Growing

It happens even when we're not paying attention, doesn't it? Growth. People grow and children grow.

Today my daughter is wearing a shirt that was mine when I was her age. It's from when my family (before my parents' divorce) visited Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, MS. I sent a pic of Lily to my mom today and she responded, "My, how time flies!" It does.

Last night I was watching a few videos of Lily from about a year ago. She has grown and changed so much that I was reduced to tears. I sat at the dining table and cried because it goes by so fast. You wait and hope and pray for a baby for so long and then realize that they're not babies for very long at all. Lately I'm trying to be more aware of this from day to day.

In March, my Lily turned two and a half. Six more months and she'll be 3.

My sweet little Anna turned 4 months old.

I know people like to say, "Enjoy every minute! They'll be grown before you know it!" There's some truth and some wisdom to that, but I know that it's impossible to enjoy every single moment. Let's face it; some moments are just not enjoyable! Certainly it takes lots and lots of practice to rejoice during difficult times, but lately during the moments when the sun is shining and everyone is happy and peaceful, I'm trying to take a deep breath and soak those moments in. Because I know how quickly they'll change. These little ones won't be little forever.

I don't think I ever had a really concentrated growth spurt when I was a kid, but my husband did. He remembers growing several inches taller during the summer between seventh and eighth grades, and he still has stretch marks around his knees from it. Most of the time, though, growth happens gradually. I believe that the Lord continually grows us and shapes us into who we're going to be. Our circumstances and experiences and choices all have an effect on it too.

Infertility has been a huge marker in my own life. I think when I look back even twenty years from now, it will always stand out as one of the biggest challenges, struggles, and yes, growth periods for me. It changed me in a way that nothing else could have. It affected nearly everyone close to me and shaped my family in unique ways. If my husband and I had had children a decade ago, I truly think we would parent in very different ways. (Lord knows, I would have a whole lot more energy!) But, as much as I would have loved to have skipped all the time we spent waiting and every bit of pain from recurrent miscarriage, that's not the way it went. We were meant to be parents right now, of these two precious girls who are in our care.

So, I'm thankful that God grew our family in His time. And I'm thankful that he continues to grow me as a person even though it hurts sometimes. Sometimes parenting makes my flaws become so glaringly obvious! But I'm learning. And growing.

Last week we visited our fertility specialist for what I'm pretty sure was the last time. It was my post-baby follow up visit and it really felt like closure to me on so many levels. In my heart, I'm just ready.

Ready to get off of the emotional roller coaster.
Ready to put that chapter of my life to rest.
Ready to let go of the pain and worry of trying to conceive.
And mostly, ready to grow with this family that we finally have without feeling grief from the past and anxiety about the future.

Infertility was never my friend. It will always be part of my life and part of my story, but it was an unwelcome guest. I'll never regret the lives of the babies who were with us for such a short time, the ones we never got to hold. They, like the lessons I learned, will be with me always.

But I'm finally looking forward to a future without infertility. It will be in my rear-view mirror from now on and...
That. Feels. Awesome.

Happy New Year (almost a month late)!

Hello friends! Thanks for the sweet comments about the birth of our second little miracle. Anna is doing great and will (already!) be two months old on Monday. She is a very sweet baby and is a joy to have in our family. We are thrilled that she is here, and that we have two beautiful daughters after such a long season of waiting.

Anna has a sweet personality, loves to be held and talked to, and loves to eat! She's a little butterball and is much chunkier than Lily was at this age. Fortunately Anna and I got off to a great start with breastfeeding and it is still going smoothly. Lily is adjusting well and enjoys being a big sister. She pretty much does her own thing most of the time, but she likes to help and occasionally asks to hold Anna or just stops by to hold her hand or give her a kiss. Having two girls is super sweet! I look forward to watching them grow together and form a special bond as sisters over the years.

Adjusting to two children 26 months apart has been a challenge for me as a stay-at-home mom. I LOVE being at home with my girls; it's just been a matter of trying to find (and being flexible with) an ever-changing new routine. Things are settling down now that we are two months in, though, and Anna has a pretty decent sleeping pattern. We have moved out of the zombie parent stage and are now just your average tired parents. :) Both girls are actually napping right now and my hubby is running errands. It still comes as a nice surprise when I have a bit of "free" time. I'm happy to be able to dust off the laptop and update the old blog this afternoon!

