Our Journey

We’re back with a little update. We started into another transfer cycle. My baseline scan was Thursday the 13th. everything looked good and started the first medication which is an injection given every third day. Doing good so far with no effects from it. My lining check scan is on the 27th of April and if everything looks good there, transfer #2 will be on the 4th of May. We are looking forward to this but also going in with a bit more nervousness as we know the first time didn’t take, but our God is faithful! We are so thankful for that everyday through this journey. We also were reminded that He is with us always, this weekend especially. Friday morning I woke up to the water stopped working. Turns out our pump was bad. Friday night we had dinner plans with our pastor and his family who we told about the water issue, and they offered right away to help Blaine pull it. We were told our well was 150ft, turns out it was 380ft, so they got a workout Friday evening. So very grateful! Saturday morning Blaine’s brother and our good friend came out and helped him wire up the new one and put it in. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

We had our annual reevaluation tonight and it is always a blessing to talk about our journey as foster parents and just what that may look like in the future. Also to talk about the system that desperately needs help, needs our help, but we can do nothing without our Lord and Savior! He will lead us and this world through it all. We seek His guidance and pray for it! The reevaluation went wonderful and we talked some more on how it looks to have more opportunities of children to be blessed with. We look forward to what the next year of our foster journey looks like till next years reevaluation! As always thanks for following along!

So, a little update on our life. We are up for our annual reevaluation for our foster home at the beginning of April. Even though we haven’t had any kiddos for a while, so far every year we feel we need to keep on this journey of opening our home to fostering and helping kids in need. We are also reaching out to see what all options are for adoption, through our agency but also through others with guidance from our agency. We do not ever know where life will lead us but want to be proactive with our resources. Continue to pray for us while we go through the next processes and resourcing, and hopefully opening opportunity to fostering future children and adopting a child.

Unfortunately for our next information into our lives we have some not as good news. We have gone through our first transfer cycle and it was not a success. What this means is we will have to go through another transfer cycle. We are able to take a break or start again right away. We are choosing to start another right away. I did pretty well with the meds, fortunately, and thankfully did not have much effects from the meds besides some soreness of injection sites. I’m am very thankful and joyful God has helped us through the first transfer and allowed me to do well on the meds. Prayers are answered. We usually have our own plan in life. Ours was the first transfer to work. God had other plans. We are so very thankful for those plans even if at the time we cannot see the reason. Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart. and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths. It was very tough to hear the news and still hits us that it didn’t work, but are glad to have the family and support we have around us, and most importantly our Lord and Savior to lead us through even the tough times. We ask for continued prayer as we go into this next cycle that we continue to have strength, and courage to continue on this journey. It’s an emotional rollercoaster as much as physical. Thank you for all the love and support and for following along.

This took a little time to write this next post. Sorry to all who are following along. I’m sitting here this windy Saturday morning after some interesting storms last night thinking about what to write besides the usual update. So far I’ve felt pretty good with medicines. I haven’t had to take quite as many this next step and also had only two appointments for checks. Even though the physical things seem easier I’m definitely feeling more anxious as the time gets closer and letting my mind wonder to the what ifs both good or bad. In a sense its feeling more real, this journey we’re on even though it’s less things to do, go to, and remember. I ask for prayers through that. Talking with my friends has already helped clear my mind some. Blaine has done good helping me take these next injections as they are in the upper buttocks and I’m not too flexible to reach around. I’ve just started the second medicine today and will continue with both the estrogen and progesterone up until a pregnancy test and some after from what I understand. We are scheduled for our transfer day on March 9th. I won’t know the time until two days prior. We will find out a few weeks after that if it worked. That’ll become the hard yet hopefully joyous part. We will of course want to shout it to the world if successful but also will want to make sure everything is okay for a while first. With that being said it may take us sometime before telling too many but yet it’ll be so hard to hold back also. The flip side of that is it may be unsuccessful. That also will be hard not to announce or tell people as we have so many praying for us. We will be able to start the process again if we choose or take some time also before trying again. As with life, it is an emotional roller coaster sometimes. We appreciate all who is following along with us and praying! Remembering through all this HIs will be done!

