Small Group

Every Friday night, we get together with our small group people. Tonight we had an especially good talk about 1 John, and I'm so thankful for our friends who we can be real with. We talked a lot about how God uses bad circumstances to orchestrate our lives for the greater good. I know that it usually seems that in the end, God used our bad experiences to better our lives, and I'm sure this whole thing will end up that way. It's just difficult when you can't see the big picture yet. I'm not to that point where I can look back on things and see why they happened the way they did.

One of the guys talked about the loss of his dad last summer and how, while it was horrible to go through, there were many things working together the weekend it happened that enabled all the family to be together during that rough time. He also talked about how people would tell him that it would take time to get past it. And while time does make things a little easier, you'll never get "past" it.

It was really good to know that someone else is going through the same things I am. He even made mention that in the healing process you have to "learn to exist again" without the person you lost. I've had that exact feeling so many times. Feeling this way is new to me. I know God says He'll never give us more than we can bear, but at times, losing our baby has felt like more than I can handle. How does one exist after such a tragic loss? Learning to live with this constant weight on my shoulders is hard.

I guess more than anything, I just felt relief (I guess that's the right word?) that someone who'd gone through a completely different situation was having so many of the same feelings that I am. Maybe it was just a reassurance that I'm not crazy!! :) His loss was a year ago, and it's still hard, but he's learned to exist with life being this way, instead of how it was. Our worlds will never be the same.

Here are a couple photos of our awesome small group friends! The wives:

Left to right: Risa, Audra, Melinda, me, Tiffany, Val.

The hubbys:

Top L to R: Adam, Luis (apparently they didn't get the memo this was supposed to be a nice picture)

Bottom L to R: Aaron, Justin, Ryan M., Ryan H.

10 points to the first person that can correctly match all the wives to their husbands! :)

Aww.

I was editing a wedding today and found this photo at the end of my card. I must've taken it when we got home or the next day or something. Adam's glaring at the camera, but don't be fooled, he started laughing after the click.

My boy and my dog.

Just a Quick Hello

Hi! I don't have much to update you with, but I'm not a fan of neglecting my blog(s), so I thought I'd at least say hello.

Nothing new with all the surgery stuff. I've been off pain meds since Wednesday morning and am doing good. We have a post-op appointment with my doctor on August 4th, and I'm looking forward to that because maybe he'll be able to help us put more of a time frame on things. And I just love to plan ahead! :)

Adam and I bought a motorcycle this week. We've had an old '65 Chevy truck since before we got married that Adam and his dad fixed up. It's the orange truck in our wedding photos:

Well, we finally decided to sell it. We didn't drive it that much and it wasn't even at our house most of the time because we didn't have room. So, we sold it last week and Adam had already had his sights set on getting a motorcycle. We had a cruiser vs. crotchrocket debate going on for awhile. I like cruisers, he's not a big fan. We finally compromised somewhere in the middle and got this:

It's a (lemme see if I can get this right) Kawasaki KLR650. It's called an Enduro, which means it's kind of a dirtbike, but can be ridden in town. Most importantly, it's a really pretty blue! :)

We just got done shooting a really great wedding in Hesston, so now I need to go relax. Have a great weekend!

Surgery Update

I went in for surgery yesterday at 1:00pm, and the process went very smoothly. I was checked in, changed, given an IV, and don't remember much after that. The doctor told Adam that things went perfectly, and we went home about 4:00pm that same day. I slept the majority of that evening and til late this morning. I'm on 4 prescriptions, but am pretty pain free, and am only taking the minimum dose of pain meds. We go in for our post-op appointment on August 4th, and I'm looking forward to that for an update.

Thanks for your prayers! 

A Few from Yellowstone

I will make a larger post at some point on my photo blog, but wanted to at least put a couple teasers up that can kinda sum up our trip.

Here's Adam and I on the porch of the cabin we stayed at in Jackson, WY. It was super cute.

Some of the amazing scenery.

Yes, I was as close to this moose as it looks. It had just stopped traffic by crossing the road, and then it walked right past our car. If you can look close, you can see that it's smiling. I think it was laughing at us.

Surgery

My surgery has been rescheduled for this Thursday afternoon at 2 pm. I've never had surgery before, so I'm a little nervous and would appreciate your prayers! Thanks for the comments and emails about the last post, it's good to know we have friends out there supporting and praying for us!

Hope

Hello everyone! Our trip last week to Yellowstone was awesome. We drove a total of 2600 miles and saw lots of amazing stuff. I will be blogging some of the many photos we took...this week sometime, hopefully. :) I will probably post them on my photo blog, so check back there soon!

I am trying (and I think succeeding!), to turn a corner. I will never forget our first baby. He or she is so much a part of me and who I am now.