We had a busy but joyful holiday season and were fortunate to have our families come to us this time since we weren't keen on traveling with a newborn. Anna got to meet all of her immediate aunts, uncles, and cousins even though she hasn't made her first trip home to Louisiana just yet.

You might remember that I was diagnosed with melanoma last spring, right after we found out we were expecting Anna, and that I had surgery on my right arm last June. Just as an update, I had my 6-month checkup in December, which included a chest x-ray -- common after a melanoma diagnosis since it can spread to the lungs. My x-ray showed some spots on the right lung, so I had a follow-up CT scan earlier this month to check those out. Yesterday I heard that the spots are benign (thankfully!), but that they want to do an ultrasound of a suspicious-looking lymph node under my right arm. (Hopefully it's just due to the fact that I'm breastfeeding, but they are very thorough at this hospital and I'm glad!) I'll be scheduling that pretty soon. It's all still pretty standard and routine, but I continue to deal with this melanoma almost a full year later and am hoping to soon get the all-clear. I often remind people -- YOU! -- to keep a close eye on anything unusual on your skin and see your dermatologist for regular checkups. It's always better to catch these things early, and I'm so fortunate that it happened that way for me!

January always brings feelings of starting over, and I'm feeling that in many ways as we start 2013. We're settling into a new home with a new baby this January. And yesterday was my birthday, so I'm starting off a new year in that regard as well. Thirty-six years old, and life is looking so much different from how it looked just a few short years ago. We're sometimes stressed, oftentimes overwhelmed, but always, always THANKFUL and deeply JOYFUL for the gifts we've been given.

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year, and continue to pray specifically for those who are continuing along on the infertility journey. Please drop me a line, send an email, or leave a comment and let me know what's new with all of you!

Here are some family pics we had taken in early December to use for our Christmas cards. Hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year -- even though it's almost February! :)

Welcome Anna Evangeline!

Is Eight Enough?

The following is a post that has been on my heart for a while. It's scary, sometimes, putting things "out there" that feel truly, deeply personal and private, knowing that one little negative comment could potentially cut you to the core. So this is me taking that chance and being brave, friends. I'm not asking for advice, but just a friendly, listening ear.

I'm nearing the end of my eighth pregnancy. I can count the remaining weeks on one hand as the date we've been anticipating since March now appears on our current calendar page. November 2012 is the month when we'll meet our second daughter on earth, the second child we got to keep.

As most of you probably know, my first six pregnancies ended in miscarriage. I know the story has been told and re-told on this blog, but I think perspective is important for this particular post. That was the most difficult time in my life, hands-down. And, not that it would have been any easier at all had they happened in a shorter time frame, my losses were spread out -- one a year for six years, between 2002 and 2007. The reason I'm pointing that out is that it felt like it took up so much of our lives. I'll even admit that looking at it written out doesn't seem like quite that long. Oh, but living it felt like an eternity. It felt like climbing the highest, rockiest mountain over and over again, only to find another one just as high and just as rocky on the other side.

I entered that time as a young, eager, (ahem -- much thinner), twenty-four year old with high hopes, and I exited as a battered and bruised, heartbroken, somewhat jaded thirty year old. We still had very few answers and (speaking for myself) not much hope that our situation would improve. Three more years went by while we waited. Those felt like silent years to me. I wondered if God had closed the door, stopped listening to me, and decided that my chances at motherhood had run out. I was thankful that those years did not include more loss -- I'm not sure if I could have handled more grief during that time. But the silence, too, was hard.

Everything changed in January 2010, when we were given another chance, a seventh pregnancy, and somehow it kept going. Our daughter was born that September and we were overjoyed. We'd grown and changed in many ways (some for the better, some not), but most of all we were tired and ready to rest in the joy of the moment.

