Update...

Hello friends :) 
I know I haven't written or updated much but you all see my Fb updates and that is all I've known. My beta numbers (measuring the hcg in my body) have not been great. They were, in fact, super low. They want a number above 1 for a positive and mine was 4.The nurse told me we just have to wait and see how they rise, but sometimes when numbers are this low the embryo started to implant (hence the hcg present) but then the body rejected it because of issues with the embryo and my body is readying for a miscarriage, or...the numbers can still double as they should and you could have a healthy pregnancy and a baby at the end. It's been so strange knowing my numbers are positive, but just barely positive. I want to have hope yet I want to be realistic and be prepared if I'm going to lose the pregnancy. I am thankful that through the crazy beginning process the Lord gave me peace and patience. My last beta test came back at 500. When the nurse called she said "we might have done this after all!" which made me so happy because it was the first time she's been excited with my beta. It also made me happy because I'd been praying God would help my number be in the 400's or that it would have dropped so we'd know one way or the other what's going on. Now I have an u/s scheduled for Tuesday. My last beta was Monday. That's a long wait. Linda (IVF coordinator and nurse) actually told me I could come in on Thursday and have another beta if it would help calm my nerves and I said no mostly because I'm pretty tired of driving to Pensacola so many times lately. Once Thursday rolled around I started to regret my decision a little. I have to remind myself though that if this pregnancy stays it will be all God's doing. I have had a few days where I question if my symptoms are still there. Do I feel pregnant enough? I've had a couple of nights (last night was one of them) where I can't turn my brain off. I worry about what we will see at the ultrasound. It's so scary to think we could get there and they could find out we've lost the baby by u/s. Once again I have to remind myself of God's sovereignty and remember that I want his will, not my own. I understand he's in control of my story and his way is best. It's still really hard sometimes to let go of the control I think I have. I really have none, I know that, yet I want to keep it. So I've only got 3 days until we find out more definitively how things are going. I was pregnant (on my own) last year and lost the baby at 8 weeks so I understand that just because everything looks good this time doesn't mean we're in the clear. This is all a lesson in trusting. I know that no matter what happens my God is good. I'm thankful for his presence through this whole process and I want to be faithful to rely on him, even when the doubts come. Thank you all for your prayers and I will update on Tuesday

Pre and Post transfer thoughts...

DISCLAIMER!!! I will warn you now this post is TMI but I've tried to share the reality of what someone going through this process experiences and this is it ;) if you're not comfortable reading about personal stuff you should probably skip this post

Yesterday was the Big day. It got here a lot faster than I would have imagined. I was not really anxious about it until Tuesday night. Tuesday night I had this freak out moment where I thought wow, I have to take all these drugs, give myself shots, wear these stupid itchy patches for the possibility of being pregnant. Then I thought well, if this doesn't work I'll have to do it all over again. I thought even if it does work I'll have to do this again to get another baby. And what if I do get pregnant? Then what? I almost died having Jakob. Thoughts of the future completely overwhelmed me. I had to remind myself of who is ultimately in control. I had to remind myself that God's plan is right and good no matter where my path takes me and he will give me grace when I need it. I was pretty nervous Tuesday night. Yesterday went by pretty quickly. I gave Jeremy a haircut. Tried to get things picked up around the house so I'm not sitting around making lists of all I should be doing. Before I knew it it was time to take Jakob to my mom's house. I was not nervous at all on the way to Pensacola. I remembered the last time we made this trip for this same purpose and knew all the prayers for me were working. I had peace. I know my future is in Gods very capable hands. Once we got to the doctors office I heard people grumbling about waiting for an hour and a half and thought oh boy...
We ended up waiting about an hour and forty five minutes. Not fun. Especially when she told us to be there fifteen minutes before our appointment time and come with a full bladder...After about an hour I had to go pee a little. I didn't empty my bladder but I had drank a (decaf) iced caramel macchiato on the way to P'cola so I had to go! When they called us back it was almost 6:30. We were hungry and I was not In the mood for chit chat. They asked me how's my bladder and I said it's about to explode. They said you may need to go empty it some. I said ok, but I already went in the lobby. The ultrasound tech said she'd look at it and let me know. She put the ultrasound thingy on my stomach for (no lie) one second and said "well, that's all I need to see, go pee for like 15 seconds and then come back" so I did. From there the doctor came in and told us we had 3 eight celled embryos. The best chance (medically speaking) for a pregnancy is eight celled embryos. When we had Jakob they put in an eight cell and a six cell. We told the doctor we still wanted to transfer only two. (Hoping for one baby not two or three!) The third embryo will continue to grow a few more days and if its healthy they will refreeze it for later. The actual transfer doesn't take long. You watch on the ultrasound as the doc takes a small catheter with a little holder on the end and navigates it to your uterus and releases the embryo. The ultrasound is on your belly the whole time because that's how the doctor sees what he's doing and there's a big TV screen in the corner of the room showing what the doctor sees. It doesn't hurt much. A little cramping when they're putting them in. Afterwards you get to lay there for 30 minutes with your very full bladder. And then you just get up and leave...so weird. The waiting room was empty. The receptionist was gone for the day. The office looked deserted. Now I'm supposed to stay off my feet for two days. I'm taking a whole bunch of medications right now. Along with my estrogen pills, baby aspirin, shots, progesterone pills and patch they've added a steroid four times a day and an antibiotic twice a day. Thankfully the last two will be done tomorrow. I'm so thankful for my cell phone because it is constantly reminding me its time for more medicine :) That's it for now friends. I cannot begin to describe how much your prayers and kind words have meant to me. This next Wednesday is our pregnancy test. I'm sure the week will fly by just like the last month has and of course I'll share my results with you as soon as I know anything.
Much love,
Shauna

P.S.- I wrote this from my phone in bed so if there's misspellings please forgive me this once. It's too hard to proof read on this small screen

Update...

