A thousand gift.

It has been a while since I participated in a thousand gifts, but I am still a ways off from reaching a thousand, so I should probably get on it!

#66 X games outreach.

Last weekend out church hosted an outreach with an X-games theme. The church we are attending has quite outreach focused. They had short term trip to Angola earlier this year, and they are planning a trip to Europe! The church feels called to reaching out the youth here in the city. Namibia has a lot of young people, but not much for them to do outside of school. So this leaves a great need and opportunity for the church to fill. The church has a skate park on the premises and I believe they do skating lessons throughout the week. They also run a school.
So David has two kids in his discipleship class who have shown interest in wanting to become Christians. He has been taking time with them to further disciple them, we thought the outreach at church would be a fun opportunity and the boys loved it! They got to try and skate, and the speaker for the weekend was a old-Sprinkbok rugby player. It was a great weekend for us to get to know the people at our church better and for the David to get some more discipleship time with the boys.

Pray for the kids in his discipleship class, one of the boys who is ready is being held back by a hesitant parent. This is giving us the chance to reach out to his parent too!!

#67 People.
As I mentioned above we got to know some amazing people at church. Now that we are having a baby we seem to fit in more with some of the older couples, although I guess David is thirty and I am 28 so maybe we are one of the older couples! Ha! They are a wonderful group of people. They were so excited for us when hearing about our pregnancy and then praying for us on the spot. One lady said we could have her baby seat as she is done with it, and then prayed for us too! It was great to get out of the CHS circle and meet some other people. I also look forward to having the support and input from ladies who have already had babies.

#70 Second trimester
I made it to the second trimester and thought that everything was int he clear! Ha! After the weekend at church I woke up in the middle of the night with severe cramps. The next day I could not straighten up, it felt horrible. I called my dr. and his receptionist just told me to lay down until I felt better. (quality care!)
 Well the cramps continued for a few days and I was terrified that something was wrong. On Thursday they began to subside, probably thanks to the bed rest, and because of David who has been taking the best care of me! On Friday I had an appointment with my dr. he barely even looked up when I mentioned the cramps to him, and he said “maybe it was constipated.”
When he put the wand on my tummy for the ultrasound I was terrified that something would be horribly wrong, but nothing was! In fact baby Echols was jumping around like a springbokkie. The dr. was struggling to get a clear shot of the baby. He did print us a 3d picture but it is just a blurry mess as our baby was doing Zumba. We received our genetic screening results back too. Initially we were told we have a 1:300 chance of Down Syndrome, but after adding the blood results our chance is now 1:13000. He may have said 30 000 but I was smiling too hard to hear properly. The rest of the results were good too!
The best part of the appointment was that my due date was moved up to the 21st of Jan, which was my original due date. This means that I am now 16 weeks along! Since finding out about the pregnancy I have been waiting for week 16. I am not sure what made it the magic number, but now I feel more relaxed and confident. I am ready to shout from the rooftops that I am having a baby! I keep crying thinking about what it will be like to hold our baby for the first time. David is also been getting excited about the nursery. We are quite excited about the nursery theme we have picked!!

After this last appointment we have also decided to switch doctors, we will now be going to one who is in network (this should save us about $7000), and who has time to see patients and talk to them. Dr. V who helped us to get pregnant is a very busy man and will only talk to patients during scheduled appointments. Please pray that we find the right dr. who will know how to deal with the fertility issues that we had, and who is just awesome.

#71 Friends.
We had a birthday party for Marye at our house a few weeks ago. A bunch of people came over, I got to make this peanut butter cake. There was almost a stampede when people all tried to get a piece! A fun day!
And no, there are no peanut butter cups here. I made them from scratch. So if you are thinking about sending a care package make sure to add some peanut butter cups. And a Big mac.

#72 Linda Spilman
Linda Spilman has been sending us letters for months now. It has gotten to the point where I can count of finding a letter from her whenever I go to the mailbox. She tells us of things going on back home and even includes the church bulletin and sometimes newspaper articles. She encourages us with words and with love. I cannot tell you how much it means to us, and missionaries all over the world, to receive things from home. Linda has made us feel loved and remembered, prayed for and cared for! Thank you Linda, we are truly grateful for you, for the time you take to write to us, and for the blessing that you are to us!!

