So it's been too long since I've posted and I'm sure that there is no one out there reading anyway, but I will post anyway on the off chance that someone wants to read. 
So to sum up some of the stuff that's gone on since the last time we spoke:   We now reside in sunny tropical Hawaii. Since coming here we have discovered that ticks just LOVE to live here and love our dog even more.  We also found out that the schools around here are not always willing to follow the letter of the law even when not following said law causes a child to fall behind.  But we also discovered that the counselor at the school is a born again christian woman who loves Nathian and is the kind of woman who will go above and beyond to make sure that he succeeds.  We have learned that even though the NAS Lemoore hospital had it's issues, they don't compare to the issues at the medical facilities around here.  Let's just say- since being here I have not had one single prenatal appointment, even though according to them this is a complicated pregnancy due to having lost 3 babies and being over 30.  But no matter, we have decided to finally (after almost 10wks of trying to get an appointment) to start seeing the midwife that our pastor works with.  We go in on the 30th for our first visit with her. 
We have also learned that the housing around here although filled with really great things, has some issues when it comes to the maintanence department.  up to a 2 week wait to get some simple issues taken care of- not to mention big attitudes from some of the staff.  Oh and we're not allowed to child proof the cabinets.  They said we couldn't drill holes so we would have to use the locks that just stick on- I laughed when they said that.  How does anyone expect to keep a child out of a dangerous cabinet with tape? Just ain't gonna happen!   
But dispite all the crazy things we have learned about living here we have also learned some wonderful things.  We learned that God had a place all planned out for us.  Our church is amazing and the people are family now.  They became family immediately. I have ladies that will be here when baby comes. I have people that are willing to come and help me unpack boxes and organize the house because they know how hard it can be to do anything when you're pregnant especially with 3 other little ones to keep an eye on.   I still don't like Hawaii and would never have chosen to live here, but I'm very grateful that God sees the big picture. 
Speaking of pictures ......

This was taken just a week or so ago outside our house.  Just one of the beautiful things that God has shown us to make living here truely okay. 

So what else have we been up to.... I've been trying to make this house more like a home.  I have now painted the boys' room, most of the kitchen (still have above the cabinets to do but need a small ladder to make it safer), and have the 1st stage of painting done in the livingroom.  I have made 3 baby quilts (there were only supposed to be 2 but when I washed one of them the dye from the backing wicked trough the stitches on the front, so another one had to be made)  I have obtained some wool sweaters and have felted most of them and have made 2 wool diaper covers so far.  I have cut out tons of pieces for the diapers themselves and am just needing to sew them all.   Here's a few pictures of it all. 

Not to mention that I've been busy growing a little one.  He or she is gettting very big and is very active. My belly extremely lively as of late which is such a glorious feeling.   I will have some belly pics to share in the next week.  We are in the final count down- only 10 wks left till we get to meet this beautiful creation.  Somedays I do wonder if there really is only one in here with all the crazy movement but I'm sure that if there were 2 I would have gained more weight or at least I'd be bigger. I guess we will see soon enough.

So that is what has been happening here in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  I have some other pictures on my phone of the island that I will upload with the next post. 

Jenn--

Mid pleasures and palaces ...

though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble there's no place like home!
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere:
                                              --John Howard Payne, 1823


Our time in California is drawing to a close and we will soon be surrounded by beautiful blue water and lush plant life.  I know you're all so very jealous but please don't be.  This move is probably the hardest one to date.  I really cna't stand the area where we live, I hate the weather and the air quality is just horrific but I'm still finding it had to get motivated to get things done so we can move.  I have amazing friends here.  Leaving them is the hardest thing I've had to do since saying goodbye to my dad and my babies.  They held me up when I couldn't stand any longer.  When I thought my world was ending they encouraged me and prayed for me.  I can't even put into words how I feel about these ladies in my life.  I have only known them for a little over 2 years but I feel like we have spent a lifetime together.   It's hard to imagine my life with out them in it. Thank God for Facebook and the blogging world and of course cell phones and free long distance, and Skype. 
One more big reason I don't want to leave is because of Nathian's 2nd grade teacher.  We LOVE Mrs. A!!!  She has had an amazing influence on Nathian's behavior and his acedemics.  He has excelled this year in everything and I'm just so proud of him.  I know that Nathian is going to miss her too.  She has a way about her that Nathian just gravitates to.  She was a PE teacher for 12 years and with budget cuts they had to cut out the PE classes and move teachers around.  This is her first year as a 2nd grade teacher and in my opinion, (as much as I hate that the states keep cutting classes) God ordained the whole thing.  She understands that bodies learn better if they can move, so she does lots of fun activities through out the day as long as the kids do their work and listen to the lesson.  For Nathian this is very important because he HAS to move- often- so he knows that as long as he works hard he will get to do something fun and active when he's finished.  We are praying for his teachers in Hawaii.  We know that God has it all under control so we don't really have to worry about it, but as a mom, these are the things you worry about it.  As of right now we don't even know where we will be living or what school he will be going to so it makes moving even harder since there's so many IF's going on. 