BUT, Adam and I are now trying to focus on having another baby. And I think I'm ready to begin sharing about that journey.

When I had my first sonogram when I was 7 weeks pregnant, the tech asked if I'd ever had a sonogram before (I hadn't), and said that it looked like I had something called a bicornuate uterus. She knew we'd been trying for awhile to get pregnant, and said that she wasn't sure if this condition could be a cause of our infertility. Since I was pregnant, I didn't think about it too much at the time, I figured it didn't matter now.

After we miscarried at 10.5 weeks, they did a couple of sonograms to make sure everything passed. I was lucky, and everything was passed naturally, so I didn't have to have any kind of procedure. But while they were looking around, I asked about that condition that had been mentioned back at 7 weeks. This tech said she could see that I did in fact have a misshapen uterus, and that it could've potentially caused the miscarriage.

To give you a little background, I didn't have a good experience with my doctors, both before I was pregnant, and then again after I miscarried. When we were trying to get pregnant, it took lots of prompting and many months to get them to help me figure out what was wrong. I left countless messages asking questions, and my calls were usually returned by someone who couldn't answer my questions. The weekend I miscarried, I was on the phone several times with my doctor while I was bleeding, and she was very caring and helpful. But after the fact, I saw a PA who didn't even know what I was there for, much less that I'd had a miscarriage 2 days before. I always had to ask the questions...they never took the initiative to give me the information and to help me to know what to do with it.

So after I miscarried and had the sonograms, I asked my doctor about the uterus abnormality. She said there was no way to know if it caused this, or if it was just a normal miscarriage. We left the doctors office. No guidance as to what to do next. So I made another appointment to talk to someone to get some help. That was the appointment with the PA who wasn't informed. After I went over our whole story again and explained everything to her, she said that I'd need to have an MRI to get a better idea of how severe the problem with my uterus was. We scheduled that for the beginning of June.

First off, I'm super claustrophobic. So having and MRI wasn't at the top of my "Fun Things to Do" list. But the lady who performed the MRI was very nice and also sensitive to our situation. The other "fun" thing was that she made me hold my breath for 18 seconds 3 times. I can't hold my breath for more than like 5 seconds, so I think I cheated, but hopefully she couldn't tell. :)

We didn't hear back from my doctor with the results. I was going in to their office (as I did once a week the whole month of June) to have blood drawn to make sure my pregnancy hormone levels were still decreasing like they should, so I called before I went in to see if I could talk to someone about my MRI results. They told me to ask for a nurse while I was having blood drawn. I did, and they sent me to a waiting room. A person from medical records (not a nurse) came in and started asking questions to try to understand what I was wanting. Once she finally figured out that all I wanted was my MRI results, she said that they had them on file, and asked if I just wanted the info so that I could interpret them myself. Really? I was baffled and confused that she would ask me that, so I said umm...yes, I'll take the results, but can you also have a nurse talk to me to explain them? She said the nurse on staff was busy, she'll call you sometime this week. Great.

I got a call from the nurse later that day. She informed me that I didn't have a bicornuate uterus, I have a septated uterus. I had no idea what that meant, and she wasn't able to give me any more information. And, my doctor was out of town that week. More waiting. Meanwhile, Adam did a bunch of research on the internet and found out that this was potentially a better diagnosis than having a bicornuate uterus. We were tentatively hopeful, but it's a little hard to put the hope of having a family in the hands of the internet.

When doctor came back, she called and answered a few of my questions. She said that I would need to see a specialist at this point - it was beyond what they deal with, and I had more questions she couldn't answer. They set up an appointment for me with a specialist at the end of June.

We saw the specialist, and had a 180 degree difference in our experience with him. Dr. Tjaden was very informative, concerned, and helpful. He not only fully explained what my condition was, but told me what he'd want me to do if I was his daughter. We also did a sonogram that day so that he could see a better picture of my uterus since the MRI tech wasn't a specialist in getting pictures of a uterus. Here's the gist of what he found:

My uterus has a septum, or piece of skin, that divides it into two sides. The septum doesn't go all the way down, but almost. If I get pregnant, and the baby implants itself on the septum, the blood supply isn't good enough for it to survive. If the baby implants itself anywhere else, like on the walls of my uterus, then I could potentially carry the baby full term. There is a surgery that can be done to remove the septum, and after the surgery and healing, I would have a completely normal shaped uterus, and my chances of carrying a baby full term are just as good as anyone else's. He said that if I was his daughter, he would recommend the surgery, since not having it could potentially mean more miscarriages. During the sonogram, he also looked at my ovaries. He found that I have a very mild case of PCOS which is why I wasn't ovulating and wasn't able to get pregnant for so long. This is good news and bad. Bad because most likely, I won't ever ovulate on my own without the help of medicine. Good because now we know why I wasn't ovulating, and also because that means that the doctor will give us the medicine to make me ovulate right away when we start trying again, instead of making us try several months without it.