Just a quick update...
I had another ultrasound/blood draw yesterday. Everything still looks great. My embryos have arrived in Pensacola. With Jakob they used embryos that were frozen at an earlier stage (day 2) and thawed them and let them grow to day five then transferred. Linda said they like to stick with what worked the first time so that's what we're going to do. She didn't give me an exact transfer date because it all depends on when the embryologist can thaw the embryos. I won't start my progesterone until a few days before the transfer so that's on hold for now also. Yesterday was really slammed at the RE's office. I walked in and there were about 30 people in the waiting room. Two people were standing and I stood with them. I think they may have to start looking for a larger space as the business grows. (He was rated the number one IF doctor in Florida not to mention people from Alabama and Georgia come to him). My friend Jillian had told me her friend Tara was seeing Dr. Ripps also so I decided to keep an eye out for her. She came in about 10 minutes after I did yesterday. We sat and talked IF and treatments and family and all kinds of stuff. It was nice because it helped the hour of waiting go by faster. There was a girl there who was having some of the same issues I had with OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation) and she was super nervous. For my IF friends her estrogen was at 10,000 a couple weeks ago. Last week it was 3500. Normal is 500. She was very scared about getting OHSS. I gave her my phone number and told her to call or text if she has questions. She lives in Crestview, right down the road from my church. Coincidence? We'll see. After the appointment I met up with Jessi Senn for lunch. It was nice to catch up. I haven't seen her in a while. I am getting more excited about the transfer and possibility of another baby. It's kind of hard because I try not to imagine life with another baby, I think that will just make it more devastating if I don't get pregnant. But...it's hard when people speak to you as if you will get pregnant. I know they're being optimistic for me when it's hard for me to be for myself. I have been praying that God will give me grace and peace to accept his work and will whether it's the answer I want or not. The unknown is the hardest part of this process. There's nobody I can go to to make sure I get pregnant. I do know though that my future is in the hands of a God who loved me before the world was even created. He chose to send his son to suffer and die for my sins. How can I not trust a God who loves me that much???

Worst part so far...

Day one ;)

Day four haha!

Who woulda thought the worst part of this FET so far are these stupid estrogen patches!!! I knew that they drove me nuts but this time they are really bugging me. As you can see from the second picture I ripped the patch off the very first night because it was itching so badly I couldn't even sleep. Once I ripped the edge off to scratch underneath it it wouldn't stick anymore :/ so I had to get creative and I taped it on with bandaids. Lovely right? Oh well. Another observation...I have gained some weight since I started this cycle and I am not liking it, but I'm trying to remember that it is for a good cause and hopefully I'll get pregnant and then I have an excuse why I gained the weight. Another observation...I've been using insulin syringes for my Lupron but I ran out of the ones that came in the kit with the meds so I opened the new package they sent me and they are soooo awesome! I didn't even feel the shot last night. The difference? Lubricated needles. Why didn't they think of this sooner :) If only that would help with the big needle...

Hey, have you seen my dignity? I think I've lost it...

When you're going through infertility and seeing a doctor about it you pretty much lose all modesty (aka dignity;). They're always checking your ovaries and uterine lining so there's always the (dreaded) internal ultrasound. The first time around (when trying for Jakob) I had already had a year or so of seeing a gyn before I was referred to New LIFE so the lack of modesty didn't bother me. I was used to it. This time around I have to keep reminding myself that these people do this all the time...and there is no modesty when trying to have a baby via ART. None. Yesterday I went for my second appointment. You go into the room and there's this lone chair with oven mitts on the foot rests. I always laugh a little when I see the oven mitts. Seriously? You guys are making tons of money, I know because I'm paying you and the best you can do for stirrup covers are some palm tree oven mitts? Anyways, next to the chair is a tv with a dvd player. Why the dvd player is needed I don't know...On the other side of the chair is the portable ultrasound machine just like you'd see at any regular OB appointment. I had to pee really bad yesterday when I arrived at the office but the office was full of people and the bathroom is right there in the waiting room and I just didn't want to use it and for some reason I  thought I'll wait until after the ultrasound. When my Dr came in and started the ultrasound the first thing he said was...whoa! Your bladder is huge! Yeah, remember, no dignity. Not in any way. So my Dr knew I needed to pee pretty bad. Oh well. My uterine lining was perfect. They explained to me that the birth control pills and the lupron shots make my lining super thin. He said that's actually why I've been cramping and bleeding because my lining is so thin. I guess my body is thinking I need to shed the rest of it. Then he looked at my ovaries. He showed me the u/s and said I am super fertile. They didn't count but estimated at least 25 eggs between the two ovaries. He told me I should be an egg donor...first of all if I can't have my babies nobody else is getting them!!! ;) but also I reminded him of this little thing called OHSS (hyperstimulation) that put me in the hospital with 8 liters of fluid having to be drained off of my lungs. No. I won't be volunteering to be an egg donor. I'm glad some people are ok with it because it may be the only way some have children but I am not going to be selling my eggs to anybody. The Dr told me everything looks perfect and to just keep following my instructions on taking the meds. Today starts estrogen patches, which I really hate because I'm obviously allergic to the glue on them. I get big scabs where the patches were even when I wear them only for one week and then move to a new spot. At least I only have to wear four(in consecutive one week doses, not all at once). I also start the estrogen pills. All this estrogen will help build my lining up really thick to (hopefully!) be ready for a little embryo to implant. The Lupron continues until a couple days before the transfer, I think. I have another u/s and bloodwork appointment on June 10th and then they'll schedule my transfer. Transfer days are June 16th and 17th which is a Sunday or Monday. The only real side effects I'm having are still the bleeding/cramping, a little nausea at night and the random hot flashes. I just bump the air down for those and later when I'm freezing remember that I turned the air down b/c of a hot flash ;)

Took my last bcp last night...Woohoo!!!

TMI...

