Polishing the Pulpit 2010

This past weekend Wesley & I attended our first Polishing the Pulpit. It was amazing! We loved it, learned so much, enjoyed the fellowship, & hated to leave! We had a list of 21 sessions during the week that we wanted to hear bad enough to get the CDs. We are totally staying for the whole week next year! If you didn't go this year, we highly encourage it!

Baby Brody & Baby Skelton's first picture together.
(Kellee & Denise are also in the picture too!)
The Duncan Girls & Denise
Jaina & Denise
Edited to add: Baby Ellis & Baby Skelton!
Wesley and Denise

First Picture

Monday, August 16th, I had more bloodwork done to see how the HCG was increasing. I called the office Monday afternoon and the nurse said it wasn't as high as the doctor wanted (it was 610) and he needed to see me the next day. I did my best not to panic and Wesley did his best "There isn't any reason to worry. You need to have faith," speech (and we prayed a lot)
until the appointment.
It was very early (4 weeks, 2 days) and the doctor said he didn't expect to see anything. He did say conditions looked good so that was a big plus! I asked if there was any reason for me to panic and he said not at all. He was about to go out of town for three weeks and just wanted to see me before he left. He had the receptionist schedule an appointment for me Friday afternoon with another doctor for an ultrasound (it just happened to be the doctor I saw after complications from my miscarriage and I really like her). Friday afternoon, I went to go to the appointment by myself because Wesley was in a seminar.
They found this sweet little perfect black polka dot very quickly.
4 weeks, 5 days (the black dot is the gestational sac-that's the point of interest here!)

While I waited again for the doctor after the ultrasound, I took a picture with my phone of this picture and sent it to Wesley. :) The doctor said nothing is 100% but so far so good!
She wants to see me again two weeks after this appointment
(which will be September 2nd) for another ultrasound.
I will be 6 weeks, 5 days, so I'm hoping we will be able to hear the heartbeat then too.

For This Child....

Ugh...I totally wanted this to be the first post, then the "Yay, we have a positive test" post to be next, but I can't fix it without deleting them both so I will just have to deal with it.......

Many different verses in Scripture have been an encouragement to me over the past year. This is the one I have held on to throughout this whole endeavor. I knew that one day, this verse would be true for me.

"For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked of him"
1 Samuel 1:27

I won't go into all of the details here, but I would like to share some. Wesley and I have tried to conceive for a year. After a few months, my regular doctor sent me to a fertility specialist. Before I began the medication he prescribed, we conceived on our own. On February 23rd, we had our first positive pregnancy test. On February 28th, we lost our baby. It was one of the most difficult things I have experienced, but I know that it was an opportunity for us to grow our faith and strengthen our marriage.

In April 2010, I began taking Femara (letrazole) to make my body function correctly. After an adjustment in dosage and three cycles, we conceived this sweet baby in my belly right now!

During this process, I have felt many things. One thought that I often had was that this is something that few discuss but many (at least more than you know about!) experience. I know that there are many different reasons for that (we kept this part of our life private while we were going through it), and I completely understand. My reason for sharing this now is because I want to let others know they are not alone. Please feel free to email me or talk with me if you are going through a similar situation.

February 23, 2010

Friday the 13th

Friday, August 13th, 2010 was a pretty amazing day! I wanted to take a test Friday morning so that I could have blood work done before the weekend. I felt sick the night before just thinking about taking a test. I was so nervous! I woke up Friday morning before my alarm went off and just laid in bed for what felt like forever (I'm sure it was more like 5 minutes!). As soon as I took the test, those two beautiful lines appeared! It was so fast, my hands started shaking and I almost didn't know what to do! I had a little onesie I had ordered from CafePress to give Wesley when we had a positive test. I ran into the closet to get the onesie from it's hiding place then jumped back under the covers. Then, I thought maybe I should look again and make sure it really was positive, so I jumped out of bed and ran to look at it then jumped back in bed. Wesley finally came back in the bedroom and I told him I had a surprise for him. He loved the onesie. After looking at it for awhile he said, "Do you even know what PRN means?" I don't know what kind of pharmacy wife he thinks I am! (It means as needed.....I think.) It was a pretty wonderful start to a Friday the 13th (not that we are superstitious or anything!). Here are some pictures from the day.

An attempt at a self-portrait before I left for school.....Wesley looks super cute and happy and I thought I looked
yucky/still asleep, so we took more after I got home!

Take 2......after we knew the results of the bloodwork!
I called my fertility doctor as soon as the office opened Friday morning and they had me go to the lab for bloodwork (thankfully, my assistant could watch my class).
The nurse finally called back around 4:00 pm with my results. My progesterone was 30.5 and the HCG was 270. Both numbers she said were very high considering how far I was. They wanted me to have more bloodwork on Monday to compare it and make sure it was doubling like it was supposed to.