Adventures with Jonathan and Good News!

Vinegar+Food Coloring+Baking Soda = Fizzy Fun!

We love science experiments!

We hosed down the area and splashed in the water!

Sweet feet.

Making hand prints!

Precious hands.

"Let's play leap frog!"

Making the batter for banana chocolate chip muffins.

He was so into it!

He was concentrating so hard that this was the only smile I got.

Good news: Progesterone levels came back at 40 today (highest of the pregnancy so far).  This is great news because the count is higher-than-average AND I can finally stop taking progesterone every night.  I'll have my blood drawn again in two weeks to make sure my levels are stable. 

And in other news, Jonathan has shifted from his nightly recited prayer to prayers of thankfulness for people and things (the museum, animals, poop, etc.).  It is so amazing to hear my sweet little boy pray at dinner ON HIS OWN and pray in his bed at night.  I had the privilege of getting him ready for his sitter's this morning (D's out of town), and he said the prayer at breakfast, too.  "Dear God, thank you for my mommy, and the baby in mommy's tummy, and thank you for my food.  We love you.  Amen." 

God's Love

I was trying to figure out what I could blog about tonight, while Darin is out playing a gig and earning money to grow our adoption fund, and Jonathan is sleeping soundly.  I decided to post something about love, so I got out the book, "Get Off Your Knees and Pray", by Sheila Walsh.  A page was marked that I don't recall ever reading before, and I thought I'd share with you all what it says.  It is found on pages 55-56 under the subheading, "Prayer Makes a Difference in Us."

"If God has already decided the future, does prayer make a difference?  The answer is yes.  Prayer makes a difference in us.  And although it might not make a difference in our unchanging God, it is a gift to him.  When used properly, as something more than a ritual, prayer allows us to communicate with God and be reminded of his love and his plan for us.  How would it impact your life if you walked around every day with a deep awareness of being overwhelmingly loved?  God wants people who will share his heart and work with him for things that have eternal worth, not simply people who place value on the words of the moment.  If we can look at prayer that way, there's no way we can doubt the difference it makes in our lives.

And yet we can't help but get discouraged when we are desperate for God to act and heaven seems silent - when even though we want to share his heart, he appears not to see that ours is broken."

There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea; 

There's a kindness in His justice, 

Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows 

Are more felt than up in Heaven;

There is no place where earth's failings 

Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,

And more graces for the good;

There is mercy with the Savior;

There is healing in His blood.

There is grace enough for thousands

Of new worlds as great as this;

There is room for fresh creations

In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of our mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

~Frederick W. Faber

My favorite line from the above poem is "There is no place where earth's sorrows are more felt than up in Heaven."  That statement is profound, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  God's love is immense; it is incomparable to any other kind of love.  Sometimes in my sorrow, I forget to lean on God, and I look for earthly encouragement, when all the while God is calling out to me to come to him and to let him be by number one comforter.

Darin and I are trying to teach this same thing to Jonathan.  When he tells us that he's scared, we tell him that Jesus is always with him, and that he does not need to be afraid.  Tonight, Jonathan was going to his room for bedtime, but the lights were out and he ran back to me saying, "Mommy, I scared of the dark!"  It was the perfect teachable moment, one we've had many times, as I talked to Jonathan about Jesus's love for him. When I finished, I asked him who would always be with him.  He grinned and shouted, "Jesus!"  

Thank you, Lord, for my son's childlike faith.  I pray that he will always lean on Jesus and follow him all the days of his life.

Pregnant! (Yes, me!) - Part II

When Darin came home from church, I was sitting in our bedroom.  We talked for a few minutes, and then I asked him to get me a glass of water from the kitchen.  I heard him coming back all too soon, so I said, "Make sure it's full.  I'm really thirsty."  HA!  I tossed the stork on his pillow and laid back nonchalantly.  He brought me my water, and said he was going to the living room to rest on the couch.  I can't remember what exactly I said to get him to look at his pillow, but it took him a while.  When he finally did, he picked up the stork and said, "What's this?"  And then he immediately put his hands to his face in total shock, and said, "Are you serious?"  I showed him the pregnancy tests (yes, "tests" is plural") that I had taken that morning, but the line was barely visible on either one of them, so I told him I'd test again the next day (and the next, and the next...you know, just to be sure!).

This is the stork that announced to Darin that we're expecting!

Pregnancy test #5 definitely shows up positive!

Isn't he the cutest big brother ever?

We told Darin's parents the news when we went to Indy for the Goodrich Family Reunion.  We really wanted to tell them in-person, and since I was already showing at 5 weeks, we didn't have much of a choice!  Jonathan and I rehearsed what he would say, and he did a great job!  He said, "I have a secret," and when Grandma Jeank and Papa Terry asked what the secret was, Jonathan said, "There's a baby in Mommy's tummy."  Papa's eyes welled with tears and Jeank said that she had been hoping and praying!  I wish we had pictures of this sweet moment, but Darin was too afraid to be the photographer because he thought he'd mess up.  :O)

Next, I called my brothers, Evan and Ryan, while they were vacationing together.  There reactions were pure joy, and my eyes cloud over with tears whenever I think about their excitement for this new sweet baby.

