Short update...

Two things...

~ My friend Tena's dad passed away this weekend. Please lift them up right now, and this terribly hard time. His funeral is tomorrow (Tuesday) at 10, so please send up a few extra prayers for Tena, her mom, and the rest of their family. I can't even begin to imagine losing your dad or your husband like this. Thank you for praying!

~ Had a dr. appointment today to make sure I didn't have any cysts (follicles that are too big/growing that would make us postpone this cycle)--there were none, praise Jesus, and I started my daily Lupron shots. These will keep me from ovulating before they are able to retrieve the eggs. I should be ready to start the hormone shots that will grow the follicles/eggs by next week. Thanks for your prayers...so far, so good!


Have a great week!! Happy September--I hope fall arrives soon!

Requests...

Would you please pray with me for my some of my friends??

~My friend Tena and her family are going through some tough things lately--today especially. Her son Eli, 2 1/2, is having surgery today. You can read more about it here. Also, as I've mentioned before, her dad has been fighting an aggressive thyroid cancer, and it isn't looking good right now. I know that God is a God of miracles, and He can do a miracle healing, but sometimes the answer to prayers is healing in heaven. Her blog this morning, click here to read it, broke my heart. Please lift their family up with me today!

~Also, today is the one year birthday/anniversary of Estella, the daughter our friends Andy and Elisabeth lost last year, just short of a month after we lost Jonathan. We know how hard it is to make it to the year mark after losing your precious baby, and I just want to lift them up today. You can check out her blog, Estella's Angels, which is a group she created to help other parents who have lost a baby.

There are so many more people who are facing things that are heavy on my heart lately. I've read so many prayer requests on other blogs, and they just break my heart. It is so easy to get caught up in my own life, and not lift up others. Would you join me today in petitioning heaven on behalf of my sweet friends? Thank you so much!

Luke Skywalker, anyone??

Justin found this app on his iphone the other day, and had to share it with my dad, a new iphone user. Can you tell what it is?? It was a lightsaber--complete with sound effects. So they fought...
Thrilling.
Men...
or should I say boys?!!

I guess you can truly find anything in the iphone app store!

Official Start...

We have officially started the IVF process. For those of you who have been through it or close to someone that has, you probably know more that I do at this point! But I'm glad to be getting started. It seems very backwards that when you are starting IVF, desperately trying to get pregnant, that the first thing they have you do is start on a pack of birth control pills. Strange, but a must for the doctors to gain control of my cycle, so that the timing of all the shots and meds work perfectly. So here is a quick overview of our next few weeks...

Next 2-3 weeks--birth control pills, start Lupron injections on August 31st. This medicine keeps the body from ovulating on its own.

After that, begin Gonal-F shots...These I'm familiar with--they were the same shots that I used on the last 6 cycles of fertility treatments to make more eggs/follicles mature.

Once those meds have produced the right number of follicles/eggs, we do a egg retrieval, and then five days later, a transfer of the two perfect embryos I'm believing we are going to have!

Then we do progesterone shots, to hold the lining and sustain a pregnancy, well into the first trimester. These are the big needle shots--yikes!! Justin is going to have fun stabbing me with those--well, hopefully not too much fun!! =)


So...we have a lot of stuff going on in the next month and a half or so. Kind of overwhelming when I think about the huge amount of shots/meds that are going to be going into my body. I really want this cycle to work. No, that is an understatement---I'm desperate for this cycle to work. Like I said in an earlier blog, I'm trying to be hopeful, positive, and encouraged. I want to believe that this will be the one. I'm trying to take it one day at a time, and only focus on the present, to trust God. But, with my history of so many let-downs--negative pregnancy tests, miscarriages, and our loss of Jonathan, I'm really struggling. I even cried myself to sleep two nights ago, trying to come up with what I do next when this cycle doesn't work. Sad. I hate that feeling.

But...even in this, I'm trusting God. I hate the feeling of not being able to snap myself out of this funk, but I know that even through this, God is with us. God has provided for this moment, for us to be right where we are right now. Even though I am scared, maybe even just trying to cushion myself from the pain of another blow, I know that God's timing is perfect. And He has an amazing plan for our life. I can't wait to experience it, to live in the moments of raising our child(ren), not just in the limbo land of everything being on hold, waiting for them. I'm ready to be a mom.

Thanks for your prayers!!

A quilt and a princess...

My sweet friend, Tena, brought over this very special quilt that she finished for us this summer. The middle piece of this quilt is 1/4 of the original quilt she began making for Jonathan last year. In THIS earlier post, I showed pictures of the rest of the quilt that she made into preemie blankets that she donated to the hospital in Fort Worth where Jonathan was born. Thank you so much, Tena...this is such a special treasure that will always remind us of our sweet boy, and will have a prominent place in our home!

Tena's dad is battling aggressive thyroid cancer, and also has pneumonia--would you please lift her dad and her whole family up in prayer??

