BIG NEWS!!!

"You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
The Lord is righteous in all his ways an loving toward all he has made."

Psalm 145:16-17

I just want to start out by saying how amazed I am at the grace of God. He has heard my cries and has turned our sorrow into a beautiful story of joy! Here is how the story goes... After three years of trying to conceive and several rounds of fertility treatment, Daniel and I decided it was time to stop trying to get pregnant and begin the adoption process. It took many months of tears, prayers, and grieving for us to truly surrender this desire to the Lord and be content with his plan, regardless of what that was. We threw ourselves wholeheartedly into the adoption process and managed to finish our home study paperwork in only 2 weeks. And with the help of a free trial of photoshop, I was able to nearly complete our family profile. All that was missing was one of our letters of reference. We were leaving for Memphis to visit Daniel's family, so my sister checked our mailbox daily until we received the letter and then she was going to mail our package to the agency. Here we are with our complete homestudy...

Well, Rachel called me on Tuesday and said that the letter had arrived and she would be mailing it Wednesday morning. We were so excited to move on to the next phase of our adoption. Wednesday, we had to run to walgreens to print some pictures. While we were there, I picked up a pregnancy test just because I was a little late. (This was not unusual...I have probably taken hundreds of these in the last three years.) We got back and I took the test, not expecting anything out of the ordinary, but much to our surprise, this is what we saw...
(Yes, I took two in a row and then went back to the store to buy about 6 more :) ) I immediately called Rachel to tell her not to mail our adoption packet, but it was already too late. She had mailed it about an hour earlier. However, we were able to contact our agency to tell them not to cash our check and mail our packet back to us.
I am just amazed at God's timing. He waited until we had completely surrendered to his will and until we had shared our story with the world and then he opened his hand and blessed us with the most amazing gift. We are just basking in his goodness and grace!
Tuesday, we had our first prenatal visit and were able to have an ultrasound of our sweet little baby. Although we thought we were 10 weeks along, the ultrasound revealed that we are only 9 weeks. We got to see and hear the heartbeat. Let me tell you...in that moment we were changed. We are so in love with God's sweet gift! Here is our baby's first video:)

I know it's hard to tell what is what, but the head is on the right, the bottom is on the left and the flashing in the middle is the heartbeat!
Please join with us with giving God the praise for the amazing work he has done in us and continue to pray for our sweet baby's health and protection.

P.S. I know that some of you are following my blog because you are also struggling with infertility. I am praying for you daily that God would bless you with a child. I know that this news may cause pain to some, because it wasn't long ago that news of friends' pregnancies only made the sting of my own circumstance sharper. Continue to trust in the Lord and in his timing. Allow him to carry your hurts and find your comfort in his nearness. He is working a plan for your life! Please let me know if I can pray for you in any specific way!