I will sing of His strength!

But I will sing of your strength,
in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
my refuge in times of trouble.
You are my strength, I sing praise to you;

you, God, are my fortress,
my God on whom I can rely.
Psalm 59:16-17

Praise God!

I have not been very strong over the last week. We all went on a vacation to the beach. The beach is one of my favorite places to be and I feel closer to God at the beach than I do almost anywhere else. (Seeing elephants and giraffes in person comes in close) To see the colors painted in the sky at sunrise and sunset and to see the miles and miles of water stretching to the horizon mesmerizes me that God is capable of creating that kind of beauty. That was not my experience this week.
I started out the trip with a bout of bronchitis. I went to the Dr. before leaving and got a cortisone shot and prednisone prescription. The prednisone made me sooooo sick to my stomach. I couldn’t think about eating for 2-3 days and barely finished a meal. This was also the week that yet another round of clomid failed (will spare you the details but I’m sure you can figure it out). By Thursday I was having terrible back pain, nausea, and other UTI type symptoms and by Friday I started running fever. We were supposed to leave Saturday but decided to play it safe and leave early so we could have the two extra days of recovery. About halfway through the trip home my fever really started climbing and I was feeling just awful. We were able to stop in Monroe at an urgent care and I was able to get a rocephin shot but my fever stuck around for a couple more days. I still had fever last night and I’m still extremely fatigued and weak. I follow up with my primary care physician today so maybe he will be able to figure out what is going on. Did I mention that my husband also got an abscessed tooth on vacay and had a stomach bug as well?!

Thank God for prayer and that He listens! When I was at my worst with the fever I was able to reach out to prayer warrior friends of mine. Every time my fever would spike I enlisted their help and God was merciful and eased my pain. Normally ibuprofen and tylenol do a great job of keeping my fever away, but not this time. Prayer is the only thing that worked.

When you’re dealing with infertility, at least this is my experience, it can feel monotonous to continue praying for the same thing over and over again. I want God to change my prayers to meet His will. That doesn’t mean I can’t continue to ask for the same thing. After all, Elijah prayed over and over again for rain until it quenched the land. He didn’t lose faith and he asked big things of God. His prayers had the intention of pointing the world back to God. This is after all why I am writing these days. I want to point people to the Hope of God!
I believe in eternity, and I believe that Jesus Christ came to this world as a tiny human baby; fully human and fully God. I believe that he lived as an adult. And I believe that He died for my sins because I am incapable of being truly good. And I believe that He was raised from the dead and is living now! The hope that I hold onto in my storm is that one day in Heaven nothing on this Earth will matter because I will be in the presence of the Holy One! And as much as I LOVE being a momma, I know being in the presence of God will be infinitely more amazing. Sometimes, a lot of times really, that is much easier to say than to live out. Of course there are still days that I shed tears because I am not pregnant another month. There are days where I secretly and sometimes out loud envy those around me making their announcements. I am human and will continue to fail because we live in a world contaminated by sin.

Why do I choose to believe in Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit? How can I not? Some of of our every day things we take for granted are actually some of the most amazingly complex organizations that were designed for a purpose. You can’t tell me that there isn’t an amazing God in control of that. The fact that our bodies have complete organ systems, and hormones, and nerves, and feelings, and every part has a specific function but they all work together….that does not happen by chance. The fact that there are planets and stars and weather systems that are GIGANTIC and perfectly hang in the balance of each other….that doesn’t just happen by chance. The fact that there are foods available for consuming and are so enjoyable….that doesn’t happen by chance. We take every day occurrences and amount them to nothing. My husband shared something with me that he read somewhere. Imagine a mountain top somewhere in the spring. There is a field with water running somewhere nearby. And along that water there is a tiny purple flower. Because of its location there is absolutely no one who will ever see that flower. But the flower still has a purpose. The flower brings God joy. Something about that helped me recognize just how often I don’t truly appreciate what is around me and how often I limit God’s ability because I’m not amazed by everything He created or does.

Romans 1:20 says “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

He gifted us the world people! We only need look around to see He is there!

Back to prayers….
After having a very crummy week, there was a nice surprise awaiting us in the mail yesterday. There was a nice yellow official looking envelope. I was certain it was lab results, and when I opened the envelope I was correct in my assumption. We had gotten the labs from Danny’s urologist appointment a couple weeks ago as well as his most recent semen analysis. ALL parameters were improved… and most were within normal ranges!! Praise God! Answered prayer number 1!
On to answered prayer #2. His labs were all normal except for prolactin levels. So weird. They were definitely on the high side and as it turns out most men who are recent fathers or expecting children tend to have prolactin levels elevate as it helps with the bonding experience. This made my heart melt a little bit, but unfortunately it can cause fertility issues. Being Dr. google I of course went straight to my phone. Turns out prolactin levels are super treatable and with medication can be improved within 2 weeks. And, this is one of the easiest things to treat with male factor. We meet with the urologist again on Wednesday to go over the results and will start our new game plan. Until then I’m on my increased dose of clomid this month and we will just keep on keeping on. I can not express enough how thankful I am to those of you praying for us! We ask that you continue to pray along side us and we would love to pray for you as well if you want to shoot me a message sometime!