Where to Go From Here...

I finally got through to the lab who claimed they had the wrong fax number and they would send the results to the right one. When I got the results  a little while ago it was negative like I thought.

I am not sure where we will go from here. I believe that our adoption journey is far from over and I do believe we will have more children in our family one day. We do have one transfer left at the NEDC and we still have 5 remaining embryos. If we decide to go forward with another transfer I am going to seek out some more intensive medical advice regarding the apparent autoimmune response that is going on to try to give the embies the best possible chance at survival. Josh and I will have to discuss and pray about moving forward. Part of me doesn't even want to try this route again for many reasons but if we had given up after 2 transfers the last time we wouldn't have Karis. But I want to make sure we are doing what God wants us to do. I do want to experience pregnancy again. I loved being pregnant. I loved nursing Karis and I would love to have that experience again all the while bringing an "orphan" into our home. But my purpose as a mom is not to be pregnant. Raegan's adoption was every bit as special as Karis' adoption even though I never experienced pregnany with Raegan. My purpose is to bring glory to God, to work to do His will on Earth and to share His love. I believe God's purpose for allowing me to be a mom is to shephard my children's hearts and show them the love of Christ so that one day they may become committed followers and lovers of Jesus. My greatest joy is hearing my children talk about Jesus, want to read their Bibles and pray. One of the the most joyous things and hardest things has been hearing my children pray for a baby ( or in Karis' case she has been praying for 2 babies). It warmed my heart to hear them excited about a baby but it has broken my heart over the last couple of days as they have prayed that prayer and I knew that it was a very real possibility that they would not receive what they were praying for. My prayer now is that I can be a good example to them as I deal with unanswered prayers.

I want to do what God wants me to do. I don't want to keep saying " I want to be pregnant", or " I want another baby" when it is not what God wants me me and for our family. I don't want to be turned off by the financial hurdles of domestic or international adoption or the "risks" of foster care or foster adoption. I want to be walking in God's will. I want to have faith that He will provide all that we need to do the work He is calling us to do. There are so many needs. There are so many children without homes. The pain I am experiencing is nothing compared to the pain of orphans who have never had anyone to love them. So all this to say. I don't know what we are going to do but there are too many needs to not do something. Please pray for us as we strive to walk in God's will. Thank you for your prayers and encouraging as we struggle to accept the "no" that we were given today. I know God has a perfect plan. He has already given me more than I could have ever asked for or imagined. This life is not about what I want but what will I let God accomplish through me. And even in the midst of sadness I am excited to see what God has in store for me and for our family.

No News

First of all I would like to thank each and every one of you for your prayers and encouragement through our embryo adoption journey. Your prayers mean so much to me. Infertility and adoption can sometimes ( a lot of the time) make me feel very alone and because of all of you I have not felt that way. I know that several of you have asked me to share my results from today and at this point I don't have any official results. The office is closed and I haven't gotten a phone call because my lab results probably did not get there in time ( which has happened before). So I won't know officially until tomorrow but I have been through this process enough to pretty much know that my body is telling me I am not pregnant. I started developing the same type of hives I developed after the last transfer and they appear to be some sort of autoimmune reaction. My doctor changed my protocol a bit and I did some things that supposedly could help but on thursday the hives started developing and I pretty much knew at that point that my body was not allowing our little embies to implant. I also don't have any preggo symptoms at all. So anyway. I could be wrong but I am preparing myself for the news I was hoping not to hear. In the infertilitiy world most people say that you are pregnant until otherwise proven to be not pregnant so until I get the call tomorrow I am going to enjoy being pregnant. I would love for these little embies to join our family on earth but if I am told  tomorrow that that is not going to happen I will still rejoice because I believe that they are in Heaven. It's hard for me to not get what I want and I want to be a mama again but I believe with all of my heart that my Heavenly Father knows what best. He works out all things for good and regardless of what my blood test says He has already accomplished great things in this transfer. Two precious lives were taken out of a freezer and given a chance at life on earth. I got to watch on a ultrasound screen as they were placed in my body. They are either growing inside of me or they are in Heaven right now. I am not saying that it won't be hard to hear the news if they aren't growing inside of me. But even in my pain I will be able to rejoice because they are free, either way they are no longer orphans and that was the true goal of this process. I will update again when I know more tomorrow. Again, thank you for your prayers.

Settling In

Josh and I are back from Tennessee. We got back last night but still in time to see our little girls before they went to bed. We hit a lot of traffic coming back so it was a looonnng trip but it was all worth it of course. I intended to blog while we were in Knoxville but I never got around to it. I took advantage of my day "off" and rested all day after we got back from the transfer.

As we were driving down to Knoxville I really felt peace come over me. I really felt like God was telling me that He was going to expand our family with this trip but I also felt peace that I would be ok if that didn't happen. I saw a rainbow coming straight down from the sky as we approached Knoxville and it almost seemed like that was my reminder that God is in control and He has perfect plans for us. I hoped that the rainbow was pointing straight down and leading us to our "pot of gold".