12 Weeks! Or maybe 13 :)

HI!
Things are going swimmingly here in Namibia.
Things at school are super busy, if you listen closely you can hear the humming of the teachers teaching, the administrators administrating, the cooks cooking and the learners learning! In the last few weeks several teams have come and gone, we expect another team in a few days. This second term is going by quickly! On Friday we had a half night of prayer with the rest of the CHS staff. It was a great night, we prayed some but spent most of the night sharing our frustrations, encouragements and hopes for the future of the school. I think everyone left feeling closer and encouraged. A good night indeed!

I am still at home, inching closer to the second trimester, when hopefully I will be able to go back to school for at least some of the days that I used to teach. The cramps I was feeling are now fewer and farther between. I still have orders to lay down on my left side and drink water whenever a cramp strikes. I do hope they go away all together soon!
Baby Echols, or Flick as we call him/her, is growing and progressing beautifully. We had our genetic screening ultrasound this past week. Everything with the baby measured in the normal range and the dr. said that at this stage our chances for any genetic defects are so low they are not even worth mentioning. I am still waiting on the blood test results though. The ultrasound was amazing, it is the first profile shot we have seen of the baby. It seemed that Flick was sleeping though, the ultrasound usually takes 20-30 minutes if the baby is active, but she was able to get everything she needed in about ten. Flick did wake up near the end, and then started to fuss. It was funny, we recognized Flick’s movements as the same I make when I am disturbed while sleeping. Too cute! The tech said that we are at 13 weeks, while my dr thinks we should stay at our original measurements of 12 weeks. It doesn’t really matter to me, as long as I am pregnant 😉 Later that day our dr. did a repeat ultrasound and the baby was waving, it made me giggle which made the ultrasound wand jiggle so I had to stop giggling. It was great! We got out first 3d ultrasound too, and found out that our dr does a free ultrasound at each appointment from here on out. Another perk to being high risk I guess.

Even as I am writing this is still so surreal. The dr asked me if I was used to being pregnant yet, and I just giggled and then cried. Most days David and I just stare at each other and say: “We are going to have a baby.” But, it really seems like the reality has not yet hit us. On Saturday we attended a wedding and when I saw a picture of myself I was horrified and thought that it was time to get back on my diet, as I looked pregnant! Then I remembered that I am pregnant! Ha!
On Saturday I bought a dress for the wedding. My first maternity clothes purchase. As I was paying I started to cry. I spent over 2 years waiting for this, and here I was buying a maternity dress. Of course the cashier mush think I am just a little bit unstable. But it was glorious!! God has lavished a gift of unmeasurable value on us. It still takes my breath away.

So here is my dorky 12 week survey and a bump picture! And some baby pictures!!

Sex and size of  baby Echols?
Right now Flick is the size of a big plum. The u/s tech did make a guess at the gender of the baby, but we are not putting much stock in it. The dr did roll his eyes, 12 weeks is waaayyy to early! We should find out at our next appointment though.

Maternity clothes?:
Yes! A little black dress, that looks more like a mu mu than a dress. Thank you Jesus!!

Sleep?:
Yes please. I sleep well at night. Of course I am up and down the the bathroom all night, but the sleep has been glorious.

Best moment this week?

Seeing Flick wave, and finding out that everything looks normal and on track. We are having a baby!!!!!

Food cravings?:
Yes. If it is food I will crave it. Still avoiding pasta. But I will take anything else. Especially if it is cold and fresh.

Movement?:
Nothing quite yet. But soon!

Symptoms?:
Crying. Barfing, crying, sleeping, crying, barfing, crying, hunger!!!

What I miss?:  Nothing.

What I’m looking forward to?: Getting to the next week.

Thought of the week?:
God is always in control, even when we cannot figure out what He is doing or why He is doing it.

 

 

 

 

What we have been praying for, and waiting for.

 The following post was written 5 weeks ago. We have been keeping the news to ourselves for several reasons. This post is a little survey that I have seen all over the internet and that we have been waiting to do once we got pregnant.
So here it is world, after two years of tears, many doctor’s appointments, more medical bills than I care to remember, a bunch of tests, sleepless night, tearful prayers, feelings of absolute defeat and two broken hearts we are proud and humbled to announce that we are pregnant. Baby Echols is expected to arrive in the last week of January 2012. God is good!

