every decision we make. We are going into it with the intentions to eventually adopt. We will get our foster care license and then attempt to work with an agency in NC. If a child comes up for adoption in the foster care system, that'd be great too! We will just go with the flow and see where God leads us. I found a few great opportunities for fundraising that I do not have to buy anything ahead of time that I will be sharing in another post. We did great with the bracelet fundraiser, and still have some if people need to/want to purchase any (just let me know). Since the embryo adoption/donation took a lot of our adoption funds (the transfer, an attorney, counseling, Dr appts, shipment of embryos, storage, meds, etc) we will need to start fundraising over again if we want to work with an agency. I understand that if we want to adopt via foster care, it is basically free to us, but we wanted to have some saved for when/if we need to use an agency. I know if we are meant to adopt through an agency, the funds will come. After we have our home study we can apply for grants to help with the process. Its all in God's time... and we will keep in prayer for our child...

Since I am the type of person who has to plan EVERYTHING, I have already started planning our house, and our future child's room, for the home study. Thanks to my awesome parents we have the furniture for the  child's room (we have had this since last year, just haven't put much of it together) and I already have thoughts of how I want it to look (in my mind, and possibly my Pinterest board-;)). Since we do not know if we will have a boy or girl, an infant or toddler or even more than one child, we are preparing the room to fit an infant and toddler and gender specific. We just finished our kitchen over the summer and I really like how it turned out!!! Travis did a GREAT job! We also bought the floor for our bedroom so we can finally get rid of that dreaded white carpet. Other than that, there isn't much we can do before bc there has to be a certain amount of time in between our physicals and when we are done w/ everything (something like that. lol).

Classes started back. Enough said! ha ha. I am taking 2 classes this year at Western Carolina for my B-K degree. I have about 6 more classes left and then about 3 to finish up my concentration (which is Child Development). I hope that finishing school will open up new opportunities for Travis & I. We'll see. The classes are going okay, they just started last week though. I am taking Health and Wellness and Child Psychology. I think they will both help me out with my job and my personal life :).

I have also started calorie counting (thanks mom!) and hopefully will be able to lose some weight, we'll see. I really need to get back into better shape and become healthier so when I do become a mom, I'm not a fat mom that wont play w her kids. Lol.

Other than all that... nothing much going on. I'm ready for fall, cooler weather, the holidays and family time :).