So I've been on the Lupron shots for 5 days now. I'm also going in to my 5th straight week of taking birth control pills. For the most part I've felt pretty good. For some reason I'm having a little bit of a reaction after every shot. The area kind of swells up and itches a lot but it goes away after a while. I have had a few major headaches, but that is to be expected with all the hormone stuff going on in my body right now. The only other side effect I've really noticed so far is that I feel kind of nauseous in the afternoon/night time. Sometimes I don't even want to cook dinner because I feel sick but once I get it done I am able to eat some. When I lay down to sleep at night is when I feel it the most because I am being still. Thankfully it's not really bad, but it is there. TMI alert...I am not supposed to have my period because I've been on the birth control for 5 weeks. The birth control (and now the lupron) are supposed to suppress my cycle so that I don't ovulate or have a period. About 4 days ago I started cramping and spotting. The day after this started I felt like I would have a regular period. My cramps were pretty strong. I'm still spotting four days later. I called the doctors office and they said that it can be normal to spot because I skipped the placebo pills on the birth control and basically skipped my period for the month of May. I go for bloodwork and an ultrasound on Thursday and they will be able to see what's going on

Clamming up...

I start my lupron shots tonight!!! The medicine has to stay in the fridge because it must remain cold so it comes in a box like this and I stuck the whole thing in the fridge...why did I do that? Seriously, I can't blame it on pregnancy brain but maybe hormone brain? 
So remember my last post how I said that I always tend to tell people a little too much about my situation and sometimes people get uncomfortable because they've never really thought about the IVF process or don't know very much about it. I grew up in a house of five girls so we talk about feminine stuff all the time (ovulation, periods, etc.) that's not a big deal to talk about to me. I've met people who act like they've never had a period in their lives. I even met a girl once who looked shocked and dismayed when I said something about breastfeeding! I later found out she bottle fed her baby so I guess she was not comfortable talking about the subject. Wow, I got way off topic. Anyways, what I was trying to get at is all the sudden I feel myself wanting to clam up. On Sunday I found out that a third girl at my church (and this place is small like less than 30 people right now) is pregnant. If she happens to read this blog I want her to know my feelings have nothing to do with her and I'm very happy for all three women. Thinking about all the pregnant women who I'll be around and all the babies 6-9 months from now I started to panic a little. If I don't get pregnant there's going to be a constant reminder that this cycle didn't work. If I do get pregnant and lose the baby there's a constant reminder of that. That's what happened to me when I miscarried in 2012. It is literally making me feel queasy just thinking about it. I have to just stop the thoughts and pray every time they start. Worry is not going to accomplish anything. My future is in God's hands and honestly that's the best place for it to be. It's still hard. I haven't been nervous until now. I felt like packing up the blog and not talking about this anymore. But I won't. I need those of you who read this blog to pray for me and I'm telling you what I need prayers for right now and that's peace. Peace to accept God's will for my life and peace to trust him in a situation that I have no control over. Thank-you friends

Over-sharing...

I feel like any time I go through something difficult I can tend to over-share. If I'm doing that at any time during this process please forgive me. I found out a long time ago when we were dealing with infertility that it helps so much just to get things off your chest and out in the open. I spent so many days crying and left functions because someone unknowingly said something that really hurt. Eventually I realized I can't be upset with someone when they make a joke not knowing what's going on in my life. Once I started sharing with people what we were going through it made all the difference. I received the support I was desperately (and unknowingly) needing and other people now understood me more. Anyways, I was just thinking about how sometimes I may share too much, if I do please ignore me ;) and blame it on the hormones (lol)
 
The other day we were at Lowe's buying all the stuff to fix up our flower beds at the house. My phone rang and it was BriovaRx which is the specialty pharmacy where we were getting all my medications from. The girl on the phone told me she had my total for my meds and did I want to hear it? I said yes...maybe not the best idea while I had a pile of mulch and plants on my cart. She told me the total cost of meds was 726 dollars and some change. I instantly felt like throwing up. My doctor and Linda had both said how much cheaper this cycle's meds would be because we were just doing the transfer. I was thinking cheaper as in less than 500 dollars. When I told Jeremy that they had called he said "how much is it going to cost?' and I didn't want to tell him. When I told him the total he said "oh, that's much better than I thought it was going to be" he reminded me that I've obviously forgotten how much we paid the first time around. I think I have :) 
My box of medication came on Tuesday. It's a whole lot of stuff. The most expensive and most important medicine in there was the progesterone. When you get pregnant with ART (assisted reproduction) your body isn't making the hormones you need to keep a pregnancy in the beginning, so you have to take the progesterone shots to help you stay pregnant. It's an intramuscular shot and it hurts, and it bruises but at least I don't have to do it every day this time and like I said it's totally worth it if you get pregnant. I start my shots of lupron on May 21st (it's a small needle that goes in my belly I think it just holds off your cycle while they get ready for the transfer???) and I think I get to stop the birth control pills on May 28th. I have blood work and an ultrasound scheduled for May 30th. 
There are still a lot of people out there that don't really understand the whole IVF process. Some people instead of asking me about it and becoming more aware or informed just assume that I've chosen to go the "easy route" to have a baby. I don't really want to explain to every single person I ever meet that I have a thyroid issue and it messes up my period all the time so I don't exactly ovulate like normal people and my husband has basically the lowest sperm count possible as well as every issue you can have with motility and morphology ( sorry honey ;) The other day a lady said to me "Oh yeah, my Daughter has had trouble getting pregnant but she decided to go the natural route." Something about the way it was said kind of bothered me. I wanted to defend myself and my choice while telling her all I've done to be as healthy as possible, then I remembered that unless you've been in this very place you cannot begin to understand how it feels. You also cannot say how you'd handle the situation or what you would do when it's not really your fertility issues. The fact is without IVF and the Doctors actually injecting Jeremy's sperm into my egg there would be no Jakob. It's just not happening for us. I'm not upset about that, I just wish sometimes people would be a little less judge-ee and understand that not every circumstance is the same. I'm not mad, don't get me wrong, I just wish we'd give each other a break sometimes, ya know. I catch myself doing this same thing in other areas of life. 
When I was going through IVF the first time I was so sure we were going to have a baby. I felt like God had confirmed it to my heart that we were going to get pregnant. I don't know if I'm not trusting like the first time or if I'm realizing now how difficult this is (because of my recent miscarriage and friends having difficulty the second time around) but I don't really feel certain of anything this time. I'm having to constantly give my worries/fears to God. I'm having to constantly ask him for faith to trust and strength to know he loves me and he's in control even if things don't work out the way I want them to...
Thank-you to everyone who's praying    

Update...