The eighth pregnancy in March 2012 came faster and more unexpectedly than we could have imagined, but we were ready and hopeful, if not more than a little bit terrified. We knew that having had one successful pregnancy did not guarantee another, but as the weeks and months passed, the baby lived and grew. We began to let ourselves entertain thoughts of a family of four, and let me tell you, it was so far beyond where I was five years ago after our sixth positive pregnancy test resulted in another devastating loss. Sometimes I still can't believe it when I look around me. The rooms of our house are littered with toys and upstairs there are two bedrooms with cribs in them. More than that, though, my heart is so full.

And so, all of that brings me to this moment, right now. I haven't made any final decisions (or any of the permanent type), but I often wonder if this will be it. Will this eighth pregnancy be our last? If I had to answer as honestly as I can and exactly as I feel today, my answer would be yes. I guess "enough" isn't a great word here, because YES, it is certainly enough! The last thing in the world that I feel right now is unfulfilled or that our family is incomplete (with our six babies in heaven always in my mind and heart -- we know we'll see them again one day, and they are part of our family as well even though they are not here). Having Lily was all we'd hoped for, and now having Anna is all bonus and so much more than we'd imagined. We are fulfilled. We are happy.

If I were ten years younger and had never suffered through miscarriage or infertility, would we stop after two children? Probably not. And that's the part that is hard. I'll be 36 a couple of months after Anna is born. I don't bellyache about my increasing age on this blog because I know there are people older than I am who are fighting their own battles. But I mention it to say that I'm aware of it daily, and I'm more than aware that after eight pregnancies and multiple surgeries, etc., my body is weary. It has been a long and very difficult road to where we are. Not to mention that after six miscarriages, the fear of another loss is always with me. And even though I know it has nothing at all to do with "luck," I can't help but also think sometimes that after bringing home two babies I don't want to "push my luck." I guess that's the pessimist (or the realist) in me.

I do know that women who are older than I am have babies all the time. I think that's great and I like knowing that it may not be impossible for me as well if we pursued that. I think the point of getting all of these feelings out is that I don't feel like the average woman of childbearing age. It took us an entire decade and a lot of emotional and physical pain to have these two children, so I can't help but have lots of feelings on the subject. Sometimes I envy those who had/have no limitations whatsoever on their family size, those who knew from a young age that they wanted to grow up and have "x" amount of children and then faced no obstacles in doing just that. But I've accepted the fact that I'm not and never will be that person, and I know that what I went through to have my miracle babies is part of my story and what makes this family unique and special to me in its own amazing way. From my perspective, which is based on my own personal experience, the thought of closing the chapter of my life that has been consumed with fertility feels... quite freeing.

It's a difficult topic for me to mull over right now, even though I feel 90% sure (and generally okay with it) that Anna will be our caboose. I want to be content in what God has given us, yet I don't want to be the one who has slammed and locked the door if He has another child for us in the future (biological or otherwise).

I can't help but think about it in these final weeks of this pregnancy. I wonder if this will be the last time, while I'm still amazed that I've been given the chance (however hard-fought) to do this twice. Either way I want to rest in this moment and be content right where I am. And I think, whenever we're ready and after praying about it at length, it will one day feel great to say, "Okay. It's enough."

Happy Fall Y'all

Hello dear bloggy friends! It has been, I think, the longest I've been away since starting this blog. Realizing that an update was long overdue, I thought I'd write a quick one today.

The number one reason I've been too swamped to blog is that early last month we moved into a new house. We spent most of June, July, and August wrapped up in the whole process. We put our house on the market and had 4 offers within the first week! That was great, but it made us feel like the race was really on to find a new house that we loved. We finally found the right one and moved in on Labor Day weekend. The day of the big move was the first day of my third trimester, so needless to say it has been challenging. We have finally settled in for the most part, and best of all, Lily has adjusted very well to the new house. We are really happy with the extra space, especially when our families come to visit and we can accommodate guests again.

