30 weeks...and counting

AH! I can't believe we only have 10 more weeks of this pregnancy. I've been so blessed to have had a fairly easy pregnancy. I've been dealing with siatica issues this last week, but it's not even that bad so I can't complain. I went on my Saturday 4 mile run and had to laugh at how slow I've become. I'm basically shuffling. But I'm so blessed that I'm still able to go out and run at 30 weeks.

We also had our baby shower yesterday. We have such wonderful friends here at Fort Rucker that went above and beyond to make this shower perfect. It was an adorable aviator theme with the cutest decorations. They also went way out of their way to provide a spread of food that was gluten and dairy free. Trust me, that's not easy! We got a ton of wonderful gifts and I believe we're stocked up on diapers for a while :).

Gunner is definitely growing. It's so weird to see how dramatically my belly can move while he's moving or how lopsided he can make it :). I can't wait to meet this adorable little stinker.

Here's some recent pictures from the shower and past weeks.

Too long

It's been way too long since I've blogged. So long that I just now realized that my blog backdrop just disappeared....great. I'm not fixing it - nobody's got time for that! :)

Things have been a bit of a whirlwind since September. Josh was in SERE (Army Survival Training) for 3 weeks so we weren't able to talk at all during that period. Crazy thing happened...I also found out I was pregnant while he was gone. We've been trying for 4.5 years and were basically told that it probably wouldn't happen to us so we had stopped trying and were adopting. It was the last thing I expected to happen! Obviously we are beyond excited for this new addition.

I do find that I still struggle with trust though (imagine that). The first three months, I wouldn't let myself get too excited because I was so scared something would happen to the pregnancy. Even though we're at 15 weeks now, I still have a hard time with this. I am so thankful for every ounce of blessing God has given us, yet I still find myself becoming scared that something bad will happen. Why can't I just relax and trust God that everything will work out?! I'm a work in progress. Thank God that he is a gracious forgiving God! Thank God that he blesses us beyond what we could ever deserve despite my issues!

There's so much that I'd like to say about this pregnancy but I'm going to keep this post fairly short. I'm going to leave with some pictures that were taken when I announced the pregnancy to Josh. This will always be such a fun, special memory. :)

Overdue Writing

I realize that it's been a while since I've blogged so I thought I would do a quick update on my life.

Things in Alabama are still as crazy as ever (and by crazy, I mean a super slow, quiet life). :) God definitely knew that I needed some Alabama in my life when He sent us here. I've told you all about my recent diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Well since then, I've done a ton of research on the topic. Apparently one of the things that can bring hypothyroidism on full force is stress. I probably have had it for a while, but the recent stress that I've been through was probably what made it rear its ugly head.

So putting me in a situation where I could chill out for a bit was probably the best thing I could do for my body. Along with this hypothyroidism is my gut issue (which is actually tied to hypothyroidism). I won't get into this too much, but I've completely cut out gluten and dairy from my diet and am trying to cut out sweats (but I'm definitely not perfect here). So yeah....eating is no longer fun for me.

As far as the adoption goes, we're still saving. Again, I can't stress how amazing our family and friends have been throughout this process. We've been so blessed with their monetary gifts! We've completed our adoption profile and video. The next step is the home study (and honestly, I'm kind of dreading this part).

So that about sums up our life! Josh is getting busy with flight school....so busy that he transformed our guest room into his personal study office. So sorry guys, no visitors here! :) He's also in SERE right now, which is three weeks of survival training. We've gone months without seeing each other and even about 1.5 weeks without talking but this is the first time we have to go 3 weeks with no communication. And we're only 4 days into it at this point......

The Journey Continues

Today marks three weeks that Josh has been gone. 2 more to go! I can't wait for him to be back home - the pups and I miss him terribly. The last couple of weeks has been a bit of a whirlwind for me. I started having health issues since arriving in Alabama. After lots of blood work and other (quite disgusting) testing, it looks like I have hypothyroidism, or as my Dr said "a malfunctioning thyroid." I also had a pelvic ultrasound and a thyroid ultrasound done (results have not been sent yet). I won't go into detail but I've had a lot of strange things that have happened that don't seem to make sense. It hasn't been terribly easy trying to deal with all of this physically and emotionally while Josh has been gone.

Not only have I been struggling physically, but I've also been struggling emotionally.

My anxiety seems to be worse too. I'm not going to try to sugar coat anything by saying that I don't struggle with this - because I do and have for a long time. Some days are fine. Some days aren't.

Some part of me thought that as soon as we started our adoption process, that everything was going to be ok. That, emotionally, I was going to be fine. Turns out, that's not true :). We live on post with lots of military families...and they all have children. I see this every single day. In a way, I feel isolated. I feel like we're the only ones without children and that families won't want to hang out with us because we don't have children to play with their children.

I'm ready to be excited for our child that God has for us. Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about the thought of adoption but right now, that's exactly how it feels....like it's just a thought. We're really focusing on saving so the adoption process is moving along slowly.

I'm not trying to be a debbie downer. I'm just being real. Now I'm going to go grab another cup of coffee (which my doctor advised me against) and look forward to this beautiful day (because it really is)!

