Bound & Determined

So, I'm really a part of the blogging world!  It seems so weird and yet I'm very excited to be a part of it and capture our life together.  However, I already have a confession.  Immediately after I posted yesterday I felt guilty.  I do have a baby...a furry baby.  I swore to myself that I would not be a dog mom that neglected the first (well, after Greg, second) love of my life (especially after our non-furry child arrived).  Jemma is our precious little mini dachshund who stole our hearts four years ago when we drove to the country to pick her out on Valentine's Weekend.  She is a great snuggler (with mommy) and loves to play (with her daddy).  Her loves include going on walks and spending time with her family.  This includes her extended family-she loves all her grandparents, aunts, uncles and especially the little cousins, Maren & Kennedy (who love to feed her and take her for walks to the park when they visit Aunt Emily).  I think Jemma is going to make an excellent older sister to Brody when he arrives.  I think Jemma already has a sense that things are changing.  Whenever we add things to Brody's room, she sniffs and sniffs and sniffs.  She also has been sleeping right up next to my ever-growing belly.  A part of my really thinks she knows that someone is in there waiting to come out and play with her.  I wanted to make sure to include a post about Jemma since she is TOTALLY a member of the family. 

   

Boy, oh boy!

Well, this is the first official post on my blog and I guess there is a lot to update on since it is my first EVER.  I guess the old saying is true:  you must start somewhere.  Well, here is my starting point...my dear, sweet husband and I struggled with infertility for two years.  This statement captures two years of what could have been some intense blogging summed up into one nice neat sentence.  You're being saved and getting the short version. We wanted to be patient and do what God would have us do.  We went through infertility tests and treatments and nothing seemed to be giving us an answer.  We had prayed that God would make his will clear and that happened (after A LOT of waiting) in the fall of 2011.  We felt the OK from God to try IVF after all the other fertility treatments had failed.  If you're like I used to be, it's hard to imagine going to such drastic lengths to have a child.  I had struggled a lot with this decision which is why it was imperative that I felt God was leading us in this direction before we proceeded.  We were blessed with a very good IVF cycle.  We had a total of 10 embryos and implanted two.  One of the two will be our future son (more than likely Brody James-more to come on this later) who will be arriving in August.  We could not be more excited if we tried!  We feel SO blessed beyond our wildest dreams to be having this baby.  So, in hopes of cataloging and capturing the next phase of our lives as parents, I've started this blog.  However, in full disclosure, I also started this blog to keep the grandparents, great grandparents, sister, cousins etc. happy.  Hopefully you'll enjoy the ride as much as we do!