The transfer went really well. They showed us our embies when we got there and they both appeared to be very healthy. One was graded expanding 3AA which is the best grading you can get and one had already expanded out if it's "shell" and it was graded an expanded AB which is also a very good grade. When we had Karis' transfer that was the only other time we had an AA graded embryo and look what happened! For some reason I felt like if we were shown an embryo graded AA that it was going to result in a pregnancy. But I don't really like to go on feelings. The transfer went well and this time on the ultrasound it was very clear to me where the embies were placed. It is always such a neat experience to watch the ultrasound as these tiny lives are being placed inside of me. I am thankful to have had this opportunity again to witness miracles.

So now we are back home and it's good to be back with our girls who we missed very much ( I don't think they missed us as much as we missed them). We are very thankful that they had a great time with Grandma and Pop Pop and proud that they both got good reports for behavior while we were gone. I have my first pregnancy test on the 26th and we are hoping for good things!

Thank you for all of the prayers! I will keep you posted!

Ready to Go!

We are ready to head to Tennessee again! I had an ultraound and estradiol level done on friday and everything looked great. The nurse said " you have a beautiful lining". I have been told that before. Apparently my body responds well to Estrace. Let's just pray that the embies like my lining too like Karis did :). So we are all set for a transfer on thursday. We don't know what time yet but they will let us know probably tomorrow. We will drop the kids off at my parents house tomorrow morning before we leave and they will watch them while we are gone. I am so thankful for my parents. They watch the girls while I work and at other times too. And they have watched the girls for every adoption trip we have made. Tomorrow they are taking her on a field trip for school and then a fundraiser at night since we can't be there. Raegan is really excited that her grandparents will be coming and it makes it a lot easier for me to leave knowing that the girls will not only be cared for but that they will really enjoy their time with their grandparents. I don't know how we would have done any of our adoptions without them!

We are excited for our trip and some time alone ( even though I we will probably talk about Raegan and Karis at least 75% of the trip and miss them terribly). And we are excited for another transfer. I am feeling at peace about everything and am just trusting in God to do what He has always done for us, unfold His perfect plan. I will try to update the blog a few times when I am gone to keep it up to date! Thanks for your prayers!

A Second Home

In a week Josh and I will be on our way to Knoxville for our embryo transfer. We are both excited for the trip and of course for the transfer. This will be our 7th trip to Knoxville but every time we go we enjoy ourselves. If our family wasn't mostly in the north I think we would probably find ourselves living in the south. I was joking last night about how I feel like Knoxville is like our second home because of how many times we have gone there. But as much as I like Knoxville and enjoy the mini "vacation" that Josh and I get when we go down there I hope that this is our last trip there unless we are going back to visit. I am really excited to "pick up" our embryos but I hope that this transfer will result in pregnancy so we don't have to make a trip for another transfer. I miss our two girls terribly when we have to leave them. I found out today that Raegan has a field trip next wednesday for her school that I didn't know about so I am either going to have to have one of my parents take her or for her to not go on her trip ( which would devastate her). I am really sad that I won't be able to go on this trip with her though since it will be one of her last preschool trips. But it's just all a part of this process and we are still praying that we bring back a healthy growing baby when we return from our trip.  Karis is requesting 2 babies but we will just have to wait and see what God's plan is.

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today we will have already "met" our newest embies and will be resting and beginning the wait to find out if our family will be expanding. I am getting really excited to travel back to Tennessee and even more excited to have the transfer. It is always so amazing to see the picture of our embies after they have been thawed and before they are transferred. It's amazing on many levels but particularly because that picture holds hope for us ( as we have already experienced once) that a baby ( or potentially babies) will be growing inside of me again. But it also holds hope because even though many of the embies that were transferred ( 10 to be exact) did not survive to experience life here on earth, they are I believe experiencing life in heaven. I won't lie. The transfers that didn't work were devastating but they also were full of hope. I believe that it is pleasing to God that those embies were released back to Him out of the freezer that they were stored in. They went from being frozen orphans to being full of eternal life. And I am so thankful that we get to experience life everyday with our precious Karis. I don't think a day goes by when I don't look at our two children and marvel at the miracles that they are. I look at them and marvel at what God has done and it gives me the strength to keep moving along on this journey. I have been reading some other embryo adoption blogs lately and a couple of them have articulated thoughts that I believe capture how I am feeling but have not been able to articulate myself. I think I get so overwhelmed by this process because I long so deeply for all orphans to be able to find their forever families. I do want our family to grow. I love having babies around. I love seeing those babies grow and see their personalities develop and see them start to comprehend God's love for them. But I also long for all children to have homes. I know there is controversy about embryo adoption in some circles and there is debate over when life begins. But in my mind there is no doubt. I think God makes it pretty clear. And I hate the fact that all throughout this world there are orphans without parents including the 500,000 or so frozen embryos in the United States alone. I love that God has chosen this journey for us. It is hard and as I have shared how it doesn't seem to be getting any easier. It is still hard to see pregnancy announcments even though I am of course always happy for the people involved. But ultimately I know God has a different plan for our family. The road is tougher to having children for us but I believe that this journey is about a whole lot more than just having children. I am thankful that I am getting to experience God's heart for adoption. I am thankful that I get to experience the heartache of adoptions that haven't brought children to our home because it makes me understand that much more just how much God loves us and just how much He rejoices when we do come back to Him. I am hoping and praying that with this next transfer we will get to experience a growing family here on earth. I trust that God has a perfect plan for us just as He has promised and I am thankful for the two little miracles that He has already blesssed us with.