Settled In

We're finally settled in and able to go back to life as normal. I'm enjoying working from home and saving on gas (although, I do go stir crazy and make Josh go on walks almost every night just so I can get out of the house). Josh starts his five week training/school on Tuesday. We won't see each other for that entire time. Much better than a deployment but still sucks. Since we don't know anyone here, Jax, Zoey, and I are going to have to figure out some major bonding time.

Last week we ran the Army 10 miler and somehow, I placed 7th for overall female...what?? I'm not competitive and have never run to place. All the glory goes to Josh for pushing me and Alabama for being at sea level. This 31 year old has still got it! :)

We've also made some steps towards our adoption. We've picked an agency and begun some of the application process. At this time, we're really focusing on saving as much money as we can. Coming out of a very expensive IVF, we want to be smart about this. As much as I'd love to start the homestudy now, we're going to wait until we've saved more money. We're so blessed to have wonderful family and friends who are excited for us and support us through this process.

And now, I shall leave you with some pictures.

 Fishing...because that's what people do here

New Beginnings

We're now in Alabama! I'm not sure if I should have put an exclamation point after that. It's more like, we're now in Alabama...

No, just kidding. I'm actually liking it so far. I really think that you can grow to like any...ok most...places if you have a good attitude about it. Obviously, I didn't expect Alabama to be Colorado, but I am looking for things that set Alabama apart from Colorado. It's so green and there are so many trees, which is a beautiful scenery change from Colorado. We like our house on Post too. It's smaller but it's actually been kind of freeing to get rid of materialistic items.

My favorite part is all the running trails on post. My least favorite part is coming home from a run drenched in sweat. This NEVER happened to me in Colorado Springs. Josh and I also signed up for a 10 miler next weekend. We haven't trained for this so hopefully this wasn't a terrible idea.

Another positive to living here is that we're only 1.5 hours away from the closest beach.  And we're only 2 hours away from Sam and Karen (brother and sister in law) who live in Pensacola. This weekend we spent a day and a half with Sam and Karen checking out the dog beach, grilling at the park, visiting the beach and Flora Bama, and buying delicious sea food and cooking it.

Jax decided he did not like the water...

 Hanging with Zoey on our patio

 Drove through Duck Dynasty's town...but too tired to stop

 Visiting Jared, Mindy, and Avery in Texas

 Driving with this cutie pie

 Hanging out with Jared and Mindy

 Josh and Sam swam in their cargo shorts

 Jax and I on the beach

 Crawfish!

When Things Don't Go Your Way

2015 has been rough so far. From our failed IVF, to moving away from our beloved Colorado, to a 6500 car issue, to a buyer backing out of our house......I feel like we're being tested. I know this is life and this is how things go but I don't understand why things have been so difficult lately. It's rough...especially since we want to adopt but it feels like things keep getting in our way. It's hard not to feel sorry for myself right now. I've told God numerous times, "Ok, God, I trust You that everything will work out." And I do. But dang it, I just want things to go a little smoother! We move across the country to Alabama next week and I'm really hoping this will provide a clean slate for us. They say "Sweet Home Alabama"....I sure hope I feel that way when we get there :).

Sea Eagle Drive

It's crazy to think that Josh and I are selling our first house together. We haven't been there long but have enjoyed it so much. I've enjoyed it more since Josh was deployed for 7 months out of the 2 years we've had it :).

We've never done this whole selling a house things so we're not really sure what to expect. It's been on the market for 2 weeks and we've had a handful of showings but no offers. If we don't get something soon, we'll have to lower the price since we need to move in less than a month.

We're actually pretty proud of the minor updates we did to the house when we had it. Here are a few before and after pictures.

Kitchen Before

 

Kitchen After

 Living Room Before

Living Room After

 

A little closure

Josh and I visited our doctor today for a follow up and even though we didn't get great news, we left feeling a sense of peace. Dr. Bush told me (in the nicest way) that I have bad eggs. He said that sometimes the quality of a female's eggs diminish when she's 45, sometimes it happens when she's 28. You just never know. I'm only 30 and started trying to conceive when I was 26...unfortunately, for me, that was too late.

He talked to us about an egg donor but that doesn't feel right. I think knowing that we're out of options makes this adoption even more exciting.

We're also in a pretty big transitional phase of our life. Josh was accepted into flight school so we're moving to Fort Rucker, Alabama in April. Our lifestyle will change completely since we'll be in a small town. Thankfully, this will be a great opportunity for us to start saving money and looking into adoption agencies. I'm also very blessed to be able to work from home, which will really help us financially.

So onward and upward! Lots of changes are coming our way but we're excited.

New (Good) Changes

Lots has happened since my last post. But the most important (and most exciting) event was the return of Josh! We were so blessed to have him come home two months early, making it a 7 month deployment. It's amazing how much shorter 7 months seemed than the last 9 month deployment and especially the 1 year deployment prior to that. There's nothing better than the whirlwind of excitement that happens with coming home ceremonies. Here's to hoping that he's able to stay home longer than a year this time. :)

I also ran my second marathon three days after his return. I cut 29 minutes off my first marathon time. I was definitely more prepared this time plus it helped that I lost quite a bit of elevation. It was also so much fun to have Josh cheering me on along the course and even running a few miles of it with me!