And for those of you that know me and have been to my house, you know that my Betsy LOVES to sleep on pillows. She thinks she is a human, and therefore must use pillows and lounge on the couch. We are suckers for her, so most of the time, no matter how many times I straighten the pillows, the couch usually looks like this, and usually Betsy is right in the corner...



But the other night, she found her ultimate Princess moment...at the top of 5 of the pillows on our bed! What a princess!

Is she spoiled or what?!

California Trip--10 Year Reunion...

Here we go--the final part my California trip! (Part 1 and 2 of this trip are below this one, if you are interested and haven't seen them yet!) I promise that this will be the last super long blog--at least for awhile! =)

Justin and I left the coast Friday afternoon, and drove into Fresno. We stayed with the parents of my best friend Jenny. They were like a second set of parents to me when I was growing up, and it was so fun to show Justin their house, where I had spent so much time!!

The next morning, we went to Jenny's house, and had breakfast with she and her husband Jeff, as well as my other best friend Andrea and her family. Jeff and Jenny, and Josh and Andrea all started dating when we were in high school--all high school sweethearts =)--so I feel like I've known their husbands forever too! We always make a point to get all three couples together when we are in CA, and we have such a great time together!

These are Andrea's boys Noah, the blondie, and Micah, the one who wouldn't smile for me! They are so precious, and I couldn't believe how much they had grown since I saw them last spring!!!

Here we are--best friends. Andrea (top) and Jenny... I love these girls so much--they have been two of my closest friends since 6th grade..we've been through a whole lot together, and I'm so thankful that they are in my life! (Can't wait until our next couples' get together!! Where should we go ladies?? =)

We packed in so much into the 36 hours we were in Fresno, so after a great breakfast at Jenny's, we met more friends for lunch. This is Sean and Megan. Sean and I were neighbors from the time we were 1 1/2 all the way through my jr. year of college! We grew up playing at each other's houses, and have stayed close friends! They got married just 6 months after we did, and are going to have their first baby, a little girl in December! We had so much fun talking with them and catching up!

After that, the I met back with Jenny, Andrea, and another very close friend Kristen, to get pedicures!!! We chatted the whole time--of course!

Then it was finally time for the big event--my 10 year High school reunion!! Here we are--all dressed up! I went to a Fresno Christian, a pretty small school. We only had 63 or so in our graduating class, so I was looking forward to getting to see everyone again. I was a little bummed out, because there were a whole lot of people who weren't able to make the Saturday evening event. There was another picnic event on Sunday, but we had to leave before it since we had to drive back to Oakland to fly out that afternoon. Bummer! Maybe our 20 year!! =)

But I did get to see quite a few people, and it was wonderful to catch up with them! Here we are again--with my silly husband taking the picture!

We even had a couple of the staff come for a little while as well! This is Mr. Stobbe, one of my English teachers. I also went to Europe my sophomore year with a group of students led by he and his wife Geena. It was SO fun, and it was great to get to see him again!

Our principal Mr. Schulz, who we called Papa Schulz, also was there and made friends with Justin. They got to talking, and found out that they went to the same small college in Kansas--what a small world!!!

Here are some pictures I got with some of my classmates--it was such a fun night!

And us being silly--nothing new for us!!

And then our husbands started getting crazy--they entertained themselves, and I think, ended up maybe having more fun than we did!!

Jeff...Josh...

and my Justin...

What can I even say???

And who knew that coffee at 11pm...

Makes this happen??!! You would think the coffee was spiked, but I promise you, no alcohol was a part of this behavior!!

But I love him so much--crazy man that he is!!!

It was a great night--fun to see friends, catch up, and reconnect for the future.

~~~

After our late night, we were up again the next morning--we had two more very important people to see before flying home. This is my second mom, Hallie, and my (heart) sister Diane. We met at a breakfast place early, and had a little bit of time to catch up. It wouldn't have been a complete visit home without seeing them! (Love your new haircut Di--so much, I came home and mom cut mine about the same length!! I'll have to post some pics later!)

It is amazing how much can fit into 6 short days, but I wouldn't change any of it. I had such a great time seeing family and friends, even though there were more I wished I could have had time to see! But all in all, it was a fabulous trip--one that I had been looking forward to for a long time! It is weird now that California really isn't home anymore, since my parents now live in Texas also. But I think it will always be home to me!

Thanks everyone for making time to see us while we were there--it was so wonderful to spend time with you!

~~~

I think I'm finally caught up now from my two weeks of family and fun, and WAY TOO MANY pictures!!! =) I'll post an IVF update soon!

CaliforniaTrip--at the Coast...