Even though I don't want to leave right now, I really have to.  So the organizing and seperating has started and the cleaning is underway.  Soon this place that we have called home will be just an empty building ready for another family.  I hope they appreciate our neighbors as much as we have over the past 3 years. 

I will try and post once we get to Hawaii with pictures of the island life and our Christmas on the beach.
I'm sorry this wasn't a more uplifting post but I'm sure that those will be coming just as soon as all the stress of moving settles down.  But on a bright note-  Baby is doing well, growing and moving and everyone in the house is excited to meet her. 
Love you all

Catch Up

Well I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything and as odd as it sounds to me, some of you have been disappointed.  It seems hard to believe that it has been  6 months since I last posted something and that post wasn't an ecspecially happy one was it?  I'm not sure where to begin and how to make a post that will flow seemlessly so I'm thinking the best appoarch might be bullet points.  So here goes nothing:

• The Kids

They are growing up WAY too fast.  In June we took Nathian to the Pediatric Developmentalist at Balboa in San Diego.  It was wonderful to go to a doctor that took the time to really talk to us and then spend time talking and watching Nathian (unmedicated) then make his diagnosis.  He also took the time to fill out all our forms that are needed for the military Exception Family Member Program, and spell out the exact type of treatment that he wanted for Nathian.  And since the doctor we saw is a Chair on the EFMP board he knew exactly what needed to be said in order for Us as a family to be on the right list so when we are up for orders the Navy can only send us to certain places.  
Lincoln started Kindergarten this year and is loving it.  He has gone through 3 teachers so far because his actual teacher broke her foot last year and has been in and out having surgeries.  I'm okay with that though cause I wasn't a big fan of hers. His teacher right now is GREAT! She's a retired kindergarten teacher and she is so laid back.  I have been so concerned over him not being able to reconize his letters out of order, I talked to her about it and her advice to me was "RELAX"  she told me that I shouldn't be this worried about it and as long as we are working with him a few minutes at a time through the days (like when we go to the store point to a sign and ask him what the big letter is and things like that) then he will get it and will be reading in no time.  It's hard to not be concerned but he is only 5 and most of us weren't learning to read till the end of kindergarten or even 1st grade. 
Mia--- Oh what can I say about Mia?! She has finally decided to potty train- although poop is still a struggle.  Other than that, she has embraced the troublesome 3's.  She is very creative and very loving but watch out if she doesn't get her way.  She has an attitude like something I have never seen (other than on TV shows about those little beauty queens and their mamas).  It is something we are trying hard to eliminate but it is a slow process.  A lot of it seems to stem from her speech issues - which she has started speech therapy in so hopefully soon she will learn how to form some of those sounds that she's having a hard time with and will have an easier time getting us to understand her.

• The Husband

Ben was able to come home from deployment early (by a couple week) on our own dime which was a lot more than just a dime- more like 10,000 dimes.   He got to go with us to Nathian's appointment in San Diego.
He is now in his last semester of his Master's program. In December he will graduate and be finished with school.  He just got his AFAA personal trainer certification so he is now able to go work at a gym or independantly as a personal trainer which will be great for some extra money to help pay for my books and equipment for my midwifery training and career. 

• The Military

We picked up orders to go to Hawaii for 3 years.  We are leaving NAS Lemoore on Dec 13th and will be in HI on the 15th.  Christmas this year will be on the beach since we will be in a hotel and that's not a fun place for Christmas.  We aren't too happy with these orders since we are supposed to be going to shore duty but we have been told by Ben's sponsor at the base that the shop that he will be going to is a deploying unit, and he can be deployed for 6 months at a time-- NO!  So we have talked to the detailer who's only answer was- the Navy has changed and all shore duties are deployable now-- We have found out though that if he does have to deploy we can ask for that time back. So if he has to go out for 12 months total during our 3 years then when we re-enlist we can request to get those 12 months of shore duty back.