Everything went well yesterday. When I got there I was really regretting the fact that I didn't think to take pain medication before I left for Pensacola. The nurse offered me motrin so I took it. Better late than never. I don't like medical type stuff. I cannot watch a "fake" surgery on a tv show or any kind of blood and guts. I felt a little sick looking at the screen and seeing my own guts ;) They basically went in and made sure there's no blocked fallopian tubes (not that that matters this time around) and checked my uterus to make sure there's nothing that would prevent the embryo from implanting. They put saline into your uterus to clean and make sure they can see clearly and that made me start cramping. It's funny how you forget all this stuff until you're in the moment then you go, oh yeah, I was a pretty tough chick to go through all this and probably a pretty crazy chick to try it again! All in all they said everything looks great and is ready for a baby. I hope so. Afterwards I went out to BWB to visit Kara at her new house. I held little Jeanette and remembered why I am crazy enough to try this again. We really would like Jakob to have a sibling. I think that's the biggest reason I want to try again. I like babies. I would like to have another one but I don't feel like my life would be incomplete if I never had another child. Maybe I will feel differently if we don't get pregnant after trying? I am a little nervous about how I will feel if we don't get pregnant, or even if we do get pregnant and lose the baby. So many unknowns. I just have to take it a day at a time and trust that God will provide what we need no matter the situation. Anyways, Our next appointment is on May 30th. I got my medication schedule yesterday but I have to download it. I will post it (though it may be a little tmi) when I can. As of right now a little boy is hanging on my leg and fussing so I must go...

Catching up...

I'm finding that blogging these days is next to impossible...when I sit down to write one (and it doesn't take me long if uninterrupted) Jakob comes in and wants something. I take care of him and then Jeremy wants my help with something...so this blog was started yesterday. I got up before the boys this morning so hopefully I can finish it today ;) 

So we went to Pensacola this morning and met with Dr. Ripps. Our appointment was at 10:30 and we didn't actually see him until 11:35...that's the way these things go. Thankfully they had wifi so I could browse fb and not use up all my phone's data ;) Jeremy just reads sports magazines and he's fine.
I was so nervous this morning. I literally felt like I was going to be sick for a while. Memories of feeling this way last time came flooding back. I have to keep reminding myself that God is in control of the whole situation and I want for me what he wants for me. I have to trust. Blindly. It's so hard to let go of the reins even though I understand that I'm not the one holding them. Our human nature automatically wants to think it can control every situation, doesn't it? I know mine does. Linda (the IVF coordinator) came out to see us and the first thing she said is "where's the baby?" I told her he's with grandma and you'll be very thankful he was when you meet him ;) It's kind of an unspoken rule at the RE's office that you don't bring children unless you notify them first and they'll tell you when to come in. I would never want to make someone upset that has been trying for a child and hasn't been successful yet (unfortunately some people don't really consider that). I told her -if- we get pregnant we'll bring him for an ultrasound. Ultrasound day will be all happy people who are pregnant so that will be an ok time for Jakob to come. When we finally saw Dr. Ripps it was like seeing an old friend. He's such a nice guy. He had a student doctor with him I don't know her name but she was nice. He went over all our history (which was from 2007-2008, can you believe it?) once he had talked about OHSS and my post partum pre-eclampsia and hypertension he said "and you want to do this again?' (while smiling) I  told him yes, I've lost my mind and want to do it again ;) I'm glad this time around we know about my thyroid condition so hopefully that will help us stay on top of all the other issues. Dr. Ripps said this time around will be very easy. I started birth control pills yesterday (if you didn't follow through my IVF it's weird but they put you on bcp's to help you get pregnant) in may sometime I will start the lupron shots (that's the small needle) and estrogen patches and then sometime before the transfer I will start the progesterone shots (the big needle) He said this time around I will only need the progesterone every two or three days which is a relief. For me and for Jeremy ;) as he has to give them to me. I have another appointment on Wednesday for a hysteroscopy, which is where they take a catheter with a camera on the end of it and do a "trial run" for the transfer. They make sure everything goes smoothly and also that there's no blockages or issues anywhere. So that's everything that's going on right now. Oh! Can you guess the cost of this whole little episode? Thankfully our insurance will cover the medications (except for the progesterone, which I think is most expensive :/ ) and it will cover visits and ultrasounds. Just the transfer itself will be 2500 dollars. So it's 1/7th the cost of Jakob :) We can live with that. 
I will update again when there's something to tell! Thank-you all so much for all the encouragement and prayers you've already given me. This blog was my sanity last time and I'm thankful to be able to be real and speak my feelings and know that you're supporting and loving me even though you know the real me ;) 
That's all for now... 

Slight change of plans...Our appointment is on Thursday morning now instead of Friday. I am kinda glad they cut off Jeremy's overtime and he only gets comp time now. That means he has a lot of time off he needs to use. I forgot how flexible you have to stay when you're working with women's hormones and peoples embryos and stuff like that ;)

Hello again...

