The Nursery is Finally Painted!!

THANK YOU NOLANS!!! I am so excited to have the nursery painted finally. The stripes on the wall are actually the same exact color, except one stripe is a semi-gloss, the other is a flat. We only placed the stripes on one wall...the wall that the crib is going to be on. The rest of the room is solid. There is still a lot to do...but the hardest part is over. What's next? We purchased a closet organizer at Lowes. I am hoping the Craig is in the mood to install that this weekend so that I can start hanging up clothes. We also need to convert the chandelier to electrical and then hang it up. Once those things are done...the only things left are the finishing touches, which we haven't quite decided on yet. I have a few ideas...but you will just have to wait until the I post the finished pictures and be surprised.

Emily's Chandelier

Here is my Mother's Day gift from Craig. I have always talked about how neat it would be to have a girly chandelier in Emily's nursery. The colors we have for the nursery are sage green and chocolate brown...very gender neutral because we started the nursery when we were moving forward with adoption. Now that we know we are having a girl...I wanted to somehow bring in items to make it more girly. We agreed that we would throw in hints of lavender through bed sheets, a quilt that Grandma "Queen" is making, and other accessories...but I just loved the idea of having a chandelier in the room. I found this one in Target...and Craig went out of his way to get it for Emily. I LOVE IT!!
It is made to be plugged into an outlet, so Craig will be converting it for electrical lighting, and then we are probably going to spray paint it all white...it has a hint of pink in each of the flowers.
The nursery is going to start coming together next weekend. I AM SO EXCITED!! We have a couple of friends coming over next weekend to give their painting expertise...it is going to be PERFECT!!! So after next weekend, I will probably be spending too much time playing around in the nursery as I go through Emily's clothes and hang them up in a beautifully organized closet!! I CAN'T WAIT!!

28 Week Appointment

I have officially had my last "monthly" appointment and have now graduated to the "every other week" appointments.
My 7 month appointment went well. This was the appointment where I had to drink a can of pure sugar...sit around for an hour and then return to get my blood drawn. By now...I am a pro at getting my blood drawn (considering all of the previous infertility treatments I have gone through)...I just wish I could say the same about the people actually drawing my blood. EVERY SINGLE TIME...I remind the techs that my veins are small and difficult to get. I remind them to use a "butterfly" needle (whatever that is...it just always seemed to work well when I was at the fertility clinic). So the tech proceeds to tie up my arm, and as she prepares her needles I am squeezing and pumping my fist to hopefully build up my vein. She kept telling me to "just relax...you don't need to do that". She then begins to examine my arm...flick at the veins, etc...trying to find the perfect one. Then...she goes in with a powerful *STAB*!!! With that much force you would think she made it in...NOPE...nothing. However, she does continue to dig around inside my arm to try and find the vein. NO LUCK!! To my own surprise, I was actually holding it together...no tears. (Just a side note...those of you who don't know...needles have always been a HUGE phobia of mine...which made those infertility treatments that much more fun) She finally pulled the needle out and decided to go for this itty bitty vein on the side of my arm...*STAB*. SON OF A BISCUIT!!!!! That one HURT!!!! Fortunately, she got what she needed, and the torture was over!! I should get my results back on Monday, but believe me...I will be indulging in sugary goodness this weekend...you know...just in case my results come back and say I can't have it anymore.

As for the part of the appointment with the doctor...I just LOVE my doctor. It was another quick visit. We got to listen to Emily's heartbeat...nice and strong, and then she measured my stomach. I measured at 30 centimeters. I guess your measurements are supposed to line up with how far along you are with your pregnancy, so I should be at 29 centimeters. OH NUTS!!! The doctor said, that it isn't a big deal. Emily could be stretching, or she could be a long baby (like her father). She said if the measurements are a 3-4 centimeter difference, then they do an ultrasound to determine if they need to change the due date. Other than that...that was pretty much it for the appointment. We talked about a few questions that I had...and then I went to schedule my next appointment...in two weeks. :)

I can't believe Emily will be here soon. I can't wait to hold her, and love her, and kiss her, and rock her, and on and on and on!! I just want to meet her so badly!!

The Ball Keeps Rolling...

I met with the Pastor T. who is heading up our new abortion recovery ministry. We met to go over some new details and to plan out some new ideas for "ZOE" (that's what we named the ministry...it means "life")

During the meeting, she shared with me an update related to the letter that I had originally wrote to Pastor Dean last summer regarding our IVF procedure. For those of you who don't know about that letter, check out the post titled: Listen to Parts of our Pastor's Message: When Does Life Begin. At my first meeting with Pastor T. she shared with me some of the results that came about as a result of Pastor Dean's message (mentioned in the post titled: Hindsight is 20/20). It was so great to hear...and it just amazes me as I CONTINUE to see God's hand work in this story.

So...like I started out with, I met again with Pastor T. to talk about our new ministry. During the meeting, she shared with me how "Care Net" was so excited to be partnering up with our church. Care Net shared with her how many churches donate to their cause but are not ready or are unsure of how to bring up the issue of abortion in their church...so they just stay silent to the subject. Well...when Care Net found out about our letter on infertility and how Pastor addressed the topic as a message, along with the response from the congregation, they had asked him to create a format that would be able to train and encourage other Pastors in helping them to be able to address such a tough topic in their own churches.

THAT'S HUGE!!! I just love hearing how our testimony continues to spread...it is just amazing to see God's hands continue to work. I know that He isn't done with this yet and I am so excited to see what He has in store for us around the corner.