I will start with 5 years ago a promise I was given in my spirit that we would conceive two children and carry to term. My history thus far has not been the case. If you do not know the full story of our precious 'born to us' babies you can read about that in the "Story of Us" on the side bar.
That, of course, took me by surprise. I had simply become comfortable and rather enjoyed fostering/adopting. I loved the thrill of "THE CALL" and then getting to meet the new little life that we were GOING to fall in love with and share some part of our life with. Whether that be for eternity or for a small visit... we would indeed SHARE LIFE.
However, God had another chapter to this story that He was revealing to me. I prayed about it and, per my normal routine, I prayed that if this were God that HE would speak it to Johnny and Johnny would come to me and talk to me about it. A couple of days later when we were able to grab some alone time together, Johnny came to me and said "I would like to talk about where your heart is with our family and what that looks like."
In the past there had been lots of roller coaster emotions and lots of "what if" or "If I had only". There was a lot of hurt that hadn't healed all the way and to talk about it only pulled open that wound so, naturally, he was leery. He was protecting my heart.
My heart lept with JOY, for I KNEW that God was moving and that HE was about to bring a restoration like none other and that we... WE were going to SEE HIS GLORY! I didn't know what that looked like in a time frame or even circumstantial but I did KNOW that HE had a plan and we were part of this grand and beautiful plan.
I got together with Johnny that evening and we talked and prayed and I confided in him that I had the same feeling a few days prior, that it was time to start "thinking about" our family. Not that we didn't HAVE a family. Our boys are our heart and soul... but we knew that wasn't ALL He had for us. There was something deeper still that He was longing for us to behold. First a little boy would join our family through birth. His name will be Joshua, for he will be coming into the promised land. The second, a little girl as our gift and reward for the faith we have stood on.
As we prayed, we still didn't hear or 'feel' a specific time frame... we just knew that He would be moving in our midst to prepare the way for our little ones. We knew that when the time was right He would bring it back around and would give us clear direction and guidance.
In May of this year our church held a women's night. There was lots of worship and speakers from our church. It was an all-out anointed night. As I was sitting in my seat letting the worship music wash over me I heard, as though the auditorium were filled with this voice, "This time next year, you will be expecting.
Now remember the last time I had even heard anything about children was 5 years ago before Ben even came into this world! And now here He is telling me "It's TIME"!
You can guess what happened next. Yep, I told God, "If this is really your will then you will tell Johnny and he will come to me with his confirmation."
That night when I got home J came to me as I was editing and said, "I really need to talk to you. I feel like it's time to start praying about timing for our children."
OOOOOKAY THEN! THANK YOU JESUS!!!
We felt the timing was October and that he would be born in July! July 9th just so happens to be Olivia's birthday!
So in Nov we confirmed that we were indeed expecting.
We, again, still feel like this is our Joshua so HE will be born in July just as we had felt.
Now comes the faith part...Well, MORE of it, shall I say.
My history is not one to be secure with for delivering babies safely and on time. However, GOD is greater! And we KNOW HE gave us this promise.
I finally got to see the dr after I hit my 14th week of pregnancy. Check up was great and baby was moving and bumping around. Strong little heartbeat and measured right on target. New due date is July 11th! She said my cervix looks great and strong at this point but of course with my history she wanted to make sure that we took every precaution possible to keep little Mister in place.
GUYS*** This starts to get a little 'graphic' in detail. Not bad ... just detailed.
So she started talking about a trans abdominal cerclage (where they stitch your cervix closed right at the base of your uterus.... to keep baby higher in the uterus and not put pressure on my cervix and just come on out when they get too heavy.
However, this is a very risky procedure ... even more when you are further along in pregnancy. So the specialist in Austin was very against doing the trans abdominal. She wanted to do the lower cerclage called a McDonald (don't ask) lol. But we and our dr had bad thoughts about that one because I delivered Ymali Jane through a McDonald cerclage so basically I failed it and if you fail one they do the other. BUT seeing I couldn't do the other due to too many risks... my dr feels better about SOMETHING rather than NOTHING. So a McDonald we are going to get this morning! We really don't feel like anything is necessary b.c we feel total peace about him coming full term with no complications but for the sanity of our Dr... we feel we can do this and God will still shine through it above all the medical aspects.
I will fill in more details and pictures later... but we have to head to Austin this morning and get this going.
LOVE YOU ALL!! Thank you for your continued support and prayers!!!
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