Psalm 113:9 (Again)

My mom read Psalm 113:9 in her daily devotions on the day we closed on our house and 3 days before our embryo transfer. I have a "Read thru the Bible in a Year" Bible, in which you daily read a portion of the Old & New Testament, and a few verses from Psalms and Proverbs each day. After 365 days, you have read thru the entire Bible.

Today, the week of my beta, part of my Psalms reading was this verse...

"He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!" - Psalm 113:9

I think God is continuing to encourage my faith this week. And, while I don't know what this week holds, I believe that one day, He will bless us with children in this new house. Praying that it will begin with a positive test this week! :)

Our House

Once we get our furniture and belongings moved in on Thursday, blinds installed, some color painted on the wall (and the builders' port-a-potty moved away from our Master BR window), our house should start feeling like our home. We are so thankful to God for blessing us with this house!

More Big News!

We're moving to Gastonia, NC next weekend! The night before our embryo transfer, we found out that Aaron is being promoted to the Gastonia LifeWay Store with a start date of August 2nd. This wasn't a surprise to us - Aaron had applied to manage this store when it became available in June. Everything was sounding promising, but we had not been given an official offer until the night before our transfer. We were so thankful to God for finding out this news before the transfer. We were really dreading the possibility of awaiting this news and my beta at the same time. So, we have A LOT going on right now - But, we're so excited! We will be breaking our lease here and looking to buy our first house (and Lord willing, start decorating a nursery)! For the immediate future, though, Aaron will be staying in temporary housing (such as an extended stay hotel) and I will be staying with his mom in Columbia, SC until we can find permanent housing. Lord willing, our beta will be positive on Thursday and we have decided that living in a house rather than a hotel room would be more restful during the beginning of pregnancy (we also have a dog and would prefer not to pay a hotel pet fee). Plus, he will probably be working some longer hours as he adjusts to his new store and staff. But, I will miss him so much - hopefully, we will be able to find a house very soon. And since, we aren't trying to sale a house here, it seems reasonable that we should be able to buy something soon.

So, to all of our SC friends - We will be living close again! Gastonia is right outside of Charlotte, NC. We hope to visit soon. We will miss our Greensboro/Danville friends, but we're not too far away to visit you too. And for our blogger friends - nothing will change for us (lol) - we will still be right here for visits. :)

We wanted to wait a few days before posting this news because 1) we wanted our babies to have all the attention for a few days and 2) LifeWay didn't officially announce it to the chain until yesterday.

Praying our babies will be moving with us and that God has a great new chapter in store for our family! :)

Back from the NEDC w/Our Babies!

First off, let me say that God was so gracious to us in every way! We had originally reserved a hotel room for $95/night, but on Monday 2 hours before we left for Knoxville, our future-sister-law (who is a hotel employee) was able to book us a different hotel in the Knoxville area for only $35/night! We had beautiful weather driving down, I-40 was now back open (it was closed off due to the rock slides when we traveled in March). Ashley & Dusty met up with Aaron and me for ice cream the night before our transfers, so we were able to meet in person which was awesome! So, in just these things alone, God richly blessed our trip.

Arriving at the NEDC at 9:30am on Tuesday morning! (The sun was definitely in our eyes.)

Now, for the babies' transfer details...

First off (again for this section) - The NEDC staff is wonderful! They took such good care of us and our babies. I know you Snowflake families are biased to the Snowflake program, but the NEDC totally outdid themselves for our embryo adoption - they, I say again, were just fantastic! :)

God answered our prayers in that our first two babies survived the thaw. Not only did they survive the thaw, they looked really healthy. We had one expanded blastocyst graded a 5AB and one hatched blastocyst graded a 6AA! We don't take "grading" to mean too much, because we know that God chooses which lives to continue growing on earth and which He decides to usher into Heaven. All embryos equally need a chance at birth no matter what their "grading" may be. However, what parents wouldn't want to hear from the doctor that their babies looked healthy!? - We were obviously very thankful. Our hatched blast had actually already hatched prior to freezing and in Dr. K's words "this one is wanting to attach" followed by him saying "but, there are no guarantees, it's out of my hands." To which Aaron replied, "But, we know Whose hands they are in!" Indeed we do. Beta is on July 29th - Praying for strong numbers! :)

Our expanded blast is on the left and our hatched blast is on the right. The darker areas are the actual babies and the lighter areas are what will (Lord willing) become their placentas. As you can see from our picture, the hatched blast baby had completely broken through his/her shell. :)

Ashley & Me

A rainbow across the shopping center where we enjoyed ice cream - Ashley and I decided to take that as a good sign! (Haha - I'm not really superstitious) But, it was a gorgeous rainbow.