Part two of my three day California trip blog--it is ridiculous how long it takes me to put on pictures from a trip. I guess I just took way too many--I even had to buy an extra memory card for my camera while we were out there! I guess that is the downside of a digital camera--you can take unlimited pictures, which makes trying to find the best a little bit of a trick! Oh well! =)

We left Oakland on Thursday morning right after I picked Justin up from the airport. He took a few days off of work so we could spend a few days on the coast before my reunion that weekend. You see--we love the central California coast. We spent our honeymon, almost 7 years ago, driving down Highway One. This is the highway that runs right along the coastline, sometimes along high cliffs where the ocean is WAY below (a little bit scary when that is on the passenger side!), and sometimes right next to the ocean. For those of you not familiar with the California coastline, what you see on TV about the southern California beach is definitely NOT what every beach in CA looks like. The farther north you get, the rockier and more rugged it gets. There are flat, sandy beaches also, but there are also a lot of cliffs and vistas where you are up high, overlooking the gorgeous ocean. I grew up just a few hours from this coast, and really took it for granted being able to go and "get my fill" of the ocean anytime I wanted. Now that I live pretty much in the middle of the country, I take every opportunity I can to sneak to the coast when we are in California!

Here we are--in the car on the way to the coast. Can you tell I'm a bit excited? I felt like a two-year old, bouncing up and down on my seat as we got closer!


We did have to stop for our traditional In-N-Out Burger on the way. Even though this chain is in more places now, in my mind, In-N-Out is what you stop and eat at the halfway point to the coast! Yum!!

Here is our car--just had to throw in a picture of it! I was nervous when I rented it, because I wasn't sure if my husband, all 6'7" of him, would fit, but he did and it was a great car for our trip! They did offer me a mustang convertible when I rented it, and oh how I wanted it for our time at the coast. But, I just couldn't justify spending an extra $20 a day when I was renting the car for almost a whole week. I just told myself I would have gotten a sunburn anyway if I'd rented the convertible...

We soon arrived...Cayucos--my absolute favorite funky little beach town on the central California coast.

(I've seen this on some other blogs--writing in the sand, and I had to do it!)

We stayed at this little hotel--I found it online, and it was a GREAT deal! Only $87 a night--in the summertime--and each room had a cute little theme. There were seriously some expensive places we could have stayed, but this one was so much fun and so quaint!

The view of our room from where we parked the car...

Our room...the Garden room...

The hotel was right on main street, so once we dragged our bags in, we walked down just a few blocks to the beach. It was kind of foggy the afternoon we got there, so you could only see a little ways out, but oh I loved seeing and smelling the ocean!!!

This is the Cayucos pier--it is so fun to walk all the way out on. It was still pretty foggy--you could barely see the end of it from the beach!

But soon the fog began rolling back, and we could start seeing more of the coastline.

While out on the end of the pier, we saw lots of wildlife. Usually I see tons of birds and every once and awhile a seal, but for the days we were there, we saw birds, lots of seals, dolphins, and even a whale!!! I have never seen this much! There must have been huge schools of fish they were all feeding on, because it was crazy! There were huge pelicans absolutely dive-bombing into the water, and then seals and dolphins swimming through it as well! Here is a shot of one of the seals...

And the dolphins--can you see their fins? There were at least 3 or 4, but they were hard to catch on film.


Here is a view of Cayucos from the end of the pier...

And a few pictures of us with the ocean behind us!

Then we were off to Morro Bay for dinner...

My family has always had a tradition of eating at the Hofbrau...they make the best French Dip-like sandwiches, and they also have great fish and chips. So every time Justin and I are at the coast, we eat there too! Morro Bay is on a bay, not the ocean itself like Cayucos, so it is fun to eat there because you usually see seals swimming along right by the restaurant!

Morro Bay is known for Morro Rock, a huge rock formation that they say was actually a plug to a volcano that used to be here years ago. It is part of a chain called the 7 Sisters--these kinds of formations that go all the way up the coast. It is huge and beautiful!!

And it is a great for a photo op--I think we have about 20 pictures like this of us in front of the rock from all of the different times we have been there!

We drove out to the rock this time, and explored around it. There are a TON of birds that live on it, but it is a beautiful place.

Two things I love...my hubby and the ocean!!! Love this picture!

Just to prove we were there--dipping our toes in the cold Pacific ocean!!

Ahh--I could have stayed here forever! I love the ocean!!!

Sunset, back in Cayucos...

The next day, we drove up to Cambria, another little town about 15 minutes north of Cayucos. This is a fun little town with all sorts of shops to poke around in, but it is over the hill from the ocean, so I tend to not spend as much time there. I have to see the ocean when I'm at the coast!

And our last stop, before we left to drive inland...we went to an adorable place in Morro Bay called The Hut. It had amazing clam chowder and fish and chips, plus another ocean view to watch the seals swimming by!

I just love going to the coast, and I can't imagine anyone I'd rather be there with than my Justin! I'm so glad we got to spend just a couple days there--we can last another few years, or so, until the ocean calls us back again!!

(This picture is a little bit crooked, but that's what you get when you set it on automatic and rest it inside your husband's shoe!! =)

Coming up next--pics from my 10 year high school reunion!