One year later, Labor Day weekend

After the appointment Saturday the 31^stwe got our timeline from Sarah, we would report to Little Rock Monday September 2^nd, Labor Day. They don’t take holidays down there, to me that is dedication. We stayed Sunday night in Little Rock because we had to be at the clinic Monday morning at 8:30 am. There was a whole lot of extra praying that went on those 2 days. Monday morning for sure, it was only the second time in my life that I’d been put under anesthesia, the first time was when I had my wisdom teeth out when I was 18, needless to say I was nervous. Everything went well they were able to retrieve 16 eggs and 11 of them were mature enough to be fertilized. Out of the 11 only 3 actually fertilized, 2 divided normally and one did not, it never divided and thus they had to discard it. To this day, and I don’t know if I’ve ever told anyone this before, but I still wonder if we should have transferred all 3… that’s something that I’ll wonder forever. We did the transfer Thursday of that week it was the 5^th. Everything went well and we left Little Rock with 2 growing embryos inside me. It would be a week and a half before we’d have the pregnancy test and we’d know if everything we had been through worked or not.

 

This weekend Chance and I have been taking it easy, we're visiting my memaw and pawpaw, the boys went to the farm and Memaw and I are getting pedicures! That's where I'm blogging from... The pedicure chair!! Tomorrow will be church and the leaders dedication, then Sunday afternoon we'll probably have lunch with Chances parents and Monday we have NO plans! That's just the way I like it! Have a great long weekend friends! 

 

Ashley

One year later, the first shot

This day last year was a roller coaster of emotions, the day started out with me calling the mail order pharmacy used to send us our IVF prescriptions. You see I had gotten an email the night before that my prescriptions had shipped and their ETA was Monday… I was supposed to start the injections that night, so Monday was NOT going to work. So I called the pharmacy and explained the situation the guy on the phone was super nice and helpful and told me that the email was not a mistake that someone had shipped it incorrectly and that it would not arrive until Monday. He then transferred me to the concierge department who started a search to find the medication at a local pharmacy, no luck… then they asked me to contact my clinic and see if they had it… 3 hours away. She explained that there was another option but she was not authorized to do this unless she spoke to a manager… she took my number and called me back. They ended up sending me the prescriptions same day with no charge to me since it was their mistake. In the mean time I had emailed Sarah to let her know what was going on and she began searching for a 2 day supply of the medication, she had some at the clinic in Johnson and we were instructed to drive there and Chance would administer the shot on site. So we did! We drove to Fayetteville and got the meds, went to Walgreens (because I forgot to get alcohol wipes) and Chance shot me in the parking lot! Haha!! It was a little funny! We made it back home started a movie and the full prescription of meds arrived about 11:00. Over the next week I drove to Johnson on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. We found out my body is excellent at making estrogen and that my eggs grow very well when stimulated! After the Saturday appointment we would find out when we’d go to Little Rock for the retrieval... I’ll pick up there next week!

 

As for present time, yesterday Chance and I went to Branson and shopped for the rest of the decor for Sawyer's room, we got curtains, rugs, and baskets! I'll post pictures as soon as the room is complete! 

Have a blessed day friends! 

 

Ashley

One year later...

With everything that is going on in our lives these days; the joy of feeling this life grow inside of me, planning the showers to celebrate him, gearing up for our Wednesday night classes that start in a couple of weeks, and of course cheering on the TOC team at church league softball; I almost forgot the journey we were on this time last year. We were preparing for our IVF cycle. Even now, a year later, I’m still emotional just thinking about the journey that has brought us to this moment. The heartbreaking journey with wounds so fresh and deep even the smallest of bumps can open them back up. We are healing and we are continuing to move forward, it’s not easy but it’s doable. Even with the miracle moving inside me right now there is still, and always will be, a special place in my heart for my angel babies that we never got to meet.

 

So just to keep things in perspective and prevent me from ever taking this miracle pregnancy for granted I decided to share over the next few weeks a memory of the journey that led us here. I’ll start by the post that started it all, last July I posted about our infertility diagnosis and the decision that we had made to start the IVF process. That was a very emotional post, for one I was sharing the intimate details of the diagnosis we’d received and I was doing it publicly, for the entire world to see if they chose to! It was nerve wracking to say the least. After that initial post we went through more testing and waiting and more waiting to start the IVF cycle. This week marks the week we started, August 24^th2013. I’ll wait until then for the next post but I just wanted to say I hope you all follow with me as we journey down memory lane. These memories are heartbreaking but I now know that we were meant to take that journey, not only to make us stronger but make us appreciate what we have and certainly believe even more in the God we serve. Thank you all for the thoughts, prayers, phone calls, and messages over the last year, they mean more to me than you all will ever know.

 

Love,

Ashley

Counting my blessings!