All that being said, I never really knew or was fully prepared for how much I would miss our old house. 10 years of memories, 8 pregnancies, lots of loss and tears, immense joy in finally bringing a baby home... all wrapped up in that little house. Of course it was also hard to leave our lovely, big backyard with our special tree that we planted in memory of our babies, but we know that we carry their memories within us wherever we go. We were able to share the meaning of the tree with the new owners and they assured us that they would take great care of it, and even left an open invitation for us to come visit anytime. It was very nice of them but we're really doing okay. There is something to be said for starting over again and making new memories, too. The babies we lost are safe in heaven and will always be in our hearts. And there's nothing that says we can't plant a new tree in our new backyard to serve as a visual reminder!

Our little family is doing well. Lily turned 2 years old on September 21, just a few weeks after we moved in. We had her birthday party here, surrounded by family and friends. She had a great time and loved her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme! We just had her 2-year checkup and she was 28 lbs (75th percentile) and 36" tall (95th percentile). She's such a big girl all of a sudden and I can't believe she's almost a big sister.

Lily Rae is 2!

This weekend I'll be 34 weeks pregnant with baby sister, Anna. Besides the stress of the move, it has been a good and uneventful pregnancy so far. I do have borderline gestational diabetes this time around, which only means that I've been on a low carb diet for the past couple of weeks through the end of the pregnancy and am watching my weight. Not the easiest thing in the world to do, but most certainly not the hardest either. I'll be having another C-section after 39 weeks, so she will arrive (unless she surprises us) sometime the last week of November. We are scheduled for Wednesday, November 28 at the hospital, but only because Monday and Tuesday are completely booked. So, if by chance there is an opening, we may get in on Nov. 26 or 27.

No matter when she comes, we are excited to meet this new little one! She is so much more than what we imagined -- the icing on the cake and a truly wonderful gift. We chose the name Anna because we have loved it for many years, and because we love the story of Anna in the Bible (found in the second chapter of Luke). The name means "gracious, merciful," which the Lord has certainly been to us. Her middle name will be Evangeline, which means "messenger of good news." The middle name is also a nod to our beloved home state of Louisiana and Henry W. Longfellow's poem of the same name about the Acadian Exile. We absolutely love her name and cannot wait to see the face of our little Anna Evangeline in about five and a half weeks.

I hope this finds each and every one of you doing well. Even when I'm away from the blog world, you remain in my thoughts often and I always wish you the very best. I'll leave you with a few recent family pics that we had taken just a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to those of you who still read and follow this little old blog! I've appreciated your thoughts and prayers for my family over the years more than I can ever express.

Ten Years

Today is the tenth anniversary of my first miscarriage. Ten years. An entire decade.

I'm finding it difficult to summarize it all in a blog post. We have lots of anniversaries like these -- six different miscarriage dates and six different unfulfilled due dates to go along with them. But this day in particular always carries so much emotion for me. It was the beginning of everything, the beginning of things I couldn't even imagine were yet to come. It was the end of a lot of things, too. The end of a certain sense of security and innocence that I had back then, at the age of 25. I thought my life was settling down after a difficult childhood with divorced parents and an alcoholic father and having just enough to scrape by. Against all odds I'd finished college and found a wonderful man to marry. We'd moved to a different state to follow a great job opportunity for him, and we'd just bought our first house. Now, I thought, we'll have a baby. Start a family.

Recurrent pregnancy loss was nowhere on my radar. I'm sure it never is for anybody. I'd known a few people who'd had a miscarriage before (my mom, included). But I didn't know anyone personally who had been through it over and over and over again. Not yet, anyway. Or it could have been that I knew them but just never knew their struggle. And I think that's entirely possible because, for some reason, people don't really talk about miscarriage. I went through a time like that myself. It felt like such a personal and private struggle and I became almost reclusive. I stopped wanting to socialize with people because I didn't want to let anyone in for fear they would trivialize what I was going through. I thought they could never understand, so I quit trying. All I kept hearing were things like, "Oh, you're young. It will happen if you just stay positive." "Something must have been wrong with the baby." "At least you know you can get pregnant."

All of those things hurt so much more than they helped. How did anybody know that I would eventually have a healthy baby? Was there any guarantee, really? Was it my fault for not thinking positively enough? What comfort could there be in thinking something was so wrong with my baby? And finally, what good was it doing for me to keep getting pregnant if my babies kept dying? How was that any consolation?

