Hold High The Name

It’s the holiday season, filled with fun, family, and for many- great family traditions. The hubs and I have talked for years about our childhood traditions and those we wanted to incorporate into our family. One of the big things we decided was to rotate Christmas giving between every odd and even year. Therefore, every even year we would do the traditional Christmas of giving gifts to all our family and friends and then every odd year we could save all the money we would have used for gifts and donate it towards the needs of a charity or another family that may be in need. Although we don’t have little ones yet, we decided early that we wanted our children to understand the true spirit of Christmas and the importance of giving to others.

Well, this was our first odd year and we were excited to see what opportunity we could find to give to. Needless to say, with the need as it is in our society, it didn’t take long. We were fortunate enough this year to spread Christmas to 4 different families which included 7 children and 3 adults. Now, the fun for us was taking the list we had been given and actually finding those things in the store. Clearly it was evident that we didn’t have kids- lol, but looking was great fun. After loading up our buggy with coats, hats, shoes, clothing, cleaning items, and the all important toys- we were satisfied with the gifts we were sure these families would enjoy. We prayed that God would bless each person and although for some we would never meet them or see them putting their gifts to use, we knew God would and that gave us comfort.

After delivering all the gifts earlier this month- we haven’t thought much about gifts again. Our families knew the situation and we weren’t even expecting to get gifts from them, but family will be family and many still gave us sweet gifts. However, we were given one gift that not only shocked us (me into tears of course), but also reminded us that God is always at work. One of the members from the Xi Beta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the local undergraduate chapter, called me to say he wanted to stop by and drop something off for me. After coming by the house he handed me a card and we chatted about his semester and his future plans. He simply said, we wanted to get you something and we hope you like it. I placed it on my card tree and waited until Christmas to open it.

To our surprise, we opened a card to find 2 checks and a sweet note that said “We hope this helps you both on your journey to starting a family. God Bless.” I still get choked up thinking about it! In all our giving to other people, these young men thought of us, and not in a small way, and gave such a sweet gift to our family. Now, being me, I cried for a long time- for one I thought of the selfless act these young men had just given and then I thought about the prayer the hubs and I had just been saying- after finding out the cost of the IVF treatments, we simply said “God you know our situation and if this is what you want for us, we know that you will open doors and provide the money..” Those two checks spoke volumes to us of the power and presence of our Great God!

So, to the brothers of Xi Beta, you will never know how much you mean to us and to all those who continue to lift us in prayer we thank you- God hears your prayers. 2012 will be wonderful all along our Anderson Adventure.

A $6000 dream

Well, we had our much anticipated appointment in Mobile with our fertility specialist. As always, they were wonderful. This was actually the first time the hubs was able to join me in one of these appointments. In the past we have had to go individually to our appointments, so it was fun to spend the day with him.

Nonetheless, our appointment went well- with a Valium and Lortab down the hatch, let’s just say it made for an interesting morning for me. After getting all settled we met with the doctor who did a hysteroscopy to take a closer look at the polyps he thought were coming back. True to form there was one that had come back on my left side large enough to block the view of the left tube.  So, needless to say we left his office with a new surgery date set to repeat the same procedure I had done back in March- another D and C in January.

Another interesting part of our visit was the meetings we had with all the IVF nurses. Who knew so many people were involved in the process. As I've mentioned before, the doctors have said that IVF is likely our only option of conception. Now, the wonderful thing about IVF is that they actually give you options- options that range anywhere from $12- 23,000. Yes…you read those numbers right and the best part about it is that insurance doesn’t cover any of that cost- except maybe the medication, but of course that isn’t included in the quote and you still have to cover the copays.

Now, they did talk to us about a program they refer to as a donor program. In this case, we would be helped while at the same time helping someone else. What the program offers is for another woman who may be having trouble producing to cover the cost of my IVF while I agree to donate to her conception journey as well. She would cover the cost of everything except roughly $6000 which we would be responsible for. It was so much to think about and we are still slightly overwhelmed.

However, on the way home we had the most riveting conversation about everything we had been through during the day and there was one thing that really stood out to us…nothing was lining up. We laughed and wondered if God was having a chuckle with us about all that He was already doing. For one, we have been waiting for months to get the hubs ABI/FBI clearance papers back to move forward with foster/adoption- mind you its his 3^rd one, so it was technically an update and should have come back before mine. Secondly, we left the doctor with the notion that the surgery would be on the 5^th of January, only to be told that it was moved to much later in the month. Third, the only “option” we’ve been presented with sits with a price tag that we don’t financially know if we can take on considering there is no guarantee for success. We thought about everything and laughed because the only thing we can hold on to is that He is moving all the pieces to fit right in the spot He’s already planned. He’s closing doors just to make room for the one’s He’s already opened up.

So, with so much on our minds, we just ask that you continue to pray for us to be patient, to watch prayerfully as God moves in our lives, that He provide the $6000 if IVF is the option He desires, and that we continue to grow in His love along our Anderson Adventure.

May the love of the Father, the peace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit be with each of you in 2012

20 months and counting...

So I’ve realized that the blog has been sitting here growing cobwebs from my lack of mental input. Sadly though, even now there isn’t too much to add, but I’ll try a quick wrap up.

Our Thanksgiving was nice- fun times house hopping with family. Fortunately, we didn’t overdo it at the table and could really enjoy the time with family instead of wanting to nap the afternoon away.  With all the sales starting so early, we did decide to do a little Thanksgiving Day/Black Friday shopping- who knew standing in line at a furniture store at 4am could be so much “fun”. Needless to say, we didn’t get the items we went for. When there are only 25 in the store and you end up being numbers 28 and 29…what can you do but smile. We were able to get some of our other goodies though. From Thanksgiving we were able to get the house all decked out for Christmas. Actually, I think we had the tree up a little before Thanksgiving, but who’s counting.

We are still prayerfully walking in our journey. We have submitted all our paper work for foster care/adoption, but we are still waiting on our clearance. Oddly, my paper work has come back from FBI/ABI (of which our caseworker said was the fastest she has ever received one back), but the hubs- not so much. So we have to wait for his clearance before we can move forward with classes. Also, it looks like the dreaded Polyps have returned and a nice trip to Mobile will be in order to visit our fertility specialist. From the last convo, I think they want to run more test and have pitched the idea of having to go back in and repeat the surgery my GYN did in March. For that, I’ll keep you updated.

 So as we joyfully enter into month 20 of our journey, we ask for your prayers along our Anderson Adventure