"I Love You"

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the well wishes and prayers for this pregnancy. It means SO much to me. I welcome and appreciate ALL prayers! So far, nothing new to report. I hope to get more details on here soon about the pregnancy, but I think I'll save that for another post.

Elliana and I have had kind of a rough time over the past couple of weeks. It appears that my sweet Elliana has hit the terrible twos a little early. Lately she's been spending a lot of time in time-out and I've been exhausted from disciplining her. At the end of the day Caleb and I are always questioning if we're making the right decisions when it comes to discipline and picking our battles. This raising a child stuff is hard work, and we're just beginning.

Lucky for Elliana, she just started saying "I love you" over the last week or so too. It melts my heart every time she says it. Sometimes it even puts me in a better mood. ;)

I had to share with all of you:



I love this girl, despite the fact that disciplining her is NOT fun.

He Still Works Miracles!

I've been dying to write this post. Over the past two weeks I've been crying tears of joy and tears of fear, I've been shocked, anxious, nervous, cautious, scared, awestruck and overjoyed. I've been praying, reading God's word and praising Him continually. I'm happy to report that up to this point, we've received nothing but good news!

I'm sure you've guessed it... Yes, I am PREGNANT!

Although I believe that each and every baby is a miracle, this one is truly a miracle to us and came as a shock to me and Caleb. Let me explain.

Seven weeks ago I suffered my 2nd miscarriage. My Dr. asked me to take a month off from trying to conceive to let my body heal from the miscarriage (this is very typical). So, I did NOT take the clomid (fertility drugs) and did not pay any attention whatsoever to any of my fertility signs. In my mind, we were taking a month off.

A few weeks later my Dr. asked me to come in and have my blood drawn again to confirm that my HCG levels (pregnancy hormone) were all the way back down to zero. I was back down to zero, so she called and told me that I could start trying to get pregnant again.

When you're using clomid to try and conceive, you have to wait until your period starts to take it. Here's some history about me, I haven't had a period without the help of hormones (either birth control pills or clomid) since I was a young teenager. So, I was expecting to have to kick-start my cycle so I could start trying to get pregnant again.

After that call from my Dr. I took progesterone for 7 days to get my cycle started. I've done this several times before and my period has always started on or before the 7th day. This time, however, there was no sign of my period. I waited another day, and then another. By the third day I was very discouraged. I thought that my body was really messed up now.

Then a friend suggested that maybe I was already pregnant. I quickly dismissed that thought knowing that I couldn't possibly have ovulated without the help of clomid. Still, the thought stayed in the back of my head. I figured I should at least take a test to rule it out.

The next morning I took a test and it was POSITIVE! The line was much darker than any of the tests I had taken the month before. Shocked and confused, I ran over to Caleb, woke him from his sleep and told him the news. I then called my mom and sisters and asked them to pray!

I went right in to the Dr. that morning to have them draw my blood to get my HCG levels. The number was already triple what it had been the month before! I went in again 4 days later and the number had more than quadrupled. I went in again one week later (this last Monday) and the number was high enough that I could have an ultrasound!

So, we had our first ultrasound tonight and we saw one, beautiful, tiny, HEARTBEAT! Statistics say that once you see a heartbeat, the chance of a miscarriage drops significantly.



I don't know what the future holds for this baby, but I will always see him or her as a miracle. I couldn't be more excited and awed by God right now. I'm sure he's trying to prove to me and to the rest of the world that he is bigger than any medical problem, and stronger than any fertility drug. HE decides when life begins and ends. We serve an awesome God!

I am 6 weeks, 2 days pregnant and baby is due April 6th, 2011. I am so excited!

I want to thank my family and friends that have prayed so faithfully for me. It means more than I can say.

"When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel." Isaiah 29:23



P.S. For any of you that are having difficulty getting pregnant, please understand that I have been there and I know the pain of not knowing if children are in your future. I don't mean to be insensitive to you. If I know about you, I'm praying for you. Constantly.

Just A Few Days Left

In a few short days, Caleb will return to teaching and summer will officially be over for us. :(

Although I'm in LOVE with Fall, this year I'm not happy to see summer end.

Even though Caleb is a teacher, he works full-time painting houses in the summer so he doesn't exactly have the whole summer off. So, aside from our cruise and other short vacations, he really only had the last two weeks completely off.

Since this was the first summer that I wasn't working, we planned to cram in as much fun, family time as possible. Over the past week, we went swimming a few times, we had a picnic in the mountains, and we just enjoyed playing with Ellie. She especially loved playing in the backyard with our small pool and slide. Actually, she loved doing anything that involved all three of us.







I've said it many times before, but Caleb is an amazing Dad, and Elliana adores him. Their relationship is so sweet! Elliana is going to be absolutely heartbroken when Caleb returns to teaching this week. I think she'll ask for him like 100,000 times a day. Poor girl.

I'm going to miss him so much too. We'll just have to visit him for lunch as much as possible. :) Plus, I can't wait to see how Ellie does watching his Volleyball team this year.

I guess life must go on, and since we're going into my favorite time of year, Ellie and I are going to have tons of fun doing many fall things.