Furniture Delivery!

We had an EXCITING day around here!

Most of the baby furniture for the nursery was delivered today from Babies R Us! The crib and two dressers came this morning and Josh was able to spend his day assembling the crib and setting everything in it's place! He had the day off since he is working this coming weekend covering Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting. (We are still waiting on the glider chair to come but that was a special order and won't be here for several more weeks.)

Here's a shot of the guys moving the heavy dressers up the stairs:



He did a good job documenting the delivery and set up, as I was working all day.






Here is one dresser in place next to the changing table. (Please excuse the mess on the changing table...it's still in need of some clearing as it's been acting as our "pharmacy" from all the fertility meds these last few years.)



Here's the second dresser in place...so, the two dressers sit directly across from eachother.



Josh starting to get out all the crib pieces and ready to assemble:



Pica stayed mostly away during all the chaos in the room but Josh said she wandered in the room when he was mostly done setting up the crib and got her picture taken.



Finished wall with Crib, Dresser and Laundry Hamper:



My amazing husband after a long, hard day of work! GREAT WORK Josh!

Our Fertile Faith

We began our effort to become parents more than five years ago. Along the way, there have been many ups and downs, but now we are about 14 weeks pregnant and looking forward to the birth of our first child this fall. To me, the story of our conception has reinforced my faith and it demonstrates that God is at work on the little miracle growing inside my wife's womb.

Our story also reminds that God acts in His own time according to His plan, not ours. If the world had been operating on our plan, we'd probably have a kindergartner by now, but that wasn't God's plan for us. Even though we may not have chosen this path for ourselves, we have benefited from the journey and are now much better prepared to become parents.

God did not choose to act when we first tried to conceive a child on our own. And He did not deliver the miracle of a new life when we first sought medical help. Instead we encountered setbacks, like anemia, that forced delays.

Later when we sought the help of specialists, we were initially turned away. Instead of receiving treatment, we were urged to lose weight _ something we'd wanted to do for years but never succeeded at before _ because it would improve our chances to conceive. So our fertile journey took yet another detour.

But while we rode this infertility roller coaster, Kelli and I continued to grow closer to each other as a couple even as we endured heartbreaking disappointments. Our love for each other deepened, and we strengthened our marriage. We also learned more about God through our small group and studies at church. And with the help of Weight Watchers we found weight-loss success and shed some 150 pounds between us.

When we returned for fertility treatments, we gradually moved up through stronger and stronger treatments. Months and months again passed by without success.

The Bible tells us that God often works through weakness, so it is abundantly clear to the world that God is behind the miracle. That is a large part of why I am so certain God is behind the miracle of our pregnancy.

Consider God’s choice of the nation of Israel to be His people. He picked one of the smallest groups of people on the planet to be His chosen people, so it would be clear Israel's accomplishments came from God.

Later, God helped a young shepherd boy named David slay a giant named Goliath with only a sling and a stone. It was clear God was at work when the giant fell.

In the New Testament, Paul writes about this concept in one of his letters to the Corinthians. Paul says he suffered from a physical ailment that God would not heal:

"Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, 'My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.'” -- 2 Corinthians 12:8-9

For us, we reached a point after five years of off-and-on fertility treatments where we nearly gave up after pleading with the Lord for help so many times in prayer. Two rounds of in vitro fertilization had already failed, and we were starting to think seriously about whether we should pursue adoption or even whether God was trying to tell us that His plan for us was to be simply the best aunt and uncle we could be.

Then during our third cycle of in vitro fertilization even the doctors seemed pessimistic about our chances because Kelli didn't respond to the hormones quite as well as she had in previous cycles. But we made a leap of faith and decided to move forward anyway.

That is when God decided to act.

In our weakness, His power has been made perfect in the miracle of life. And we know He is with us and ready to hold us during whatever we face. I can’t know for sure the direction our path will follow from here, but I know that regardless of what challenges life presents God has a plan for us and He wants good things for us. I know that much because He told us so:

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out-plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.
"When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen.
"When you come looking for me, you'll find me. I'll make sure you won't be disappointed."-- Jeremiah 29:11-14

Please join us in praying that our little miracle will continue to grow and develop normally as part of a healthy pregnancy, and we will pray that all of you will one day receive your own little miracles in life however God chooses to grant them.

~ Josh & Kelli

Baby Registry and Crib Buying!

We had a very exciting day today!

Josh and I bought the furniture for our little miracle's room!! Here's a shot of Josh paying for it all at the register! ;-)



We have been looking at cribs and other furniture for several weeks now and just so happens that Babies R Us was having a sale on the sleigh style crib set that we really liked. I posted a pic of the set in an earlier post, but here it is again!



It takes about two weeks to get it in so we will continue to work on the placement in the baby's room. We have been debating where everything will go since the room will be tight with all the furniture. Hopefully, it will all work out!! Here's a pic of Josh measuring and using magazines to lay out the room.



We also decided to start our registry at Babies R Us this weekend so that was fun to go through the store! We will continue to update it as time goes on but it was a good time to put a few things on there that we have been looking at recently!



We are just ending our 13th week this weekend and we did our last progesterone injection today so we are very glad to end that phase of the pregnancy. Still hoping and praying that our little miracle continues to thrive without the extra progesterone. All our doctors tell us that the placenta takes over making all the hormones by the 12th week, so we are trusting them and trusting God.

12-Week Ultrasound/Update

Today was our 12-Week Appt. and it seems like the last three weeks since our 9-week appointment have just DRAGGED on and on. But, if finally came and was an AMAZING day!

My sister, Jennie, and her daughter, Taylin, who is 2 years old, came with us to the ultrasound. This ultrasound was an extensive check for a variety of different things, including checking bone stucture for possible Down's Syndrome.

Everything appears to have checked out fine on that aspect, which we are very thankful for. But, we won't know for sure until the blood work comes back in a couple of days. The ultrasound lasted for 45 minutes and we got a nice, LONG look at our little miracle!



We couldn't believe how much different the baby looked than the last time! And, we got to see our little miracle jumping all OVER the place inside the sac! What an active little thing! They actually recorded the whole ultrasound for us on DVD so here is a clip from that:



The heartbeat was at 165 today and so everyone is wondering what gender all these heartbeats mean! ;-)

Here's a 3-D/4-D look at the baby as well!



We don't go back now until May 4th for our 16-week appointment and that will be the longest time we've gone without seeing our little miracle on ultrasound or hearing the heartbeat so we will need lots of prayers of patience and strength.