I’m going to try while we wait for results and announcements, successful or non successful, to keep posting. It just will be more so on fostering, and adoption, and maybe some terminology about all the topics. I’m asked quite frequently the what, how, why, who, questions and love answering them the best I can. I’m by no means an expert and learning also as I go. Please reach out if you have any questions on anything or topics you’d like to know more about. I’m not shy to answer. This blog is about becoming more knowledgeable, myself included. If we don’t know something we can’t change it or embrace it. As we come to the time of year for our annual foster reevaluation I think about all the things I’d like to change or do regarding foster care. These kids need us and yes there are broken parts of the system, but we can help change that and make a difference. Talking about these things helps that change. I encourage you until my next post to reach out to me or others in your lives and talk to each other. Ask those questions, discuss those answers, and reach out to one another. I’m praying for you all, as I know you are doing the same for me! Until next time…Thanks again for following along!

The thing about our plan and His plan is they are not always the same, very rarely in fact. We had our egg retrieval the last Wednesday in January. Everything went great. A little more pain afterwards with this procedure but overall good. We had 32 eggs retrieved and 27 were mature enough to use or freeze. Those are really great numbers. We chose to do a limited insemination, which just means a smaller number we try to fertilize while we freeze the rest of the eggs. In talking with the doctor and going off percentages we chose to start with 8. He said most times there’s some drop off and hoping for 2 or 3 blastocysts (eggs to implant). We ended up with 4 in the end, almost a 5th one. That number was a little overwhelming but also a great thing. You see, if by some miracle the first one works we have those blastocysts frozen to use on the next time we would like to get pregnant. Therefore if we were done we would have to chose what to do with those blastocysts. I didn’t want to think about that right now, but God had other plans and He watched over the process and gave us great numbers to work with which isn’t a guarantee. We are thankful for the number and look forward to this next step. I will have an appointment on February 16th and March 2nd. I’ll have medicine to take during that time (more injections). If everything looks good at those two appointments we’ll have our first transfer day. Exciting! Thank you all whom have been praying and following along!

Also an update on the fostering side. We were fortunate enough to be able to do a respite for a fellow foster family that had a funeral out of state to go to. The little boy was 7. He was non verbal autistic so that was a bit of a challenge. Again God’s plan can show us all sorts of things. Lately we’ve been wanting to fill our home with a foster again, in that saying yes to a lot more referrals. This weekend showed us that we need to pray more about each referral that comes through and make sure it is the right fit for us and more importantly the child. As I know had we had the little one full time we would’ve learned more about each other and would be able to make it work better for both. We had a great weekend with him and even with a few challenges it went well. It showed us that we work well together as a team and need to continue in our daily lives as husband wife. God is faithful through all His plans and watches over us each and everyday through everything that we do. We need to continue to have faith in Him and His plan for us. Thanks everyone for following!

So this post will be just a little update what the last week or so has looked like. I started my first injectable medications on Saturday the 14th. I had to give myself two different injected medications for 3 days. Then on Tuesday morning I had a bloodwork and ultrasound. Everything looked good and I started another injectable medication. So I Have to take one in the morning and two in the evening. So far I feel okay on the meds. I am sick so some of the affects I can’t tell if its the meds or the cold. I’ve had bloodwork and ultrasound everyday this week starting on Tuesday. I have another one tomorrow. Then it looks like our egg retrieval day is gonna be on Monday or Tuesday. Yay exciting! Also with egg retrieval Blaine has to do his part and is always anxious about that so extra prayers appreciated for him. So then the next step after that is a little easier and less appointments and meds. We are thankful for all the prayers and encouraging words as we go through all these appointments. So far no referrals on the fostering front. That is all the updates so far. Thanks for following along!