A Few Things I've Learned Along The Way

As I've documented a time or two over the past little while of doing this blog thing; growing our family has been quite the challenge for Jason and I. And for some reason over the past couple of months I have felt rather compelled to share our journey in greater detail. Maybe it will minister to someone, maybe it will minister to me- or maybe it will just be documented for my children to one day read so that they can fully grasp how very important it was for us to try so hard to bring them into the world.

Either way I will attempt to spend the next several posts spilling my guts in (hopefully) a somewhat organized and orderly fashion as I try to put into words the events that have taken place over the past 6 1/2 years of our lives.

I have always wanted to be a Mom. From as early on as I can recall- probably about the age of 4 or 5, as soon as I made the connection to girls being the ones that had the babies and that I was a girl, therefore I could be a Mom...I was hooked. My mother tells me one of my first words was baby. I have always adored children and could not wait to give birth. My sister in law used to joke that my body "yearned to give birth". I couldn't wait for the moment when I would feel life flutter inside me for the first time. I spent many, many hours babysitting as I grew up. I remember being 18 or 19 years old and cancelled plans with some friends of mine to spend the night in New Orleans just to babysit for 2 little children that I adored.

When I started looking for "Mr. Right" I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would have to be a family man, would have to love children and would have to want a houseful of kids one day himself. God certainly did not disappoint me when he sent my husband my way. God totally did not disappoint; not only did this man meet all of my criteria- he was also called to be a Children's Pastor. Hello- children were obviously in our future. When the time was right, all we would have to do is name our number and viola! We'd have the family we'd always dreamed of...or so we thought.

We were married and like most young married couples, struggled some financially. I always knew that I wanted to be a stay at home Mom when we did have children, so we knew it was better to wait until we were a little more financially set before trying to have children. We also wanted to be in a house, not in the mobile home we were living in at the time. After about 6 years of marriage we had finalized plans on our starter home. We began construction and knew that as soon as we moved in we'd begin trying to have a baby. After all, we had it all planned out- it was our time, so certainly it would be God's time too. The last nail was hammered into place on May 30, 2002 and we received our inspection certificate on May 31st and we began moving in.

We started trying to grow our family immediately. On July 14, 2002 I handed my husband an anniversary card with shaky, nervous hands. It was our 7 year wedding anniversary and the inside was signed, "With much Love, Holly and Baby" We had achieved our dream- and rather quickly I might add! We were both ecstatic and couldn't wait to share the news with anyone and everyone who would listen. What we had dreamed of was becoming a reality! We were going to have a baby. Our beginning of our 7th year of marriage looked to be promising...new house, new baby on the way!

What else could we possibly ask for?