Hello friends! It's been a long time, I know. Life has taken so many twists for me and somewhere along the way I had to stop blogging and just hang on. 
As you all know we've moved back home. Before the move and even probably a three or four months after my health was not good at all. I lost a whole bunch of weight and eventually had to go on three medications for my thyroid. Thankfully I am feeling much better, have gained some weight back and have been able to wean off of much of the meds. I don't know if we have the hyperthyroid "under control" for now or if it's just gone dormant for the time being but I am thanking God every day for this period of rest and that I can enjoy being home and spending time with those I love. 
Being home has been amazing. It is so nice to be around familiar things. Familiar roads, familiar landmarks, familiar history and familiar people. I love going to the store and running into people I know or Jeremy knows. The other day I went to get my hair done (at a new place) and a girl I went to beauty school with was my hairdresser. She got me all caught up on the last 11 years since beauty school! I love that kind of stuff. 
When we moved back into our house it was a little beat up. Not as bad as I imagine renting a house out for 3 years could be but walls were banged up and needed re-painting, there were a lot of holes in walls that needed fixing, the yard was absolutely dead, the only surviving things were the weeds here and there. Along the way we've been able to patch, paint and fix up a little at a time. This last weekend we painted Jakob's room, which I cannot tell you how much joy it brings my heart to see how excited he was about it. This is the first time since he was a newborn that he's had a bedroom decorated just for him. The whole 3 years we were gone he was in someone else's house in rooms painted for their children or only painted white. He keeps going in his bedroom with a huge smile and telling us about his Toy Story stickers on the wall. It is an adorable little boys room. We also have our garden planted (and re-planted) we've had some crazy cold weather here (yesterday it was in the 50's! I know that's not that cold but this is Florida and the middle of April, usually it's well into the 80's by now!) We've fixed up the flower beds out front, all we need to do is mulch and landscape a little more, we've ordered flooring for the living room/hallway. It feels good to fix the place up and put our touch on it like we couldn't when we lived here before. 
We've started attending a new church in Crestview. It is a church plant and only started about two years ago. Jeremy and I joke that God started it just for us :) Believe it or not the most worrisome part of moving home (to me) was finding the church God wanted us to be in. We have learned so much and grown in the Lord in so many ways since we've been gone and I didn't want that growth to stop. When we attended Grace Redeemer we knew right away that we would grow there. Along the way, anytime I've had a doubt about anything it's like God speaks to me through the sermon and quiets my doubts. I was also worried about joining up with yet another new group of people. Would we fit in? Would we be accepted? Sometimes it can be hard to join a group of people (especially a small, tight knit group) but we were instantly accepted and welcomed. It's amazing to me how God has knit our hearts together with this group of people already. We look forward to serving him with our church family. 
I've enrolled Jakob for the fall in VPK. If you're not from Florida VPK is voluntary pre-kindergarten. He will be going 5 days a week to the methodist church in town for 3 hours a day. I know it will help his speech and I'm hoping it will help his attention span also, and I think it will having a structured environment. I am sad that he's starting this time in his life already but I'm excited for him. I will probably shed a few tears on the first day but I'm thankful it's only 3 hours so I can get used to that before he goes to big boy school! They have chapel every Wednesday and prayer every day, they learn Bible verses. I am glad he will be in an environment to help him physically as well as spiritually.  
In other news...we have an appointment next week (Friday) with Dr. Ripps at New LIFE!!! When I called there to try to get an appointment I was transferred to the IVF coordinators (Linda) answering machine. The minute I heard her voice I got the biggest smile on my face. These people are an extended family for us. Linda was so excited to hear from us and couldn't believe Jakob is 3 and a half. I have to admit I have so many emotions about trying again. I am excited to try for baby #2. I'm nervous about whether it will work this time. I'm sick to my stomach to think that we could pay thousands of dollars (we'll find out how many thousands on the 26th) for a chance to have another baby and then it not work, where does that leave us? I'm scared I might have another miscarriage. I'm scared to experience another miscarriage. People don't really talk about what it's like to miscarry a baby but it was a scary experience and very painful. I'm hopeful that Jakob could have a sibling, yet scared to get my hopes up. I guess to sum it up you could say I'm excited, scared, hopeful, scared, ready, scared and maybe add scared! I do think I will probably blog through this attempt also, no offense, but more for my own sanity than for your entertainment. It will go by so much faster than last time. The whole process only takes a month (I think)  I will let y'all know on FB when I've posted a new blog. If you don't want notifications either don't read them or just let me know and I won't tag you anymore. I guess I will update you all after the 26th!  

 

Our God is amazing...