There were so many questions and never seemed to be any answers. Doctors couldn't give me any, and even my prayers seemed to be falling on deaf ears sometimes. I trusted that God had a plan but I had no idea what it was or how long it would take. Years passed and my babies continued to stop growing during the first trimester. We were desperate for help. The next 7 years went by in a blur of doctors, tests, surgeries, waiting, wondering, and most of all, more loss. I thought about giving up; thought it had become more than I could handle. Hope would return, though, and I would think What if the next time is the one? And what if it's the last chance we'll ever get?

Fast forward to 2010. After a new doctor, new tests (although not many new answers), and three years of infertility, the chance finally came. I still don't know exactly what was "right" about that time and what had been so "wrong" about every other time before. All I know is that somehow, miraculously, we held our daughter in our arms for the first time that September. She grew inside my body and arrived healthy and whole. And here I am in 2012, halfway through another pregnancy that is going well, hoping to hold another beautiful, healthy girl in November.

We've come so far and yet the hurt is still there. I still don't know how to answer the question, "Is this your first pregnancy?" A nurse at my doctor's office asked that just last week. She wasn't making small talk; I was there for blood work, another screening test. She was noting something on my chart. I stumbled over my words as I tried to answer, "No, it's not. It's my second. Well, it's actually my eighth pregnancy. But I only have one baby..." She stopped writing and looked up at me. "Oh, bless your heart," she said. I appreciated her kindness, but I hadn't been looking for sympathy. I was just trying to describe it all succinctly.

Sometimes I think I don't know how I got here... but oh, I do know. Simplified in my mind the years look like this:
2002-2007: Loss (x6)
2007-2009: Waiting...
2010-2012: Joy (x2)

But we all know that it's not summarized so easily. Because, broken down, I remember all too clearly the tears, the pain, the sleepless nights, the entire painful journey that led us to here and now. And the joy, too. Thank God for the joy that finally came and will come again!

I look back on the decade with lots of different emotions swirling around. I know this day will always make me remember, because it was the beginning of so much. It was the beginning of a lot of heartache, but it was also the beginning of the miracle that was to come. When I look at it all together, in hindsight, I can see much more clearly just how far we've come, and, amazingly, I can be thankful.

Brother or Sister?

I can't believe how the weeks (and months) have been flying by lately. July already? Wow!

The most exciting piece of news to share is that we had an ultrasound last week and found out that another sweet baby GIRL is on her way! Lily Rae is having a baby sister and we are truly ecstatic and can't wait to meet her. My sister and I have always been extremely close. I think it will be so sweet to watch these two girls grow up and share so many things together. My sis and I are 21 months apart; Lily and her baby sister will be 26 months apart -- if she arrives on schedule.

I'm 18 weeks today and things are going well (despite some back pain that started plaguing me recently). Our next OB appointment is next week, July 9, and we have another ultrasound scheduled for July 23. It's hard to believe that we've almost reached the halfway point of this pregnancy. We continue to be thankful every single day for how far we've come. Last week I also started feeling the baby moving for the first time, much earlier than with Lily. Feeling those flutters and kicks helps to calm my fears and reassures me that she's doing fine.

It has been a whole month since the melanoma surgery on my arm. A couple of weeks ago we heard great news -- that the pathology report came back all clear. All of the cancer is gone and I'll need no further treatment, thank the Lord! I had the stitches removed last week (finally!) and it's looking pretty good. I'll go back in 6 months for a checkup and, since the baby will be here, they'll go ahead and do the chest x-ray that we've been putting off because of the pregnancy. Since melanoma sometimes shows up in the lungs, they like to check that out to be certain even though they don't believe I'm at a high risk. In the meantime, it feels great to have this behind me and especially to know that the pathology report showed good news.

My big girl is growing like crazy and is surprising us daily with new words in her vocabulary. It has been really fun watching her grow and learn in these past couple of months. Her second birthday will be here in just a few short months. I feel pretty certain that the theme will be Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, since it's her favorite thing in the entire world! :)

Just a quick update for now from our family to yours. Hope you are all doing well and enjoying summertime!