Three years ago today....

Today marks 3 years since we saw the word “pregnant” as we checked the result of a simple test. What a moment that was & I have not yet forgotten how it felt to see that little word & realize that our lives would never be the same.



Let’s look back a bit into our story of becoming parents….


The conversation began on maybe our third date. We both quickly expressed our desire to have children once we were married. And yes, we had already shared with one another our desire to marry. This happened the night after our first date : ) We even threw around some possibilities for baby names within that first year of dating prior to getting engaged. I strongly believe that God put the desire for children in our hearts early on with the intent to grow & refine us through the long road to actually holding a child in our arms.


We married in December 2004 & enjoyed nearly two years of marriage before making the decision to actively pursue growing our family. I knew about a million people (not really but it sure felt like that at the time) that decided they wanted to get pregnant & did the very first month so I assumed the same would happen for us. For those of you who know the rest of the story, this was definitely not the case.


After a year full of trials, (see this post for more detail) we had an appointment with our doctor in Dallas following an ultrasound & some blood work I had done. She shared with us that anatomically, I looked perfect but she thought I was not ovulating at all. She basically said that we would more than likely not conceive without being on fertility medication. Within this same week, our good friend Chris called us to ask if we would be willing to move to Orlando to be a part of a church plant. We felt confident in our decision to continue waiting for God to provide a child for us in His time & chose to look more into the opportunity to move to Florida. Within a few months, we had decided we would put our house on the market ASAP & see what might happen. Long story short, it sold very quickly, we bought a house the following week & then moved a month later.


Fast forward to October 2008. I found an OB doctor who I trusted & respected the path he was taking to figure out why it was taking so long to get pregnant. After having some blood work done & then scheduling a procedure to check the patency of my fallopian tubes, I had to take a pregnancy test to verify I was not pregnant. This brings us back to November 6, 2008. That week had been one of the most difficult weeks we had experienced in our struggle through infertility. Only 2 days before, we sat on the couch together praying & crying out to God asking that He would work mightily & give us the desire of our hearts, a precious baby. Little did we know, He HAD worked mightily, I was carrying a teeny tiny baby inside but did not yet know it.

The evening of the 6th, we went on a date to EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. It was chilly outside & we took the motorcycle. It was the first (and last) time I let Robby go really fast on the highway while I held on for dear life : ) We stopped at Walgreens on the way home to pick up a test which I took right when we got home. I told Robby I wanted him to look but when I walked by, I glanced down & saw it…. ”PREGNANT!” I couldn’t believe my eyes, I couldn’t believe the way my heart felt, & I couldn’t believe how much I loved our baby in a split second. That moment between us was priceless. We hugged for the longest time with tears streaming down our faces just laughing! God had provided!

I challenged Rob that evening to guess if it would be a girl or boy, he guessed correctly. He actually did this with both girls so I would say that is a decent track record & I will believe him next time as well : )

Here is a picture taken the following week. The pair of Ugg boots pictured were given to us when we visited Australia in April 2007. We visited lots of our Aussie “family” & spent much of our time with Graeme & Anita, the couple that Robby lived with the year he spent in Australia. We actually got engaged at their house : ) Anita is a prayer warrior. When she tells you she will pray for you, she is serious. We had shared with them our deep desire to have a baby & the struggle we were enduring. When we were saying goodbye at the airport, she handed me a bag. I opened it & pulled out a teeny pair of baby uggies. She looked into my tear filled eyes & said “ I am praying that God would give you little feet to fill these shoes.”These shoes sat on a bookshelf in my room from April 2007- when we moved in May 2008. They were my daily reminder to “be still” & wait. We took this picture to share the exciting new with Graeme & Anita.

What a sweet three years it has been to have walked through two pregnancies, experience the births of Charlotte Grace and Eloise Hope, and to recount God's faithfulness over and over again.