Sometimes in life you can look at a situation and see part of God's bigger plan in things. I am hoping and praying that the end of this story in our life includes Jeremy getting a job back here and moving to be with us. Right now we're still having to wait and trust. Jeremy's resume was received by JG but so were 13 other resumes. There were a lot of qualified people who applied for the job. We just have to put our future in God's hands and pray he will work everything out. Now let me tell you some of the picture God is working and I hope it blesses your heart as it blesses ours to be watching it unfold...
A few weeks before we moved a man had gotten saved and become a part of our church family. We will call him "J." J has had a rough time of it lately. He lost his house, lost his family and was living in his car. He had gotten so low that one night he was driving on the highway running every red light hoping that someone would t-bone his car and kill him. He even drove his car toward some pilings on a big bridge in Fort Myers intending to crash into them and commit suicide. He said at the last minute for some reason his car swerved sideways and stopped only inches from the pilings he meant to hit. He said he heard someone say "God must think you're something special because you almost died!" but when he looked out his window he didn't see anyone there...
A friend of ours from church owns a business and he was desperately needing some help to start a job. He had interviewed some people and chosen a big strong guy to help him out. Day one of the job came and the big guy never showed up. Our friend had to do all the work (road paving) alone. It was not an easy day for him. He called his wife and said obviously he's not picking the right guys because they never show up so he wanted her to pick the next person. She gave him J's number who had also interviewed for the job. Soon after J's attempt at suicide he received a call from our friend saying "you need to come to work tomorrow." J showed up for work but our friend could tell he obviously had a lot on his mind. He asked J why he looked so upset and J just poured out his story and what was going on with him lately. Our friend told him he knew exactly what he needed. He told him he needed Jesus Christ. He told him he needed to be saved. Even though our friend knew they'd be late for their job that day he stopped and took the time to explain the gospel to J and J said "yes, this is what I need." He told our friend that if you'd told him he needed to be saved a few months ago he would have laughed. The circumstances in his life brought him to the place where he knew his life was meaningless and he was searching for what was missing. 
Fast forward to now...
J and Jeremy are now roommates in the trailer at the pastors property. Jeremy told me right before he went back that he'd be sharing the place with J and I said "hopefully you can be a blessing to each other." and they have been. When Jeremy arrived J only had a loaf of bread, some bologna and a jar of peanut butter. His road paving job had ended and he's working a job right now for about 400 bucks every two weeks. Jeremy was able to buy food enough for both of them. They are living like roommates, going to breakfast together (J knows some awesome cuban places there), doing their laundry on Sunday afternoons and watching college football on Saturdays (J's not a college football guy, but I'm sure Jeremy will try to win him over :) Jeremy took J fishing the other day by the river and J caught a huge bass. Jeremy said he looked like he might cry. He was so excited. He told Jeremy he's so glad he's there, he loves hanging out with him and he'd been pretty lonely until he came. J has also been a blessing to Jeremy. I can't imagine him having to be down there alone every weekend, nobody to talk to or hang out with. I'm missing my husband terribly, but I do believe that he was left there to be a blessing and encouragement to J. I am thankful that even though I'd rather have Jeremy here with us God is showing us that he is exactly where he needs to be at this time. Anyways, me and Jeremy were talking about this last night and how Jeremy knows he's supposed to be there for J and it comforted my heart. The story of this mans life is amazing. Our God is amazing. None of us deserve his love or his forgiveness and yet he seeks us out and offers it to us. Let me encourage you to look for God's hand at work in your life. I'm sure it's there, we just have to be willing to see it   

Beauty is pain...

So last night Abigail spent the night with me and Jakey. I cannot even begin to describe to you how excited she was! She was literally about to cry thanking me for letting her come over. She's so funny. She walked into my bathroom and I had my wax machine set up because the day before I had planned to use it and never got around to it. Abigail saw the wax and said "Shauna, you remember when you lived in Georgia and you waxed my unibrow?" I said "yes" She said "well, do you think you could do it again?" and I said yes. I reminded her that it stings a little when you wax but it goes away pretty quickly. She told me it would be ok, she just wanted that unibrow gone! lol. When I laid Jakob down for his nap today we went into the bathroom and waxed away :) I told Abi we needed to take a post-waxing picture. My lip is all red (yes people, I have to wax my mustache!) but Abi's unibrow is gone and not even a trace of redness. Once I talked to my mom and made sure it was ok we did a little work on her eyebrows too. After we got rid of the unibrow she kept rubbing the spot and saying "it's so smooth" lol. Gotta love a 10 year old who already comprehends that beauty is pain :)

We're home!!!

So, we're here. I am so thankful that Jeremy had some vacation days where he could stay home and help me pack a few days before the big move. I tried to pack as much as I could the month before we left but as we found out there's a lot of stuff you need until the last minute. I'm also soooo thankful for Jeremy's dad who always volunteers to help whenever we need it. He was a lifesaver! The trip up went very well. I was wondering how it'd be to travel with a dog but Paisley did great. We made it in on Saturday and we actually (with a lot of help) got the whole truck unloaded and Jakob spent the night with his Grandma so he could go to church with her on Sunday and me and Jeremy started trying to get things unpacked. By Monday afternoon the whole house was unpacked. My mom came over Monday and helped me unpack the kitchen which seemed like it took the longest and I had the least patience for, but maybe that's just because it was the last room full of boxes and I was really over unpacking. I took Jeremy to the airport Tuesday morning @ 4 a.m. to put him on a plane back to south florida. I miss him so much already. I find myself wanting to call him 20 times a day and tell him something Jakob did or said or some great idea I had but I have to file those thoughts away and tell him at night when he calls. When he calls Jakob says "hi daddy" then he'll say "love you, bye" he's not much of a conversationalist right now, but I know he loves his daddy :) 

We've been talking for quite a while about if our renter ever moved out of this house and what we'd have to do. It took us 8 months to find the guy who rented the house the first time and even then we had to lower the rent we were asking before we found him. We knew we couldn't wait another 8 months or really even 2 months before we'd just have to move into it and leave Jeremy down there. Every time we'd talk about moving back into our house we'd preface it with "now remember, the house is really small" or "it's going to be a big change from what we are used to now" I know it sounds superficial or silly but I really worried if we'd have enough room in the house or if we'd feel very cramped and packed into the place. When we lived here before Jakob was just a newborn and he didn't have much in the way of toys and stuff in general. Now he has a lot of stuff. I guess we had both been dreading the tight living quarters but I had determined in my heart that I would be thankful and not complain with my words or even in my heart about the house being too small. When we got here we were very happy that everything fit into the house and it doesn't feel cramped at all. We don't have a garage but I think eventually there's a plan to add a big shed/barn in the backyard where we can have a lot more storage. Our mortgage payment is actually over 200 dollars less than what we payed in rent so we will appreciate that too, I'm sure. 

We already knew that the yard had not been taken care of because Jeremy comes over a couple times a year and pressure washes the house and does some maintenance type stuff on it. Last time he came the yard was a wreck. That's pretty much when I knew the guy would be leaving soon because he no longer cared how the place looked on the outside. It made me nervous about what the house looked like on the inside. Thankfully there was no major damage to the house. When the guy moved out he really tore up the door frames (obviously he had giant furniture or something) and banged up a few of the walls. My dad patched the walls and painted my bedroom for me. Eventually we will have to replace the door frames that the guy chipped up but we can do that later. I took some pictures and they will probably look pretty familiar to y'all because everything is pretty much in the same places as when I lived here the first time :) I took a picture of my bedroom because I picked out a light blue paint (it actually looked lighter than it is on the little card) and I am really loving it. We turned Jakob's old bedroom into the office. It makes me a little sad because we made his room so nice but it is the smaller of the two bedrooms and we wanted him to be comfortable so we gave him the bigger room. His room needs painting but it will wait into Jeremy gets here (either by moving or for thanksgiving) Jakob is loving having trees (we had no trees in our yard in Labelle) mostly because he can collect acorns to his hearts content :) He is also loving visiting with his family. All day he's been saying "go nana's house a-morrow" He hasn't yet learned that we have our own house here, we won't be staying with nana all the time. 

