North Pole

So the culture in Southwest Florida is different from Georgia and South Carolina as you would imagine. Many of the kids here have never experienced snow (which I find sort-of sad) and a lot of the adults came here to avoid the snow. Haha! Here is a funny conversation I had with my students this week:

Me: Have a wonderful long weekend everyone. Monday is a Hurricane Make-Up Day so we won't be coming to school.
Student: What?! We're going to have a hurricane on Monday?!?!
Me: No, no, no. Hurricane Season is over, but if we had a hurricane earlier in the school year and missed school because of it we would have to come on Monday. Where I came from, we didn't have Hurricane Make-Up Days, but Snow and Ice Days.
Student: Did you live at the North Pole?!?!
Me: No! I lived north of FL, but not THAT far north!

Haha! Love it!!!!

Decision . . . for now

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments of encouragement and wisdom!!! I thought I better share what we decided since I asked you all for advice! Haha!

Judd and I talked and have decided that we will track days and fertility signs, but not temperatures because it's can be too easy for me to become obsessive and to misread the numbers. That's just me. Everyone has to do what they think the Holy Spirit is leading them to do. Judd is keeping up with it on a really cool app on his iphone called My Mate. It tracks cycle days, etc., as well as special dates, sizes, favorites, etc. Really a cool thing for husbands especially, although honestly, Judd is really great about those things and doesn't really even need the app! :) Love you babe!

We're going to do this for two more months. I know it doesn't seem like very long, but we've been at this for 8 months since the loss of Jonah and the surgery and almost two years total. If God has not opened the door by the end of December for a baby naturally, then we'll begin the adoption process. We're not quite sure how we will pay for it yet, but if this is what God is leading us to do, we know HE will provide, and if not, we won't. Plain and simple. We are not going to pursue a Fertility Doctor at this point because the insurance that I now get through my FL school district covers 0% of infertility costs versus the 70% that was covered in SC. So, we feel that God has definitely shut that door for now.

Thank you all SO SO much for your prayers. I am trying SO hard to surrender my desires everyday. I wrote this in my journal last week:
"I wish I didn't want.
It feels so wrong when I think about all God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have done for me.
That should be enough. It is!
SO MUCH MORE!
So why, why do I long for something more?
Why am I not forever content?
How does God want me to feel?"

I really wish I could just be content with Judd and I, and our ministries through community, church, and school. I feel so selfish that I'm not. I pray that God will just take this desire away or fulfill it so I don't have to wrestle with it any longer. I pray for all of you out there that are waiting as well.

Last night, our new church had a women's gathering called "Illuminate". The speaker, Desiree, read a couple of lines from a books called "Stuff Christians Like". It mentioned that even though as Christians we know and await the 2nd coming of Christ and the end of this current world (which includes the end of suffering, hunger, evil sadness, etc.), there are things that we want to "get in" before it happens. As if, Christ coming before we were able to do those things, would be really upsetting and cause us to feel that we missed out on something really special or important. When we really think about that, we are elevating that thing above Christ.

I don't want to do that! I want to keep everything in proper perspective. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for your prayers and support! I am praying for SO many of you out there as well!

I know that God says He won't give you more than you can handle, but do you ever feel like you are playing the childhood game of "mercy" with Him and as your circumstances get worse and harder you cry out "Mercy! Mercy! Mercy! I've had all that I can take! No more!" But he doesn't stop? In times like these I know I have to trust Him and not in His Ways. It's tough. Very tough.

Love you all and praying for you!!!!
Katy :)

PS - If you are a regular reader, don't be afraid to follow my blog officially. I would LOVE to know who you are and how to pray for you!

Light a candle on Oct. 15 for babies lost to miscarriage or stillbirth

I totally forgot about this day because of being so busy with my first week of teaching at my new school! I still wanted to post something in honor of it thought. So here it is:

To Chart or Not to Chart???

So . . . charting again may be a good thing but I just can't decide because it seems like taking everything into my own hands. When we got pregnant in March 2009 we weren't "trying" but were on a skiing vaca in Breckenridge, CO. I never expected to lose the baby and we still have no clue as to why. The docts. had some ideas but nothing very clear. The docts. did find out that I have a genetic mutation and that I need to take baby aspirin everyday to thin my blood and extra Folic Acid and Vitamin B (when I say extra, I mean like 5 times what regular preggo women take). The doct. also found out that Judd has hypo-thyroidism and he is on synthyroid for that.

We tried for 9 months with charting after the first loss and it was almost more than I could handle. The sorrow coupled with the stress, sent me into a deep depression and I began seeing a counselor and taking anti-depressants. Christmas Eve of 2009 we got pregnant again but never knew it. I had a regular period and no positive pregnancy tests until 1/2 way through my next cycle. I began to bleed heavily around day 14 and when I took a test it was positive. Our doctor, Judd and I thought I was miscarrying again so she said it was okay for us to leave the next day for our annual ski trip out west. However, while in CO, I began to have severe pain and went in to the emergency room. Turned out the baby was still there, had implanted in my left fallopian tube and had burst my tube! I was at risk of going into shock and dying at any moment. After emergency surgery, Judd and I had lost our 2nd baby and half my fertility chances. Now we continue on knowing that even if I ovulate, it may be on my left side where there is no tube for the sperm to access the egg. So, we keep trying each month believing it will take a miracle from God and feeling that He is letting us down each time.