Adam and I decided to go ahead with the surgery. It is scheduled for this Friday, the 17th, but I am working on getting it moved since I have to photograph a wedding the next day (which is not something I can cancel or reschedule, obviously). The surgery is minimally invasive and I will go home the same day. The doctor said that it usually takes about 3-4 days of recovery before most women go back to work.

After the surgery, it will take about 2 months for me to heal, and then we can begin trying to get pregnant again! The appointment with Dr. Tjaden gave me so much hope. And so much relief. Between the minor surgery and taking Clomid (the medicine to make me ovulate), we should be able to conceive again very soon! I am so joyful and optimistic about this, especially since we conceived our first little one on our very first month of Clomid. 

It's hard that we still have to wait a few months, because this is something that was already in my grasp, and then I lost it. I already had a baby, and I just want it back. But, I have to trust that God's timing will be even more perfect this time, and that these next few months will go by very fast.

There was a season in my life that I wasn't sure I ever wanted kids. I didn't babysit much as a teenager, and I am just not very good with children. Back then, I remember having a fleeting thought: "How horrible would it be if one day I completely change my mind, decide that I DO want kids, and then find out that I can't have them?" This past year, with everything that's happened, I kept going back to that thought and wondering how ironic it was that it ended up being true.

But now, I can dispel that evil thought and KNOW that the Lord knows my heart, He loves me, and He conquers all! Too bad I had to have proof, too bad I couldn't just believe and trust in Him to work a miracle in me. I pray that He will strengthen my trust and dependence in Him more with each day. I pray that when we do get pregnant with our next little one, that that miracle will awake in me a stronger and more powerful love for my Savior. It's all in His hands, and He has blessed us!

I found a few verses on a blog of another couple who has dealt with trying to get pregnant:

"Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this. "  Psalm 37:3-5

And how amazing that the Bible even speaks of our exact situation!

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being full persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised."  Romans 4:18-22

Ups and Downs

It seems it's been awhile since I've written on the blog, so it's time for an update. Things are going alright...the days are slowly getting a little easier now that I've had a month to process it all. Whereas the norm used to be getting excited when I thought about our baby, the norm has become getting sad. Which is good and bad. It's bad because, of course no one enjoys being sad, and I wish with all my heart that things hadn't turned out this way. But it's good because it's not like a new stab of pain every time I think about what happened. I'm getting used to the sad, unsettled feelings. A down side to this, though, is that the feelings of disbelief have been replaced with feelings of utter helplessness. I have absolutely no control over this situation. I see other families with babies, and I just want to cry out at God, "Why not me? Why have you chosen this path, this life for us?"

I've been able to go on with life pretty normally - work, traveling, church, more work. I'm happy most of the time, which is good. I'm able to laugh, to enjoy the little things. There are definitely still the hard moments though, the moments that are impossible to bear, moments of despair. It is still sometimes so gut-wrenching that I don't know if I can handle it. When I was pregnant, it just seemed too good to be true, I almost couldn't believe it. It turns out that it was.

BUT we got some good news from a doctor this week. It will still be several months before we will be able to start trying to get pregnant again, but there is definitely hope at the end of the tunnel. In a few months, my body will hopefully be completely normal! The prospect of that gives me so much joy.

Life has been a crazy series of ups and downs lately. After we lost the baby, I had a month of numbness...just going through each day on auto-pilot. I would work, come home, shoot a wedding on the weekend, have my Sunday off, and go back to work on Monday. Nothing different, nothing challenging, nothing happy. Then we had my brother's wedding this past weekend, which was so amazing. I wrote about it on my photo blog if you'd like to know more. We were all so happy for Michael and Sara. Then this week rolled around, and I've been having to put in 10 and 12 hour days just to keep my head afloat with the workload I have at the studio. And while I love shooting weddings, I'm a little bummed that we have a wedding this weekend and don't get to take the holiday off. But then come Sunday, another good thing rolls around - Adam and I are headed to Yellowstone for a week of traveling and relaxing, which is extremely necessary right now. After we get back from our trip, we will have to deal with another series of doctor's appointments that may drag on for a few months. But at the end of that, we should hopefully be able to have a normal pregnancy. My head and heart feel tugged back and forth, and I feel like I just want an uneventful life for awhile!

My sister-in-law, Jessica, recently had a quote from author Chuck Swindoll on her blog:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

I strive each day to stay positive, to put my trust fully the Lord and his plans. I tend to fail more days than not, but reading this quote was a good reminder of why I need to try to not let this event define my life and my outlook on life. How I deal with this is up to me. What good would come of being sad and depressed? What amazing things could happen by letting this experience make me more dependent on Him?