Four years old is such a sweet age.....

"Momma, look at my sweet belly! It has a sister in it! See her kicking? When is my sister gonna come out of YOUR tummy?"

Well, remember? The doctor has to give me two baby seeds and then we will ask God to grow them into babies. But He might say no or not now.

"And if he makes the baby seed grow, I can have sister?"

Maybe a sister or maybe a brother.

"And when they're done growin', you'll push them out and then we'll see if they have a mommy and daddy or not? If they don't have a mommy, can we keep a sister? Cuz I love her and I want her to stay real bad."

No, sweet boy. If a baby grows in MY tummy, then I'm the Mommy and the baby is all ours FOREVER and ever.

"And then the Property Brothers are gonna come and change our house to bigger and beautiful?"

Finally had the rescheduled procedure today. Different anesthesiologist today. Very compassionate, thank God.

In pain. Lots of nausea. Hope this is all worth it. Poor little Elijah hasn't been able to understand why I'm not up to par. He starts acting up from nervousness when things are not right. :'(

First Day of Meds

Ok...that first injection was FREAKISHLY scary. I thought I could do it, but i almost started crying and forced Matthew to jump in. Poor guy!!! There is just something SO unnatural about plunging a needle into your abdomen. It's small and seriously didn't hurt AT ALL, but the anticipation was KILLER! hah! Only 22 more days of this one. Then the GIANT needle (into the muscle) comes up daily for another 14+ weeks. YIKES!

Well...here goes nothin'! Stay tuned for any updates! A BIG THANKS to my awesome and fearless husband! But....you're still buying me a rug and curtains when this is all over. I deserve at least that. ;)

The Miracle of Fundraising

I've had several email questions about funding, so I thought I'd write about it today. I have MANY friends fundraising for adoptions right now and when the thermometer on the right went up so quickly, they all wanted to know my *secrets*. HAHA!

I SO wish there was a magic formula to raising funds, but our story was just a miracle. We have NEVER had money sitting around. We are a family who lives paycheck to paycheck with every penny accounted for and everything extra is donated to various causes that we feel passionate about.

Early this year, we decided to retire (for now) from foster parenting and really spend the next years focusing on our own family. When the time finally came to take a look at fertility treatments, we were all in, but the costs terrified us! We had no idea how we would afford to ever get started. We had to save up for a couple of months for just the first consultation! But once we made up our mind and started praying for this path, the funding started really coming together. Our tax refund showed up, Matthew received an awesome bonus at work the same week, our last reimbursement from foster care arrived a couple of weeks later, a ridiculously successful garage sale, and three awesome donations from compassionate and generous friends/family were a great surprise. THANK YOU Gretchen, Chelsea, David, and Karen!!!

Now that we're nearing an end to what we felt was an unattainable goal, our minds are at ease over the financial side of this process. I can not express the rest in our hearts over this. We have many other unknowns with the embryo transfer process and with our sweet Julia coming home for the summer from Ukraine, but to not stress over the financial side, has been a tremendous blessing!

WE ARE SO GRATEFUL!!!