When we charted before it felt like we were trying to control it too much. As if we weren't surrendering to the Lord's control. However, my cycles have become very erratic and it is hard for us to time everything; BUT should we even be "trying" at all?!?!

Girls, I need your help on this!!! What do you think?

In His Hands but unsure as to how much I need to do,
Katy :)

So what's your pain?

Do you ever look at other's lives and think that they have everything going for them? That nothing could possibly be wrong in their world?

Oh course you do, because that's just human nature. We fight against this and to surrender these untrue thoughts to the Lord all the time!

So, instead of us all thinking that everything is going perfectly well in everyone else's lives, I ask one question: What is causing you pain in this current season of your life?

There is a saying, "Misery loves company," and to an extent that's true. However, I like to look at it differently. First Corinthians 10:13 "The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience." Another translation says that the troubles that we deal with are "common to men." Do you find comfort in that? One has to wonder why this truth was included in the Bible, and since it brings me peace to know that I'm not alone in my pain, I think that may be the reason.

So, in an effort to feel not so alone during this difficult season, I ask the question again.

What is YOUR pain?

In His Hands,
Katy

It hurts but I wish it didn't

I wish it didn't hurt when others announce their pregnancies. I feel like such a selfish person.

I see their ultrasound pictures and all I can think about is that my ultrasounds have never been for happy reasons.

1. I started spotting and went in at 7 weeks with our first baby to find out that our baby's heart rate was very low and that the baby might not make it.
2. Had an ultrasound after the miscarriage to make sure I didn't need a D&C and thank you Lord that I didn't.
3. Was told I had another miscarriage.
4. Doctor in Colorado saw a large mass outside my left ovary. It was an 8-week old baby that had implanted in my tube and already ruptured it. Was told I needed emergency surgery immediately to prevent too much loss of blood.
5. Fertility doctor checked to see if everything looked good before beginning Clomid.

Would the Lord allow me to experience so many sad ultrasound experiences and never a good one? I'm searching His Character so much right now. There is an incredible book called, "The Prisoner in the Third Cell", that describes how John the Baptist may have felt when the Messiah he so anxiously awaited and gave his life for didn't arrive and act the ways John had anticipated. Before ever seeing Jesus crucified and resurrected, John was beheaded.

There is an AMAZING chapter that describes how Jesus may have felt and thought towards John. Jesus wanted so badly to explain His mysterious ways to John, but was unable to. My favorite line from Jesus to John is: "Blessed are you if you do not take offense with Me." (Paraphrased - I can't remember it exactly. This is historical fiction, not scriptural.)

I am so often "offended" by God because I don't understand His Ways. Things don't seem "fair" although our sin towards God isn't fair, and Christ leaving God's side in Heaven to live on Earth as a man only to be hated and crucified and then take on the wrath of God for the world isn't fair.

Why do we think we are owed or deserve things? I want to release this desire and submit it to the Lord's Will. I seek to do it everyday and still I must continue to do so. Why do we lay things down only to pick them up again?

I deserve nothing at the very least and quite honestly I deserve Hell. I've been given SO MUCH in Christ!!!! Praise You Lord!!! Please help me to keep my heart and mind focused on Your Truth - not the lies I am so tempted to buy into to.

In His Hands,
Katy

Philippians 4:8 (New Living Translation)
"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

Philippians 4:6-8 (The Message)
6-7Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

8-9Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Sometimes I feel like I live in a different world than everybody else

Do you ever feel that way?

Like everyone seems to go along with the "normal" things of life that seem so easy for them or that happen in "due" time, but for some reason your life doesn't seem to be on track? My heart goes out to all of my single friends out there that are waiting so patiently (or seeking to at least, haha!) for the spouse God has for them, but the time just seems to tick by while everyone else (or what seems to be) goes along with their normal lives.

Don't we teach kids in school that when a man and a woman really love each other, they . . . and make a baby and in 9 months the baby is born? But what if that doesn't seem to be your reality? You begin to think to yourself, "No, no, no, silly, that may be where babies come from for you and the rest of the world, but not me. I don't live in that world. That doesn't happen for me."

That's kind-of how I feel some days. For me, in my world, babies don't live past 8 weeks, and I never have to "be careful" about what time of my cycle it is. At this point it seems like we're just waiting on the stork to drop our baby at our doorstep. Maybe that's what God has planned for us - Adoption. It would be a beautiful thing and I know that God provides. Anybody wanna help us pay for it? Haha!

I know God will provide and that He has not left or forsaken me. (Hebrews 13:5) I know that if He doesn't intend on granting us the desires of our hearts, He'll remove the desire and replace it with a new one. (Psalm 37:4) I know that God's plans are better than I can ever dream or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

But tonight, I just feel very different. Welcome to Planet Infertility and Pregnancy Loss.

In HIS Hands,
Katy