• The Craft Table

Lots of stuff in the works, unfortunantly most of those projects are still in my head.  I have dresses galore that I want to make for Mia and I- and maybe a couple to sell.  I also have a bunch of fabric that needs to be turned into bags to sell in my Etsy shop-- yeah, I have an Etsy shop, I've yet to sell anything in there but God willing I will have a few things in there to sell and mail out for Christmas.
I have a bunch of paterns to knit and crochet and am hoping to get my act together and get them all done soon.  Okay well not soon as in this week but soon as in within the year.  I'm also starting some wool soakers for cloth diapering and some cloth diapers. 

• The Baby

WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!! 11 weeks this Sunday.  We are over the moon!  Ben would actually carry the baby if he could, that's how excited he is.  I've been dealing with "morning sickness" since about 6 weeks on though it really starts around lunch and last till I'm asleep but I've been able to eat and have only thrown up twice and both time were at night so I wasnt' loosing out on calories through the day.   
I'm scared right now that things are going to go wrong and we'll lose this baby too, BUT I know that God is Greater than ALL my fears, and he has promised that those who follow him will not cast their young or be barren and I am going to hold him to that promise (as his word says I can--- ALL God's promises are YES in Christ) 

So that is about it I think,  I'm sure it wont be too much longer till I write again.  I will post before we leave for sure and then I will post after we get there with pics of our new surroundings. 
Love you all and thank you for reading

Jenn

I AM an Awful Mother!!!

Yes, I am.  There is nothing anyone can say that would make me feel any different.  I am about the worst Christian mother out there.  I am ashamed and full of guilt which of course is keeping me in this vicious cycle so the only way I know to get out of it is to be transparent and let people see me, Flaws and ALL.

So here it is... well first back story... Growing up I was in Church CONSTANTLY, not that that was a bad thing, in fact, I loved being in church when I was little.  But being there all the time, learning about God was easy.  Even though God wasn't the talk of the house -we did pray before dinner but we didn't just sit around reading the bible and such- I was still surrounded by God stuff.  I remember the first day that I heard Psalty the singing song book and the kids praise kids.  I was like 4, and I was in love.  We were at our Pastor house and listening to it on the record player while it recorded to a tape so we could have a copy of it-- I still have that same tape, it is 29 yrs old but it still works.  I then listened to that tape over and over and over again then the 2nd one came out and then the 3rd and by the time I was 12 I had the first 5 tapes and listened to them all the time.  That's how I remember learning about who God was, and how much he loved me.  I would sit on the swing set in the back yard with my tape player and just sing along with all the songs and I was in heaven.  I felt safe and at home in Psalty's world.  When I was 7 or so, we started going to a Nazerene church (where my mom is still at) and I kind of remember my sunday school classes but not all of them, but I do remember the principles that were taught.  Around 12 or so I started Bible quizzing  and so of course I was studing the bible, though not in a very devotional kind of way, but the word was finding its way into me.  And there were times that Dad and I would have conversations about biblical stuff, but it wasn't until I was in my teens and beyond.  Every summer since I was 8 I was at church camp, completely surrounded by God, which is probably the other place where I learned about God and his love. 

I'm sorry if this is sounding scattered but please bear with me and I'm sure it will all come together--at least I hope it does. 

So anyway, I learned about God and I fell in love with God.  I had great big faith, I thought that ALL things WERE possible, and I could be anything God wanted me to be. (Gaither reference if you didn't catch that one- and yes, I grew up on Southern Gospel) But I didn't get that knowledge and faith because my parents constantly read the bible to me, or talk to me about the things of God when I was little, they just kind of surrounded me and even when they weren't around me they were still inside me, they filled my being- God filled me.
 
But now as a parent myself I don't know how to teach my children the things of God.  When Nathian was born I (and even while I was pregnant with him) I used to read the word to him, I used to sing worship songs all the time.  But something happened, and it just stopped. Not completely, I still sing worship songs around the house but I don't sit and read the word with my kids like I dreamed I would while I was pregnant with Nathian.  Yesterday, during what seemed to me like maybe the worst day yet, I talked to the boys about obedience.  I asked them if they loved God, and Nathian said No.  I then asked him if he knew who God was, and he said, "oh, yeah, he's an angle".  I just couldn't believe my ears.  How can I expect my children to obey me when they don't even know why they need to obey.  We obey are parents in Lord because God commands it, and we obey God because we love him, and we love him because he first loved us.  Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey my commandments", but if I haven't taught my children about God and his love then how can I ask them to obey him by obeying me. 

