fertility

national adoption month

~ inourlittleredhouse ~ Leave a comment

View More: http://andrewjadephoto.pass.us/thatcher-fam

When I look at this sweet boy of mine, it’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, I had zero interest in adoption. I remember when Caleb and I were engaged and he shared with me that he wanted to adopt in the future and I told him right then and there that I had no interest. I mean, zero, nothing.

It’s funny to me when I look back to see how God redirects us. How we think we know what we want and we visualize our perfect future and then God (I imagine with a loving smile) nudges us back on the path that he knows is best.

As he redirects and we rest in him, our desires change and line up with his plan. It’s a beautiful thing really. He did a little bit of nudging in my heart almost 4 years ago until I finally came to Caleb and explained that I wanted to adopt. Not only did I want to adopt, but I wanted to adopt before we ever had biological children.

I have never been a consistent blogger but I did have a blog through the first couple of years of our adoption process that one day literally disappeared somewhere into cyberspace and I cannot get back into it. It makes me so sad because it was the only written journal that I have through that part of the process and now it’s gone. Our journey is marked by longing and celebration, beauty and brokenness, worry and trust, and most of all, JOY! I love sharing our story because it is clearly God’s story. It’s a testament to Him in every way because we would never have made it through without him. We would never have our sweet little Crew without him. Maybe someday I will write it out again but I love to talk about it any chance that I get!

November is National Adoption Month and it will always be a special month in our home. We will always celebrate how Crew came into our family and we will always honor his birth-mom’s brave choice.

I will never forget seeing Crew for the very first time. In that moment I became a mom and my world was forever changed. Adoption is beautiful and tough all wrapped in one. It was a long three and a half year journey for us but I’m so grateful for it. We learned so much in that time and I know the Lord used it to prepare me to the very best mommy for Crew.

If you ever have any questions about our story or adoption in general, please feel free to reach out! I’m an open book and would love to chat. xoxo

Happy National Adoption Month!!!

some tough stuff

~ inourlittleredhouse ~ 2 Comments

Adoption is amazing and I’m a huge advocate of it (obviously!) but it’s also messy. I think often times we romanticize it but when it comes down to it, there are just some extremely heartbreaking pieces that come along with the joy.crew-tummy-time

I didn’t know until right before Crew was born that babies adopted right at birth, even if they never spend time with their birth mom out of the womb, can go through periods of mourning. I guess I assumed that we were going to get to skip that part since we were the only parents that Crew would ever know but I was wrong. Babies connect with their birth mom’s voices, heartbeats and rhythms while in utero and so it is highly possible that they will mourn losing her. It’s so sad.

We hadn’t seen any signs of Crew mourning until yesterday. All of you mamas get it that you KNOW your baby’s different cries. There is the hungry cry, the upset cry, the needy cry and the all-out angry cry! Last night, Crew’s cry was so different. It was beyond sad and in my spirit I knew that he was experiencing a little bit of mourning. Oh you guys, it was so heartbreaking to see him go through that. All we could do was hold onto him and do our best to comfort his sweet little heart.

It was pretty amazing because after a little while, we decided to pray and as soon as Caleb finished praying, peace washed over Crew. It was immediate and the mourning was over.

some-tough-stuff-3

I realized that we may face this at different points in Crew’s life as he tries to figure out who he is and where he belongs. We have decided that we want to be very open with him about his adoption and how his birth mom chose this for him as an act of bravery, because let’s be honest, there are other options out there that she could have chosen. We will explain how we, and so many of you prayed for years for him before he was even born and how God chose him to be ours and us to be his. We will always celebrate that we get to be a family, even though I am anticipating that at times, this could be confusing to our sweet boy and painful I’m sure.

I pray that Crew would always know that even more than he is a part of us and our family, that he is God’s. I pray that He chooses to follow Christ so that he can be adopted into His family, as His son. There is nothing better.