Tonight as I lay here on the couch feeling Sawyer kick and roll around I can't help but to feel full! Full of blessings, full of Gods mercies and grace, and full of baby! We are 27 & 1/2 weeks and we are so excited to meet our miracle baby, only 3 more months! Every time I feel a kick or movement I sill can't believe that I'm pregnant, after being told we'd never conceive naturally and losing our 3 embryos through IVF the day I took the pregnancy test was the most mind blowing day of my life! Our God is truly amazing and ALL things are possible through Him! 

Not much has been going on lately, we finished our registry at target yesterday and learned that Walmart no longer offers in store registries it's all online, kind of irritated me a bit but whatever! Tomorrow we have a doctors appointment and the 3D ultrasound, we're pretty excited to see baby Sawyer's face! I'll post pics sometime later this week! Right now though I'm tired so I'm headed to bed! Good night all! 

Ashley 

"Watch your Tone"

I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve heard this phrase… I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve said this phrase.  One thing I do know is how true it is and how with just the tone of our voices we can lift up our brothers and sisters or we can tear them down… way down.  It may just be my over sensitive hormones and the fact that a commercial on TV or a song on the radio can bring me to tears right now, or perhaps it’s an epiphany from God. A way for him to show me just how powerful my tone of voice can be, I was on the receiving end of quite the lashing a few days ago and I know that the person that lashed out didn’t mean it but it really hit me hard. I spent the next few minutes after they were finished going through my emotions: sad that I’d upset this person, mad that they’d lashed out, then into uncontrollable crying and sobbing and not being able to explain to my husband why I was crying. The crying lasted about 20 minutes as witnesses asked me if I was ok… Just a side note, when you see a pregnant woman trying to fight back tears asking her if she’s ok is just a good way to get those tears to start flowing again! After we got home and I was able to actually talk to Chance about it the tears and why I was crying it all came again, the tears and sobs, don’t ask me why I can’t give you an answer… just that they started and they wouldn’t stop. Eventually they did and I got over it, as much as I could.

 

So now on to my epiphany, is this the way that I make people feel when I get an annoyed tone with them? Have I ever caused someone to cry at the sound of my words or the words that I’ve said? Have they dwelt on what I have said to them for days and wondered what they ever could have done wrong to cause me to treat them in such a way? Lord help me I hope not.  I’m afraid though that I have and that I’ve done it not realizing the extent of what I’d done… with just my words. The Bible talks about ‘Taming the Tongue’ in James chapter 3 verses 1-12:

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.² We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.³ When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. ⁴ Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. ⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.⁷ All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind,      ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.⁹ With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

No human being can tame the tongue… just let that sink in… we can’t tame our tongues, we can only seek God’s help in making sure that only good things and uplifting words come from our mouths. A salt spring cannot produce fresh water. The saying from my childhood comes to mind, we’ve all heard it and said it before “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” this is the furthest from the truth. Broken bones and cuts heal, once the casts and bandages are gone so is the hurt that went with it, you may never forget what was done but the pain eventually is gone. Words cut deeper than any knife and linger longer than any bone can take to heal. Words are never forgotten and can last a lifetime.

I started thinking about all the times that Chance has told me about my “tone”.  I never realized that I was using a tone but to think that I might have shown him disrespect in just a tone of voice makes me wonder how many others have I disrespected with just my tone. Then I got to thinking about Sawyer and when he gets big enough to ask me something and I’m already annoyed at something else and I answer him with annoyance in a sarcastic or condescending tone, will he still want to come to me and ask me things? Will he be afraid to ask me questions for fear that I’ll lash out with annoyance? I pray that I can make a change before my son has to hear that. I pray that I can start thinking of my mood before I speak and potentially ruin someone’s day; I pray that God can help me get a hold of my own tongue and never make someone feel inferior or less of the amazing person that he created just from my words. I know that I definitely need a lot of help in this department, just yesterday when buying fabric for Sawyer’s room the lady at the fabric store was quite rude about me placing a special order and well I am my mother’s daughter and when the lady got snotty so did my mom and then I started to… I ended up sending my mom out to start the car so that all 3 of us didn’t get into a scuffle and by the end the lady had straightened up and I got a discount on the fabric I’d had to order. Not because she was that nice but that’s just how the computer rang it up. As I left I thanked her and told her to have a good day and I actually meant it, I was not just saying it spitefully like I’ve done in the past. It wasn’t the lady’s fault that she was the only cashier and the only other person working in the store was cutting the fabric for all the other customers, they truly did need more help.

So there you have it, my epiphany if you’ll let me have it that way. God is working on me still and if any of you are reading this and have been victim to me and my tone, tongue, or condescending words please accept my deepest apologies. I want to leave you with a song from Hawk Nelson called “Words”, I’ve tried to add the video into this post but it might just be the YouTube link. In the song he says “Words can build us up, words can tear us down, start a fire in our hearts or put it out”… I don’t want to be the one that puts out a fire in someone’s heart; I want to be the one that helps lift them up and keep that fire burning. Have a blessed day friends.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=anVweXDcxhA

Ashley