So this is why I'm a horrible mother.  I have not taught my children about the love of their Heavenly Father, I have neglected to live out God's love for my kids.  I yell at them when I'm angry- yes, I get angry with them- I make excuses why I can't sit and play with them, I get annoyed with them when they keep begging and whining.  I am in no way a good example of God to my children.  I want my children to look at me and want to be like me because I reflex Gods love.  I don't want them to grow up angry and bitter, because I unloaded all my baggage on them. 

So how do I change this?  How do I teach my children about God?  I did find, and bought, all the Psalty albums from my childhood on CD so we can listen to them in the van instead of constantly watching movies.  They kids have liked having them in and Nathian wants to take them to school to teach the kids some of the songs.  But I know that it's not enough, I don't want my kids to get the same kind of God knowledge that I got.  I want them to go into their marriages and parenting lives with the tools they need to give their children the love of God. 

I do know that one of our major issues is that Ben and I are not on the same page parentally or spiritually.  I'm not saying that he's not a godly man, because he is, it's more that, he wasn't raised in the church, he came from a broken home,  and he lived most of his life out in the world.  I'm also not saying that people who live out in the world can't come to Christ and become a totally different person and grow spiritually and even become preachers and teachers of the word quickly and sustain that passion for the rest of their lives.  I'm just saying that when we met, he wasn't really going to church, he had gone off and on for a few months and had giving his life to God, but he had no one discipling  him.  So we started out on uneven ground, and it's never really gotten anywhere near level.  This is probably the same reason that I have a hard time teaching my kids about God and Jesus-- I have a very hard time talking to Ben about the things of God because I'm so used to talking to fellow believers who have the same (or at least similar) knowledge of the word, so when talking to someone with limited knowledge (or no knowledge) I don't know how to break it down- of course with Ben, I'm worried that breaking it down he will feel belittled and I don't want to do that, So instead of talking, I avoid.  And of course then I get mad at him for not Just knowing what I'm thinking or talking about, and we end up in a fight and we become distant and so the cycle continues. 

So this is how I am an Awful mother.  I avoid talking to them about the things of God because it was never discussed with me so I don't know how to do it without sounding degrading to whomever I am talking to. 
I really am open for suggestions on how to begin to rectify this situation.  I hate being mad at the kids, and I know that most of that anger needs to be but back on me- but of course that brings guilt which brings fear which brings me further from God which brings frustration which brings anger which brings guilt.....I'm sure you see the picture.  I know that I need to find a way to forgive myself for all these wasted years but it's really hard when I know that I let God down.  I have asked for forgiveness from my heavenly father and I have also asked the boys to forgive me for not teaching them about God. 

I hope someone was able to follow this craziness which is my thought process and can help me bring my family into the word and love of God. 

Thank you for reading
--Jenn

The Everyday and the Day after Tomorrow

I haven't posted anything is quite sometime and I really don't know why. There has been so much on my mind and heart lately that posting would have been good for me, but instead I have just kept it all inside, trying to sort out all the feelings and thoughts. I haven't been feeling too creative lately either. I have felt so off these past couple months and though it would seem that anyone who has dealt with what I have in the last 6 months would be a bit off their game, it's just not ME. I normally bounce back pretty quickly but not this time. This time things have been happening so fast that I can't seem to keep up even with the everyday. I have been trying to do a little each day but then a day comes and I just don't have the energy so I do nothing but what is absolutely necessary and then somehow that one day turns into 3 and there is just so much that needs to be done. So then, of course, I have to spend hours doing all the work that I didn't do and I'm so drained once I'm done that I don't want to do anything else for the next couple days. And so the cycle continues. The every day cleaning and taking care of the kids seems more than I can take.

Please don't think that I'm sitting here having a pity party for myself, I'm not, I really want to be able to handle it ALL but I just can't. Ben left so quickly after the miscarriage in December I haven't had the time that I really needed to process my feelings. I know that God has a HUGE plan in store for me, a ministry that I could never imagine having. I know this in my heart, in the deepest part of me, yet it's been shadowed by all these feelings of self doubt and fear and anger and jealousy. 