When we left 3 years ago I thought this place was a little ghetto ;) Now I've lived near a pretty ghetto town, and we had a little bit of ghetto in Labelle too and I realize this place is just redneck, there is a big difference. Our neighborhood is growing. I saw a lot of mom's walking today with their kids in strollers. Couples out for a jog. It's turning in to a family kinda place instead of a few houses out in the sticks, which is what it was when we bought our house. I am loving it. It doesn't matter that we've been gone for 3 years, this house still feels like home. I feel kinda guilty because I am feeling so good about being here and Jeremy is down there by himself :( hopefully he won't have to be for too much longer. 

It was super cold the first few days we were here...let me preface that by saying y'all know I'm a florida girl and cold to me is 70 degrees. The high has been in the 60's and the morning I took Jeremy to Pensacola it was 40 something. That is cold to me! Today was a gorgeous 75 degrees. I am excited to take Jakey to the park and the library. I've still got to call and try to rush them along in getting him into speech therapy. 

Well, that's about all I can think to write right now. I am super tired. Single parenting doesn't seem too hard until the end of the day when your child is tired and decides they don't want to do anything you ask them to. That moment when you'd look at your hubby and he'd step in and take care of stuff. Yes, we had that moment tonight. It has worn me out and I'm ready for bed. Thank-you all for your prayers. Hoping to have good news to share with you very soon. Until then, here's a few pics of the inside of the house. The yard looks pitiful right now. I'll probably take pictures as we work on the yard and show you before and afters :)       

View of the living room

Living room and bubbie playing with his angry birds :)

My bedroom

Jakob's room

Jakob's old bedroom aka the office. Yes, it's Jeremy's man cave and he has free reign of decorating with this one room. There's also a turkey tail hanging on the other wall (lol)

Honestly...

I keep starting blogs and then not finishing them. Honestly I have way too much going on around the house as well as in my brain to be completely real and honest about how I'm feeling. I've been waiting to leave this place since the first day we moved here :) sounds crazy right? Well you've probably never seen a town like Labelle before. Very different. Anyways, the job announcement closed early this morning so that means the company will go through all the applications and send the best ones to JG. We may hear something in a week or two. We're excited, nervous, happy, anxious and trying to trust God in the situation. It seems totally insane that we're making this move without Jeremy having the job but we really don't see any other options as of right now. It'd be nice to look back and see how God opened all the doors (and windows) for us to move back to Crestview. Right now though we don't want to presume anything, just take it a day at a time and lean on Him. I will definitely be blogging a whole lot more once we get settled. Thanks for all the encouragement and prayers! 

-Shauna

Scatterbrained...

Well, most of you know that Jakob and I are moving back to Crestview at the end of the month. If you didn't know, well, Jakob and I are moving back to Crestview at the end of the month. Here's what happened, it's an even longer story than we had first thought. 
Last Saturday night my mom called me and said they drove out to our neighborhood (so my dad could hang a deer stand on Pastor Humphries property) and they saw a moving van outside our house. The guy was taking an empty dolly into the house, so they assumed he's moving out. Had we gotten any notice from him? Well, no we hadn't. Immediately Jeremy starts e-mailing people from our rental agency trying to find out what's going on. Our mortgage payment is due on Monday and we haven't heard a word about this from anybody. Sunday someone from the rental agency e-mails and says no they had no notice he was moving. They said they'd get in touch with him on Monday and try to find out what's up. The renter said he'd notified someone that works at the agency in August telling them he'd be out of the house by the end of September. The person Jeremy was talking to said he didn't notify them because everyone at the agency knows a notice to vacate must be in writing.
 Anyways, now we're faced with the fact that we owe a mortgage payment right now. We also cannot afford our rent in this house as well as our mortgage payment for multiple months until we can rent the house again (last time it took 8 months to find a renter) so we had to decide what to do. We thought about looking at cheaper housing in Labelle, but it is just not even an option. As I stated before this town has very little rental properties and anything available in a price range we could afford is in a very bad part of town where it would not be safe for us to live. Our county has the highest unemployment rate in the state of Florida so it's not like I can go get a job and we can squeak by. The only option we really feel we have is to move all of our belongings back home into our house.
 Me and Jakob will live back home and Jeremy will stay here and work and look for another job. His boss from back home says the job @ JG should be advertised in October and hired in November. Obviously we're hoping that comes through but we're not counting on it because they keep doing this to us over and over. There's a couple other opportunities coming up so he will just have to do some serious searching for a job closer to home. In the mean time I will get Jakob into speech therapy in Crestview as well as hopefully a "day care" type program where he can be with other kids a couple hours a day. I feel much better about putting him in a head start program up there than I do down here.
 We were very nervous about what our house might look like on the inside considering the guy left in the middle of the night and gave no notice. Jeremy's mom went by and checked it out for us and it looks great. Spotless. Praise the Lord for that. It turns out after all was said and done the guy had given his 30 day notice. The agent who dealt with our rental (who happened to be his niece) had been fired sometime in August so she never told them he was leaving or filled out any paperwork. Everything has worked out o.k. so far. We got a few boxes packed yesterday. 
I am very emotional about the whole thing. The part that is hardest for me is the unknown. I don't know when our family will be able to be back together. I don't know if Jeremy will get the job back home or if we'll have to move again and figure out once again what to do with the house we own. I don't know how Jakob will do without his daddy at home every night. I know I will miss my hubby, that's not a hard one to figure out. 
Jeremy will be staying at the Pastor's house down here. They have a really nice travel trailer that company stays in when they visit and they've offered it to Jeremy. I am glad he can stay near our church family because I know they'll take good care of him and keep him company. Even the how's of trying to run 2 households are pretty much unknown to us right now. 
I thank everyone who has been praying for us and offering words of encouragement. I haven't really said anything about all of this on FB yet because honestly I don't want to talk about it or think about it any more than I already do. I figure I'll give it another week or two then announce it. 
Yesterday my endocrinologist (or doctor wonderful as I like to call him) was being a total jerk to me and I broke down crying. He told me he thought I was depressed. I was thinking dude, you have no idea how much I've got going on right now. The last thing I needed was a rude doctor who wouldn't let me speak or ask about a medication that I am greatly in need of. I didn't tell him how I really felt, I just wanted to get out of his office and never have to enter it again. No more doctor wonderful. Praise the Lord for small favors :) 
I know this post is pretty scattered and random. That's about how I feel my brain is right now. Scattered and random. It does help to get my thoughts/fears/ feelings out of my brain and onto this page. If you think of us please pray that we will have peace and that God will work this whole situation out for us (he's the only one that can!) and please know that I'm not just always asking you girls to pray for me, I pray for you too. That is one reason I'm so thankful for blogs. You can be honest with me and I can be honest with you and we can all pray for each other. 
xoxo
-Shauna

