How Much Can One Family Endure With God On Their Side?

So it's been so many months... and so much has happened.

• We had our first fertility shot cycle in December. We ended up with 7 viable follicles (total) in both ovaries. Although I only have one working tube they still wanted us to cancel the cycle. I was instructed to go home and give myself the shot to release the eggs but not to have intercourse for 2 weeks.
• The third week in January Adam and I found out we were pregnant. Evidently sperm can hang around for a few days until the eggs arrive. Ooops. To say the least our doctor was not happy because they didn't know how many babies there could be or how many babies I can carry. 7 would be a bad number.
• The next day we got a call from our adoption agency saying that we'd been picked by a mother from Georgia and she was due in 2 WEEKS!
• We freaked out! What are we going to do? Say yes? Who knows if the baby I was carrying would make it? What if Georgia baby was destined to be ours? Adam and I decided that God wouldn't give us anything he didn't want us to have or didn't think we could handle. We said yes to Georgia baby.
• Panic! We have NOTHING in our house for a baby! We aren't ready to have a baby in two weeks! Rush baby shower at work - what a blessing! What a wonderful bunch of ladies!
• The Tuttles gave us all they could! What amazing friends. Without Manda I would have been a wreck! I love you woman!
• Our last contact with Georgia baby's mom was the 22nd/23rd. We never heard from her again. The first week of February we found our that a little boy was boy on the 25th and the mother had decided to keep him. To say the least it was heartbreaking.
• The second week in February I went back into the doctor for a second ultrasound because the first one had shown low amniotic fluid. They were unable to find a heartbeat. We had lost our baby.
  
• To say the least the first two months of 2011 were the worst of our lives.
• Heartbreaking? Absolutely! Angry? Absolutely! Hope? Lost! Thankfully for my amazing husband I have healed. Hope is no longer lost and my faith that God will not give us more than we can handle is ever present in my mind.
• The next week we were matched with another mother. We weren't as psyched - as we were still healing and didn't continue with that mom.
• We have been matched with two more moms since then and it just hasn't worked out. Unfortunately some of the fairytale has left the whole process for us. We know that it will work out for us if it is what God has planned for us.
• We are also hoping for another successful cycle with our fertility doc. The plus to the miscarriage is that we know I CAN get pregnant.
• Some wonderful news... my little brother and his wife are expecting in September. I am so excited for them. I can't wait to meet the new baby!
• Some other good news we did adopt a little one from the pound. We named him Willy and he is a Chihuahua/Pomeranian cross. We love him to pieces - minus the barking at night... which we seem to have cured with one night of a bark collar!

Some New News...

We have been blessed! A beautiful mother in Georgia has chosen us to be the parents of her little baby boy. She is due February 1! We are elated to say the least. Please pray that everything goes smoothly for all of us and that she's able to wait to have him until after Monday (when we have our home-study Monday afternoon and can't bring him home until it's done.) We are SO excited and already love him. Our families and friends CAN'T wait to meet him! What a blessing!

The bat that tried to eat me!

Last night Adam went to take a shower before bed and I went upstairs to read. I walked into our room and thought I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye. The first thing that came to my mind was 'was that a bat?'. Not thinking too much about it I continued into the bathroom and again I thought I saw something fly into my closet! I closed the door to the bathroom and covered my head with a towel because I didn't want it to get caught in my hair. I opened the door to see if it really was a bat and that's when it divebombed me and was then in the bathroom with me. I ran out of the room screaming and downstairs into Adam's bathroom to wait for him to finish showering so he could get rid of it. He laughed at me the whole time I was telling him about what had just happened. I went out into the garage to get the fishing net. Adam told me the net wouldn't work and that he was going to get the shop-vac to suck him up. When I asked what he was going to do once he sucked the bat up he told me he was going to tape the end of the tube. I didn't want to hurt it, I just wanted it out of the house. Adam ended up making an escape route for it taking the screen out of the left window and cranking it open first and then cranking open the right window and shaking it off the screen . Adam is SO brave but I was the support system crouched my the door with a towel over my head!
In talking to my mom about it later I realized that the bat may not have actually been trying to attack me but fly out the windows that were behind me in the bathroom!

Rainy with Matt & Tracy

Another great trip to Rainy. I'm in love with that lake! Matt & Tracy made a trip up North to bring us something. While they were here we decided, if they could get up early, we'd go to Rainy. We made it out the door and were on our way by about 8am.
We fished, we swam, we fried fish on the boat. What a great day with great family!

Rhubarb

I had a small obsession with rhubarb this summer. I stopped by a friend's house to pick and when I saw she had 20+ plants I picked until my trunk was full (3 plants). I made pie, cakes, pars and muffins until Adam wouldn't eat them any more.
He told me last night that the last piece of cake that he ate was like eating straight rhubarb... so maybe I didn't mix it as good as I should have, not to mention I always double what the recipe called for because I had so much of it!!

Rainy Lake with Dick & Michelle

We love fishing and I think we have a new favorite lake. It is amazingly beautiful and the fishing is good. We went with some great friends (new friends for Maureen). It was a long day of driving, fishing snacking and ice cream but WELL worth it.

This is the first of many fish I caught. I was amazing!

Dick did pretty good too!

Michelle was so much fun. I think this is the one fish that she caught that she was actually able to hold on to. They were feisty.

Something tried to eat my fish!

Dick caught an eelpout! It was just a baby but it was so ugly I had to take a picture of it!

They were so feisty. I had to hold on with two hands so they wouldn't get away before the picture was taken. When they did slip out of my hand they usually landed on Adam's lap. It was hilarious!

All I'm going to say about Adam's fish is check out the size of his fingers in the pictures. he he!

Dick kept catching the buoy.

... and there it is

The lake was beautiful!

The end to a great day on the lake!