Happiness.

Happiness to me is...

Feeling my baby moving inside of me.

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Watching the sunshine from my window at work.

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Hubby putting his head on my tummy & talking to baby.

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Thanking Jesus for his many gifts.

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Finalizing details on our house purchase.

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Knowing God is in control.

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Planning baby's nursery (albeit, in my head).

 

 

My list may seem odd, and all over the place. But right now, happiness is many things every single day. Not to say that I don't have moments of sheer terror & feel absolutely overwhelmed by all of life right now, but overall, God has been so faithful to us & is walking us through so much.

 

It's amazing to be pregnant.

It's amazing to be buying a house.

It's amazing to love my husband this much, and know he loves me just as much.

 

It's amazing to have a God who works for us.

Life in a Nutshell

So apparently I'm REALLY bad at writing in this blog. I find that I want to - but then I'm a little overwhelmed by life, or don't have internet (like... this whole past year), or just don't make the time to share.

 

We are having a baby. I am astounded again & again by God's goodness and grace towards us. As hard as life can become, He gave us this amazing gift growing in my belly. Wow.

 

Our story to get pregnant has not been an easy one.

 

It was overwhelming, it was long, and it was very painful. We were trying for a couple years. But we knew we were young, so didn't seek any medical help for about a year & a half or so after starting to try.

 

Last September we saw the specialist in Vancouver. They started poking & prodding, which I was VERY used to by this point. Cam... not so much.

 

We were told that I have PCOS, which basically means I don't ovulate regularly... which means I could go for months without getting my period. Not fun when you're desperately trying to conceive said baby.

 

We were then told that Cam's swimmers had low motility.

 

Basically... we were not going to get pregnant without me being on something to stimulate ovulation, and then probably we'd have to try IUI (Intra Uterine Insemination - ie. the turkey baster) and if that didn't work, we'd have to see from there.

 

I came to terms. At least we had answers. At least we knew there were things we could try. We found all of this out right after Christmas. Our next appointment was scheduled for February 5th.

 

On January 26th, when I was about 5 1/2 weeks pregnant, I got my first positive pregnancy test. And spent the next 10 minutes until Cam came home on my knees crying & thanking Jesus.

 

This is our miracle baby. And we are SO thankful for him/her. This baby has parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents & great-grandparents who adore him/her already. We all prayed long and hard for this day to come. And it has.

 

That's my happy post for the day. I will try to get better at posting. Life right now is super overwhelming, and I've been experiencing all the lovely hormones that come along with pregnancy - what that means this week is I start crying at just about any given moment. Fun, I know. :)

 

Blessings on those of you who take a moment to rejoice with us & read this. We take no glory for this baby - we solely praise & thank the Almighty. He is the reason that we are thankful.

Transition

I am awfully exhausted right now. We moved in January - I don`t remember when I last wrote in my blog. But it`s a beautiful home. :) We have so much extra room, and we live out in the country, so Cam gets to shoot his guns, and it`s such a relaxed life we lead now! I love it. 

I am working again - as an Admin Assistant for a company. I kinda do everything. It`s tiring. My favorite part of the job is the Accounting stuff that I get to do - I wish that I could do that full time. For someone else. 

We have some really big decisions to make regarding where our life is heading right now - it`s exciting though. 

I absolutely love my husband. I just felt the need to throw that little tid bit in there :) He lights up my life. I can`t imagine living a day without him by my side. He`s so wonderful. 

We visited friends this week in Vancouver Children`s Hospital and I was humbled by their little guy. Nyjah is a fighter if I`ve ever seen one. I was reminded of how fragile life is, and how rarely we think of our absolute mortality. He is four months old - and has already been through two or three surgeries. I was also reminded in a big way of how badly I want to adopt one day. I am so proud and excited for our friends - they`ve wanted to be parents for so long and decided adoption was a way to do this. Nyjah is their first baby - and even though, because of his health problems, both adoption agencies told them to cancel the deal, they knew he was their little guy. What a gift. I am proud to know such amazing people. I just hope that one day I can love my children half as much as they love Nyjah. 

I also just want to express how awesome it was to see Cam VOLUNTEER to hold Nyjah!! FIRST TIME EVER! And... this was a baby with tubes and wires attached to his body. What an amazing father Cam will be one day. I can`t wait to see that!! :) 

Anyways - I`ll do my best to keep you all (by all, I mean maybe two of you readers) updated on where our life is heading. I forsee some BIG changes happening in the next year! Yay! 

And last - but not least - I am so grateful for how God has been changing Cam & I. We have both struggled time and again in our faith, and it feels like, for the first time, we are actually both growing in Christ. It`s an incredible opportunity to grow with your spouse in Christ. I am beyond blessed. God has really been working in and through us. 

Leave a comment or message me - anything - I love connecting with people that I haven`t in a long time. That, and, I like to know who actually reads my thoughts :)

Blessings, E.

Renewal

My heart is changing. I've been astounded lately at how far away from God I am... yet how clearly He is calling me back to Himself. 

Sometimes it's so dang hard to obey. I've found this amazing passion for something that draws me nearer to God every single day... but never in the silence of my home. I want that. I want to be humbled and amazed when I sit and read of His great miracles, of His amazing grace. I want to be able to sit in silence and feel Him surround me, to fully trust that God is in control. I want to surrender all that I am... completely. 

I find that I make things about myself so often. It doesn't really matter what I want. I am tiny. Yet my God loves me. He died for ME. He chose ME. He called ME. How can I not want to abandon EVERYTHING and follow Him? How can I deny how great He is by thinking that I can do better than Him? I can't. I will never cease to fail. 