Can I ask for some prayer? You guys reading this are the ones who support us and have been praying for our little family and we could really use it right now. We just got an email this morning from our agency that had an unexpected bill in it that we have to pay before we can finalize the adoption process. We were under the impression that the adoption was completely paid for and that we didn’t owe any more money so this came as a shock to us and we simply don’t have the money right now. We need God to provide so we can finish this thing and make Crew officially ours! Thanks so much friends!

some-tough-stuff-2

(in)fertility update

~ inourlittleredhouse ~ 3 Comments

us - blog

I just wanted to pop in here and give a little update on our quest to get pregnant! For those new to our story, I will give a little background (this will just be the facts….I could write a novel on the emotional and spiritual journey through all this!) Caleb and I have been married for 4.5 years. When we got married, I starting charting my cycle to avoid pregnancy but then after about 6 months, we decided to stop preventing because we didn’t actually mind if we did get pregnant! About 6 months later was about the time when the Lord completely changed my heart about adoption and we started that journey in January, 2013. (That is again, another novel!)

Adoption was our first choice of how we wanted to have kids but we have always wanted biological kiddos as well. So when a year of “not preventing” passed and we hadn’t got pregnant, I wasn’t too concerned because we were in the middle of our adoption, and at the time, that was pretty exciting!

Well, here we are in 2016, and 4 years has passed. I’m not sure where the line is drawn between the terms “not preventing” and “trying” but we have lived both of those out in the past 4 years! About 2 years ago, we started to get pretty concerned as to why I wasn’t getting pregnant. A few friends had referred a specific infertility doctor to us so we made our first appointment.

I’m pretty sure I cried through most of that first appointment. It just sucks. It sucks to have to be there. It sucks to even utter the word “infertile”. Like, who gets to decide that? I couldn’t believe that I was sitting in that office.

Our doctor explained the series of steps that we would take. Testing. Probing. Hoping. Planning. More testing. He talked about the magical age of 35 and how we need to do as much as we can to get pregnant before I turn 35 because “your chances of getting pregnant drop off a table after that birthday”. I remember sitting there at 32 years old thinking that I had so much time.

Now I sit here, almost 35 (in 5 months) in shock at how fast the last 2.5 years went. It just makes me giggle at how much life planning I do (and keep doing)! If life had gone according to my original plan of what I wanted in my early 20’s, I would have 9 kids by now! That was my hope for so long. I wanted a family of 11! I am so small and my plans are just so silly and I’m grateful for that because I serve a HUGE God who is in full control….and that is a great thing.

Here is the truth….1 in 7 women deal with “infertility”. That’s A LOT! But we rarely talk about it. I’m not sure why because I know that I need community and people who ‘get it’. Maybe we don’t know how to talk about it. Maybe it’s just too painful to hear coming out of our own mouths. Maybe saying it out-loud makes it so much more real when all we really want is for it to disappear. I’m not sure what it is for each person battling it, but I’m here, thick in the battle, ready to share!

So now for the update on our quest to get pregnant:  First, (about 1.5 years ago), I got my fallopian tubes checked for blockages. That came out clear. Then I had to get a blood test…clear. Next, Caleb had to get checked for healthy swimmers….clear.

We are now to the last step before we decide on big words like “IVF”. I am currently on Chlomid, a drug that helps women to ovulate and sometimes drop multiple eggs. We started it in January and it didn’t work. We can do this up to 6 rounds and that is really all the body can take.

So here’s to round 2! We are really hoping and praying that we get pregnant within this next 5 months so that we don’t even have to think about the next steps. We would love for you to join us in prayer for that specifically.

To be honest, I would be shocked if we got a positive test. After 4 years of negative tests, it just seems impossible, but I know that God loves to do preposterous things that we can’t even imagine!

***update from just a couple hours after this post was originally written – I forgot to mention that we have also been going down a naturopathic route for fertility. If you know me, you know that when it comes to health, I prefer the most natural methods possible, and this is no different with our fertility issues. I have been seeing a great naturopathic doctor for a few months and have seen great improvements with my hormone levels and adrenals. Next step will probably be oils and acupuncture. At this point, we are trying both Western and natural routes to see which works first!

 

bath - blog
“The Shepherd laughed too. ‘I love doing preposterous things,’ he replied. ‘Why, I don’t know anything more exhilarating and delightful than turning weakness into strength, and fear into faith, and that which has been marred into perfection.'”