We invited my mom and step-dad over to "play with Jonathan" for a bit, and dressed him in his "Most Awesome Big Brother" shirt. (I bought it at Meijer, but it had long-sleeves, so I had to alter it.)  FORTY-FIVE minutes after my mom and step-dad arrived, my step-dad was talking about more kids and then noticed Jonathan's shirt.  My mom finally read it and said, "Shana, what does that say?"  Then she started screaming! 

Delayed picture - but the shock hadn't left her face, yet!

Another delayed picture, but I'm pretty sure this was his actual reaction!

Jonathan is so excited to be a big brother!

Then we told my dad and step-mom, Karen.  (Well, my dad already knew, so really we just told Karen.)  Karen watched Jonathan play drums for a bit, and didn't notice his shirt.  I finally got impatient (imagine that!), and told her to read his shirt.  She read it aloud and said, "Who are you a big brother to?"  Clueless!  She thought the shirt was a hand-me-down, so it took her a while to figure it out!  Jonathan finally said, "There's a mommy in Mommy's tummy."  Oops!  Then he correctly said, "There's a baby in Mommy's tummy!"

Take One.

Take Two.

Excited grandparents!

Love.

After sharing the news with all of our parents, I called my sisters and shared the news with them.  I wanted to tell everyone when we were together, but we weren't having much luck getting everyone together over the summer, and since I was huge already showing, we couldn't wait any longer!

The best part was that at our church's Connection Campout, Darin got to share our testimony from Mission Forward with the congregation again...only this time he got to end with "We're Expecting!"  Such a huge testimony of what God can do when His people sacrifice and pray.  Thanks for being so amazing, Bridgetown Church of Christ!

Pregnant! (Yes, me!) - Part One

I can't believe I finally get to post this!  I'm PREGNANT!  (Seriously, saying that just doesn't get old.)  After trying for the past year, and going through about a million pregnancy tests, I just can't seem to contain my excitement. 

Travel back in time with me, please....

Last July, I got a phone call and a letter from my doctor saying that my physical and all the subsequent blood work looked great, and that we could start trying for a second baby.  Yea!  Because I have PCOS, it is difficult for us to conceive, so I started taking Clomid again (50 mg).  After a few months, I started taking Metformin and Prometrium, just like I had with Jonathan.  Nothing was working, so my doctor started talking about some hormone therapy testing thing.  Blah.  I don't even think I was really listening to him because I did NOT want to go through such intense and invasive testing.  He also mentioned that I might have endometriosis, and that I might need surgery.  Double Blah!  I really didn't want to go through that, either.  As I was freaking out about possible surgery  listening to my doctor, I thought about how I used to chart my menstrual cycles, and that I hadn't met with my nurse in a while (three years is a while, right?).  I asked my doctor if he thought I should meet with my nurse (she's his mother-in-law) and start charting again, and he said it was probably a good idea.  He prescribed Clomid again, but this time at 100 mg (woohoo!), but then told me not to take it on my next cycle because he wanted to start the hormone testing. 

I met with my nurse and started charting again, but because I'm stubborn I didn't want to go through the hormone testing, I took the Clomid anyway, you know, as a "last ditch effort." 

My periods are irregular, but I knew that I was "supposed" to start my period again on the 29th of July.  I had been feeling nauseous and tired (and of course I was peeing a lot!) a few days before I was going to risk taking another test (seriously, pregnancy tests are expensive and I was SO tired of them being negative, that it was no longer "fun" to take them).  By the 28th, I just couldn't wait another day, so I took the test and nothing appeared immediately so I left the test on the counter and walked away.  I went back to the bathroom about 10 minutes later and saw the faintest little pink line.  I'm talking so faint that I practically needed a magnifying glass to see it.  I was in utter shock.  I ran to the living room and told Jonathan that there was a baby in my tummy, and then I completely regretted it because he has a big mouth, which he gets from his daddy.  Then I called my dad - I knew I had to tell him right away because he was such an encouragement to me throughout our journey, and he always let me cry on his shoulder when I was discouraged.  Of course, I swore him to secrecy (hey, he did a pretty good job, he only told two of my uncles).  Then I called my friend, Kim, and shared the news with her. 

You may be asking where Darin was and why he wasn't the first to know...but he was at church for band practice, so I had no way to get in touch with him and I just couldn't contain my excitement.  :O)

I'll share with you how I told Darin the news, and how we shared the joy with the rest of the family in Part Two!!!