Cam and I are talking about reading through the Bible in a year. I found a few layouts and printed them off tonight. It makes me excited to think of how amazing it would be to actually do this together, to finish it, to open our hearts to God as we do this and come out 100% changed. I don't want to be the same me. I have a sinful heart and I hate it. I want to be like Christ. I want Him to be my only goal. 

One of my very dear friends has a blog and I read her latest post tonight, and it struck me hard. She was talking about how she worships music & worship sometimes. Oh I do to. I love singing... I know I can't sing worth a dime... but oh I love it. I love the sound of a good melody. I love the hum of a great voice. I love being able to hit a good note. I find that I get stuck in that rut of knowing 100's of worship songs and being tired of them... I've heard them sung countless times and I sing along without thinking... I want them to quit singing that same song when the words of that song are these:

"My heart and my soul, Lord, I give you control. Consume me from the inside out.

Let justice & praise become my embrace, to love you from the inside out."

How can we sing those words without knowing the depth of those words? How can we sing that without realizing that we are committing to something beyond ourselves, and it's so worth it... but it takes more than singing those words in a half-hearted manner. Oh it is SO MUCH MORE than that. 

So now I sit and I wonder at His saving grace. How great He is... that He would call us His own, even as our thoughts betray us. What a mighty God we serve. 

Be blessed. 

I meet with a girl tomorrow to talk about abortion... oh please pray. She wants information and I feel so unworthy to be the one talking to her. But with God's grace and words, may she walk out with the truth.

I am Tired.

It's a little discouraging to read the last post that I wrote and realize how short my emotional span is right now. I find that daily my moods change. It's frustrating. And it's all because of trying to wean myself off of a stupid pill. Oh anti-depressants... how I hate you. But how I love them as well. 

It's a hard balance for me. I know I need them, as I am biologically inclined to depression. It's not really a situational thing for me... although that can affect it. But man, oh man, it's ridiculous how much one pill can affect everything. I don't want to be on them because we're starting to think about kids... and I don't want to mess our babies up! And I also really don't want to find out I'm pregnant one day and have to abruptly stop taking them. That would probably be 100 times worse than this slow descent. But it makes me tired. I talked about how much I love what I do at the pregnancy center in my last post... and yet here I am today, not going in because I am exhausted and worn out. 

It's so tempting to isolate myself.

..... I'm so very tired of waiting for kids. I want a child with every breath I take. I think about it all the time. I long for the feeling of a growing stomach every day. But I'm trying to learn to trust. My greatest fear is that I won't be able to get pregnant... that I will never experience labour & welcoming a child into the world that is partly Cam and partly me. Oh I want that so desperately. Last night I cried for about an hour... just because I'm so scared. I hate it. I wish that somehow I would be able to magically snap my fingers and just TRUST God. He knows the plans that He has for us. He knows our babies birth dates... whether they are biologically ours, or adopted. He knows everything that happens in my body, and in Cam's. He knows the amount of hairs on the heads of our children. Oh but how I cannot wait to feel the weight of a baby in my arms, knowing that he/she are ours forever. I've dreamed of that for years... and now I just feel so ready. So very ready. 

But it's a waiting game... Waiting for my husband to be ready. 

...Waiting for my body to accept a baby. 

...Waiting... And praying. 

Please pray with me.

A New Season...

Here we are... the beginning of a new season. And how good it is. 

It's been a while since I last posted on this here blog... and I thought perhaps it was time again. The last couple months have been months of rest and renewal. God has been so so good to Cam and I. Life is now very different from what it was in May though. 

Cam owns his own company now... Atomic Framing! And he's been doing amazing at finding work, and we've been so blessed already! Our marriage has grown in leaps and bounds since he finished school... so awesome!

I took June & July off of work here at CBC... so I just came back on August 4th. I only work Mondays & Thursdays here now. And with my Tuesdays & Wednesdays, I am at a Pregnancy Center in the area. I have loved every minute of being there. God has just opened up so many doors for me now that I am walking in what He has called me to. There is still transition happening for us... but it's great! 

I am just amazed by what God has been doing... and have been so challenged lately to pursue Him deeper, both individually and through my marriage with Cam. We are so lucky, and so very blessed. 

And there goes my little update... I hope to begin writing more often about the things that I encounter, and the things that God teaches me... after all, that was the intention of this blog in the first place. Sometimes I get a little stuck on how much or how little I should write though... hmmm... oh well! :) 

I hope that today is a day full of overwhelming blessings! :)

What a week...

So... I've had a really hard week so far. And it's only Tuesday. 

On Saturday evening, we had the CBC graduation banquet... and I had to say goodbye to some amazing friends that night. For those of you that know me, I don't do well with goodbyes. 

I drove away after some huge hugs and sad words, and bawled my eyes out. 

The hardest part of these goodbyes is that it's a very likely possibility that I will not

see some of these people ever again. When you say goodbye knowing that you

may see this person in a few months, or even a year, it's okay... because you know that

this isn't the end of your time knowing each other in person. I am a very physical person... 

so touch and nearness is important for me. I like to look people in the eyes. 

I do not like facebook. It can drive you crazy... waiting to hear from friends. 

Waiting for emails. Waiting to hear that people got home safely. 

So all in all... I have had a sad week so far. I've cried many tears. I've held many more back. 

To those dear friends who I came to love and cherish this past year, 

whether it was by going on UMA with you, or visiting me at my desk daily, 

or sharing meals in the cafeteria... I will miss you dearly. 

I hope and pray that God will let us meet again one day.