Wanting Grace to Trust Him More...

I have always struggled with the sin of worry. I have been a Christian now for 12 years and wonder when this area of my heart will be sanctified?! Maybe not here on this earth at all, because the sanctification of a believer is a lifelong process and sin will never be completely gone from our hearts until Heaven. But, by the grace of God, I hope to grow in this area. God has continually proven Himself faithful in my life, but whenever a new concern arises, I doubt Him all over again.

This adoption is one of the biggest circumstances in my life where I've had many worries and He has guided and provided for each step of the way. For every step that we've taken, I've worried. Will we have enough money? Will our home study be difficult and awkward? Will the social worker not find us "parent material?" Will the NEDC ever call to schedule my mock transfer? And yesterday arose the most ridiculous worry of all...Will my cycle start on time this month so I can begin my Estrace? I was only about a day or two late, but my mind had already began doubting God (to the point of tears!...should've known she was on her way!) and thinking that this one month, my body would do something crazy and I wouldn't be able to start my Estrace in time and would have to cancel my mock transfer. And my worry proved to be absolutely nothing at all!

My biggest worry though, is What if none of our babies are born on this earth for us to raise as their parents? I know that they will be in Heaven, which is far better than being frozen on earth. But, I (we) really, really want at least one of these sweet lives to stick around here with us - on the first transfer! I'm a little nervous even typing that, because I know there are no guarantees...this adoption is such a test of faith. Please pray though, that if it be the Lord's will, there will be a live birth as the result of our first transfer.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:44

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:4-6

Moving Along in Faith...

Bethany Christian did call call us on Tuesday and said that they'd be emailing us our paperwork (aka first steps in the family assessment) by the end of this week! WooHoo! We did find out that the FA costs twice as much as we had anticipated...But, we're not too concerned...We're confident that God will provide in His way and His time. We've never had to raise money for anything before such as a mission trip (I'm probably the only CIU alumni who can say that! Haha) so this is a really cool experience to see how God will provide! If thousands of full-time missionaries rely on support for their salaries, it shouldn't be too hard for us to raise this money. We sent out letters to our family and extended family asking for their partnership in prayer and in any financial gift that they may feel led to give - but no one is to feel obligated by any means. Thank you to those of you who have already blessed us! :)

We did have a distraction this week that we feel was the enemy opposing us - please pray that God would provide peace and protection during this process...like Dr. Russell Moore's video below says...adoption really is spiritual warfare! And yes, we did read his new book, Adopted for Life, which was such a GREAT book! Dr. Moore does an awesome job at tying adoption and the gospel together. Every Christian needs to read this book regardless of whether or not you're interested in adopting a child.



We were also super blessed to have been able to take a weekend trip with Aaron's family to Hilton Head this past weekend - And can you believe that our camera died on us there?! Of all places! Sadly, we didn't get any pictures of us at the beach. Thank you so much, Bill & Mama Niecey for this trip - We had so much fun!!!

New Job

The past month and a half as been filled with very tiring days of me being very aggressive with my job search. The job market is really hard right now and the bachelor degree is losing its value in the workplace. Technical skills and trades (which I lack) are becoming the most needed credentials rather just a "piece of paper stating BS or BA." The job search was quite discouraging and caused a lot of lack of trust in God on my part. Aaron would always remind me that I was sinning and God has called me to always trust Him.

Thankfully, in spite of my sometimes faithless pursuit of employment, God has provided me a full-time job in a church office beginning August 25th! I'm so grateful for this offer. A Christian school had also offered me a K-4 teaching position, which I had originally accepted because it was the only offer I had. But, I really didn't feel very good about taking it. I'm not sure that teaching in the classroom full-time would be a good fit for me. During my second day of orientation, I received an unexpeced call from the church saying that they had a position and wanted to interview me. The church has offered more money, less hours (37 vs. 40 hrs/week), and is only 8 minutes from home (the school was over 30 min away). So, God has been very kind to me and even if He hadn't provided a job for me at all...He has already given me more than I deserve. The only thing that any of us deserves is an eternity separated from Him in hell. And He has saved Aaron and me from that through the crushing of His Son on the cross - Thus, we are always doing better than we deserve!