So, How do I get out of this place?  I want feel normal, I want to stop obsessing over this.  I want to be able to hear that someone is pregnant and not break down.  I just found out today that someone close to me is pregnant and I can't even bring myself to call her, or even send her an email, because even though I'm happy for them and I am so glad that God is blessing them yet again, I can't stop thinking that I just wish that she could know what I'm feeling- and even though I would never want anything to happen to her baby, there's just part of me that wishes that she had also gone through a miscarriage, just so she could know the sting of it.  She couldn't even tell me, she had my mom call and tell me, and she didn't even know if she should tell me know or wait till my mom came out here to visit.She just didn't want to hurt me, she knows how much I want my babies back.  I am glad she told me, I would have hated to have found out later through some random Facebook post.

On to other not so introspective things---

So now even though I haven't been really in a creating mood, I have been thinking about different things that I would LOVE to make.  For starters I want to make some silk and satin slip/nightgowns.  I am so in love with the one that I have but it doesn't fit my bust as nicely as I would like (since it was made for one).  I also have a whole bunch of embroidery floss that I will never use to do another needle point (those things just get on my nerves) so I am going to use them to crochet some things. I haven't decided exactly what yet but I'm thinking about a little change purse and maybe a cosmetic bag for my purse.  There are a bunch of baby things that I want to make but I know that starting on any of them  right now would just make me feel worse- but when I start feeling more ready I have a lot of things I want to work on-I will share more when I'm ready to start on them, though some may stay secret for a while since I have some gifts in mind.  And, oh the things I want to build-- I want to build a sewing table, the kind where I can fold down the sewing machine. I have a desk that could probably be turned into a sewing table but as of right now I don't have the place or the time to work on it. Well and I might have to get a new sewing machine- yep that's right, my almost 8 year old cheap walmart machine is finally thinking about giving out on me.  It's making a really horrible sound and I'm not sure where it's coming from but I do know that if my car was making the same noise I would be taking it straight to the mechanic.  So with that, I have to wait to make the table when I have another machine since the hole and the drop down mounting thing comes in different sizes.   I also have a little side table that I got from freecycle that I adore, but I only have one and I want two. But once again no place or time to work on it.  I have to refinsh this one and it also needs to be fixed up a bit so as I take it apart I will get all the measurements and stuff so that just as soon as I get the time and space to build another I will have the hard part done. 

So with that I will go to bed and get some much needed rest.  Sorry for the randomness and my crazy obsession with trying to figure things out.  I don't even know if anyone reads my blog but for who ever is reading , thanks and I am planning to have some more upbeat and enlightened posts soon. 
God Bless you all
Jenn

Even Harder to Say....

I don't even know where to begin. I went to the doctor today and the U/S showed no baby. Just an empty sac. Looking at the screen was really like looking into my heart right now. Just a big black hole.

Well maybe not a black hole, but that is how it felt right then. I just don't understand. I still believe that God has a purpose and a plan and will use this heartache for good. I mean he promised that "All things work together for good for those who love Him" and all God's promises are Yes in Christ and they are mine to claim. In my heart I know this but in my head I just keep asking "Why?, How?, What?, When?" and I'm just not getting any answers.

I don't know what the future holds, I only know that I have to trust that God is not going to leave me here. I don't know how long I'm going to have to stick around these parts but I know that God will bring me out.

FYI-- The rest of this post is going to be a lot of random thoughts and ramblings so if you get lost I'm very sorry, I just have to get all of this out of my head so I can start to think more clearly and rationally again.

After loosing Gilbert we prayed about it and I asked God to give me a child when the time was right. And then in less than 3 months there is was- the answer- or so I thought. I thought that I would only get pregnant when it was time for us to add a new baby but then this. -- I guess really if we look at this scientifically, I was never Really pregnant. A baby never developed, just the sac, so I'm not really loosing a baby right now because there was never a baby to lose. -- But I feel like I'm loosing Hope. I know that I'm not the only person in the world to go through this and I know that so many others have gone through worse. I know that I should just be grateful for the three beautiful children that we have been blessed with, and I am, I truely am. I know that there are so many who haven't been able to have a child of their own and my heart aches for them all. Here's the reason that it's so hard for me to see the hope right now- other than the obvious. Ben leaves in three weeks. That means that there is no chance that we will be able to conceive again till after July. Not too bad, but then we are scheduled to move in November so life will be terribly stressful for a month or so while we get the kids settled in school and settled into a new town. I know that if it's God's will then we will have another baby, I just can't see it. I can't see when a new baby would fit. I don't normally think about things in this way but right now I am. Normally I think that you can't plan things like kids- There's never really a right time, God is the only one that knows the proper time for everything. But of course I'm still human and am only able to see what is in front of me and what I see is a lot of crazy stuff ahead. And lets face it I'm over 30 and pregnancies are not going to be as easy as they used to be, and the way it looks now, the soonest I'll be prego again will be 33 and if things get as crazy as I'm sure they are going to be it could be another year.