Even if...

This song is soooo good! Don't we all have those things in our lives that we're anxious about? We don't know if they're going to work out the way that we hope or not. I know I've got multiple burdens on my heart right now. I am thankful that I can trust who God is and know that he will do what's right for me. He is good and faithful no matter the outcome of circumstances in my life. Even if my path in life is rocky and difficult it doesn't change who God is. He is God, he is good, forever faithful. I am so thankful to have him in my life

First week of speech...

So we've completed our first week of speech therapy. It's amazing how adding just one small thing to our usually empty schedule makes me feel super busy (lol). I had actually called the school last week to find out what kind of time line they were looking at for beginning the program. I wanted to make sure they hadn't forgotten about us or lost Jakob's paperwork in the shuffle (things like that tend to happen around here). The speech therapist assured me they hadn't forgotten about us. The school had acquired a new portable for speech and it didn't have smoke alarms or air conditioning. Seeing as how it's now a couple of days from October and it's still 93-94 degrees and muggy outside air conditioning is a must. She told me they'd be ready to start the program on Monday@ 9:00am. Thankfully Jakob woke up so easily Monday morning (which is rare, he's usually super grouchy if I wake him up) and ate his breakfast right up. I kinda dressed him up a little since it was his first day and styled his hair :) I know he can be a handful sometimes so I wanted the therapist to at least think he's super adorable...sometimes that makes up for the stubbornness, believe me, I know from experience. We arrived at the school about 8:50 and someone from the office showed us where the building is. 9:00 passed. Then 9:05. Finally the therapist came out and said that the other two children who were supposed to come didn't show. She asked me to come in with Jakob. I was really looking forward to 30 minutes of reading a book or browsing facebook uninterrupted, in 30 minutes I could even write a blog! I was also looking forward to letting someone work with Jakob without me being there. You know how sometimes kids are so much easier to work with when mom or dad aren't around. Well Monday that was not to be. We sat in the floor and the therapist tried to get Jakob to say words like "more", "please"and "all done." These are all words that I know he can say. Sometimes he even uses them at home, but usually not when you tell him to. We're working on please but pretty much the only time he'll say please is when he wants his shirt off (he'll say "off please") or if he really wants a snack he'll say "cookie please" or "cheerios please." Jakob was much more interested in all the boxes and bins of toys on every shelf than just sitting down and playing with one thing. Eventually she brought out a bag of tiles and there were pictures on them. She layed one down in front of Jakob and said "dog" and he said "dog" she looked at me like (yay!) then she said "ladybug" and he said "ladybug" she did a couple more and he repeated then she said "plane" and laid down an airplane tile. Jakob didn't say it. She said "oh, you don't want that one" and took it away. When she took it away Jakob said "airplane" and she was very happy with that. Anyways, day one was pretty much just Jakob getting to know Miss Blackburn and Miss Blackburn getting to know Jakob.
On Wednesday we showed up about 10 mins early again. This time another lady came walking up with a young boy by the hand. I figured this is probably one of Jakob's "friends" that will be taking speech with him. The lady and the boy were conversing in Spanish. (There is a large immigrant population in our town. There are a lot of children at this elementary school getting speech therapy just to learn to speak English. When we went on Wednesday there was a girl about 8 or 9 years old learning English words.) The new child in Jakob's speech therapy doesn't speak much English at all. He's about 3 years old just like Jakey. When Jakob saw him he got the biggest smile on his face and ran up to him. Everything this little boy did Jakob did. Everywhere this little boy went Jakob wanted to go also. I was sitting there hoping that they would encourage each other to participate and not the other way around. This time the boys went in without their moms. After the therapy was done the teacher came out and said both boys did very well. She said she learned with Jakob when he's being whiny she has to use a firm voice and tell him to stop and he'll stop. She said when Jakob would fuss the other little boy would pat his back and say "oh,it's ok" which is good for the other little boy too because he's learning to speak to others in English. Anyways, our first week of speech went very well and I think it's going to be a big help to Jakey.

Also, I got the ok from the cardiologist. My heart is healthy and strong. Thank goodness for that news. The doc said he's fairly certain my thyroid issues are causing the heart pains/palpitations. Jeremy applied for a job back home (not with his previous employer) and another one is supposed to open soon. There's also an opening coming near St. Augustine for Jeremy's current employer so we're kind of excited that we may be able to move away from here soon!!! Just praying about it and trying to be patient. Thanks for the prayers. Please remember to pray for my friend Dana as she's going through IVF again and trying for another baby.