Right now I just want it to be done. I don't want this thing inside me anymore. I hate having all these hormones surging through my body without having a baby to be the cause. Why did it have to happen at all? It would have been hard not to get pregnant but at least I wouldn't have gone through weeks of hoping and worrying and wondering. I started the meds this afternoon and have had a little bit of cramping but nothing that says- "this will be all over soon". I could have had a D&C but I didn't want to be put under again and since a D&C scrapes the uterus it can cause damage and it can take a long time to get a cycle back. So I decided as soon as she said that it was a Blighted ovum that I would use the cytotec. It's what we used with Gilbert and it was 11 hours from start to finish and she said that with true miscarriages it can take longer for the meds to work, so since this is not a true miscarriage it shouldn't take as long. It's been just over 5 hours and I've used half the meds, but I just now took a full dose (I used two half doses earlier because Ben was at work and I didn't want it to kick in too fast and then not be able to go get Lincoln from school at 3).

Okay so the rambling is done for now. I need to eat some dinner so I don't pass out from hunger. I will keep you all informed as to how it's going. Thank you for your prayers, it is greatly appreciated and even though our prayers for a healthy baby were not answered the way we wanted they were heard and God has answered- Not Yet.

God Bless you all

Jenn

Update: At 10:30ish tonight I passed the sac after only a few hours of light cramping and some bleeding. The cramping was never worse than a normal period of which I am extremely grateful as I did not want to have to take any pain meds. I will now have to call the doc tomorrow to find out when to start blood work for my levels. I might even have another US this week to make sure that everthing has passed (though I'm quite confident of what I saw and examined rather closely- the details of which I will spare you from) Thank you for all who have been praying. I do know that God will work this too for His glory as long as I let Him- and even though it's hard to see beyond this day I am determined to let Him shine. All Hope is not lost, just the hope of this baby, but there is hope for another baby, someday, when God says it's time.

This is Harder than you will ever know

Okay, so as much as I HATE to admit it, I must. It would be so easy for me to just not say anything at all or to lie through my teeth. (not that I'm a compulsive liar it would just be easier right now than to admit the truth) I have for so long now been the picture of faith- okay well maybe not the Mother Theresa type of faith, but still, I've stood strong and leaned hard on God and didn't let fear enter my mind. Yet, after an appointment yesterday I have to tell you that I am Scared! I'm not so much fearful, as I know that God has His hands all over this pregnancy and I know that He will carry me no matter what, but I am scared. I'm worried about this baby, I want absolutes and all I have are numbers, possibilities and probabilities. I want to know what is going to happen, will I carry this baby to term and deliver him and bring him home, or will I need to once again release this child back to the heavens? I definitely would not want to have to do the latter but I know that God would work through it and if I just knew maybe it wouldn't hurt as bad.

So before I keep going with this whole philosophical view point I should probably tell you about the appointment has made me scared.

So yesterday morning I went in for a surgery consult, and the doc said that he would do it but we had to get the go ahead from the OB since he was convinced that I would have to be on narcotic pain drugs for the post op pain.(Boy does he not even understand the power of my mind- but that's beside the point) So I then went down stairs for an appointment with my NP to find out if I've got a sinus infection- which I do. I then went to the OB clinic (this is definitely one of the good things about having the hospital here on base- I only have to go to one building for just about everything) and asked if I could get an early appointment so I could get the okay. There was an opening at 2:20 so I snatched it up.

Now I'm really wishing that I didn't. First, I waited for an hour because she was so backed up, then she came in and we did the exam and she started the ultrasound. It wasn't 30 seconds before I saw her face start to fall. I tried not to read anything into it but I couldn't help but think that something wasn't right. I couldn't see the screen so I had no idea what she was seeing. She turned the screen and showed me what she was looking at. I wish I took one of the pictures so I could show you all but I'll try to describe it. We could see the cervix all closed tight and long, and then the gestational sac (on most early scans it's the big black hole in the center of all the grey fuzzy stuff, where you would see the baby) but no definite baby or yolk sac. There was, on one side of the sac, a grey spot, but it was so small that the machine couldn't make it out or find a heartbeat on it. SO, of course my eyes instantly well with tears, and my mind went to that place. You know the one- the place where fear takes over and you can't breath or think right and all you want are answers, but no one seems to be able to give you any. As I sat there thinking the worst, the midwife in me kicked in and I told the doc that I wanted to have a quantitative blood test to make sure that my levels were right. Of course she agreed- not because she thought it was absolutely necessary but because she saw the fear in my eyes and knew that I needed some sort of absolute. So I went to the lab and gave them my blood and came home crying all the way. All I wanted was to get a quick look at this baby growing inside of me and to get the okay to have a small surgery and go home and relax. But instead I came home and tried very hard to pretend like everything was okay. -we just told Nathian about having another baby Saturday and the thought of him going though another loss breaks my heart even more than me having to go through the loss. I went out to the park with the family and threw the ball around but just couldn't get it off my mind. I waited for the call while Ben went to McDonald's to get food- I was in no mood to be in the kitchen. I texted a friend to ask her to pray, I watched my Day's of Our Lives recordings, trying anything to just stop thinking about it for 5 minutes but nothing helped. Finally, at 5:30 the phone rang and it was the doctor with the test results. My count was normal for early 6 weeks (according to my period I should be 6wks 5days today but I know that I ovulated on day 17 or 18 instead of the "normal" 14 so that makes me more like 6/1). I was going to do blood work again tomorrow but instead she really wants me to just come in next week for another scan. At first I really wanted to just do the blood work but as I thought about it she was right- I could do blood work but then I would be waiting and worrying for 3 hours every other day and that's not good for a growing baby, so I will be calling tomorrow morning on her orders to make an appointment for next week to do another scan.

All that said, I'm still scared. There are no guarantees in life and pregnancy is no different. I just want to be confident that this is the baby that we will bring home. Now, being scared is not new to me. When I had Nathian, Lincoln and Mia, I was terrified, absolutely beside myself some days with worry. With Gilbert though, I wasn't worried at all. Seriously, I never thought that anything bad could happen, I thought that I was on easy street. Even when I started bleeding at 8 weeks I was scared for less than 18 hours, and when I started bleeding again at 10 wks I think I was scared for about an hour, I went right in and the OB was still at the hospital and we saw his beautiful heart and arms and legs wiggling around and I was fine. But God had other things in mind. I had to grow, and loosing Gilbert was what had to happen for me to grow. I know a lot of what God has been working out in me but I'm now wondering if He's also trying to work out the pride in me. I know that He is always working on my pride but with Gilbert I was so confident that it was almost prideful. I thought that my body was such a great baby maker and nothing bad could happen. But it did, and now I'm not as confident in my body. I know that I have to find a happy medium. There has to be a balance between knowing what my body has been made to do and knowing that God is bigger than it all. I know that my body can have babies- I've seen it, I've lived it, they're sleeping upstairs right now, but I also know that my body isn't perfect and I'm not promised that I will never have a miscarriage again only that God will carry me through it.

Wow, I hope someone is still reading and understanding after all that. If you are still with me I promise I'm almost done. I am scared, I have been trying so hard not to be but I can't help but feel a little scared right now. I know that God has got me right in the middle of His hand but I'm still human and I'm scared. I'm not scared so much of loosing the baby but more that I will not go through the miscarriage till after Ben leaves and I will be here by myself. If I'm here alone, how will I be able to care for Nathian, how will I be able to tell him that once again another baby is not going to come live with us. What is going to happen to his heart, if I have to tell him this right after his daddy has said goodbye for 6 months? My heart breaks just thinking about that.

Would you please pray with me about this. Yes I want this baby, I can't tell you how much I want this baby, but I want to be in the Center of God's plan Whatever that may be. So I'm asking for prayer not only for this baby but also for peace and strength to go through anything that God would have me go through. Thank you for lending me your ears (eyes) for a while and for bearing with me through all my ramblings. You guys mean so much to me and I don't even know who all of you are. God bless you all and I hope you are all having a fantastic Christmas so far. Jenn