From week 5, the baby is that little black speck in the middle there.

This is in week 7 , but the baby was measuring a week behind so it is 6 weeks I guess. We heard a strong heartbeat this week. It took my breath away, I cried and cried!

This past week, at 9w5d. You are looking at the baby from the back. You can see his/her head, back and bottom. Also notice the tiny little shoulders. The baby is right on track, and the heartbeat was up to 171 bpm. God is good!

5 week survey!

Sex of the baby?:  Probably a boy, or a girl. I have a 50% chance of guessing right. David did dream that the baby (our baby!!!) is a girl. And I did have a slight notion the other morning that it is a girl. But really there is no way  to know or guess.

Maternity clothes?: What about em? I am only 5 weeks, it would be crazy to be in them already. Although I am pretty bloated,  I have no idea how I am going to keep this from people…

Sleep?: I have a weird relationship with sleep right now. I wake up at 4:30 each morning, but I am dead tired and usually fall asleep early every night.

Best moment this week (Sunday- Saturday)?: The best moment of this week was making it to five weeks pregnant. I see every single day as a mile stone right now. We have prayed for and longed for this child for so long we are trying to drink each day in.

Food cravings?: Salt and Vinegar. The thought of eating anything sweet makes me want to toss my cookies. The worst thing I can think of eating right now is an oatmeal cream pie.
I am craving a lot of meat too.

Movement?: Baby E is the size of an appleseed today, so no movement detectable by me yet, duh!

Symptoms?: Cramping/sharp pains. Being really tired throughout the day, and HUNGER!

What I miss?: Right now nothing. This is where I have wanted to be for so long.

What I’m looking forward to?: Our first scan Thursday morning. I will still be really early so we may not see much, but what we will see is the beginning of the brand new life David and I now have. This is a great adventure!

Thought of the week?: Today I am absolutely humbled by this gift God has lavished on us. When Mark was here he asked if it would take a miracle for us to conceive a child. The answer? Yes, yes it would. I never really came clean on here about our medical diagnoses, so without going into too many details I was diagnosed with Endometriosis with a 4cm growth on my left ovary. The dr. suspects that the tube on that side is no good either. I was booked for a surgery in August to remove the growth and to explore the rest of my pelvic cavity.
The other ovary was covered in cysts, caused by Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I know women with only one of these conditions who never have children, or who are only able to conceive with the help of IVF. Furthermore we also have a male infertility factor. With only Endo our chances of conceiving in any given cycle is only about 7%, add the other things and well it really is a miracle!
So in the last six months David and I have followed strict diets, I lost 26 pounds, and we have been seeing a fertility specialist. Dr. V as we will call him did not have high hopes of any kind of success for us. During my first visit this cycle he already had planned what we would be doing the next SIX cycles after this one failed. We were sent for a blood test at the end of the treatment cycle to see if we had been successful. It came back negative. I think that Thursday that we heard that news was probably one of the worst days we have had in a very long time. We ended up having an argument about some random little thing, I think we were venting our frustration on each other.
By Friday we were still sad but had made peace with the fact that God’s timing was still not ours. By Saturday we were much better, we had decided to stop any further treatments until the surgery in August, we were at peace.
On Sunday I took a home pregnancy test on a whim. Positive. The test was positive. We could not believe it. I took four more. All positive. On Monday I went for blood tests and they came back positive. David and I were quite hesitant on Sunday. I think we just kind of ignored it. But when the dr texted with the blood test result we both cried and whooped. We will never forget that feeling, or that day.

I am not sure when I will post this on line. Our dr. told us not to get out hopes up, and that it may not last.

Update: Ten weeks today. Our dr. is more confident. I am categorized as high risk and have been off and on bed rest for the last few weeks. I am doing well, and so far the baby is on track. Hearing the heartbeat was the most beautiful sound in the world. I cried my eyes out both times. Being high risk we get a bunch of scans, so we have already seen the baby three times and heard the little heartbeat twice.

Please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this new journey. Every day I am overwhelmed by joy and gratitude, my eyes are rarely dry and tears of joy have over taken me. God is so good to us. Please pray for baby Echols to continue to grow strong and healthy, and for every little thing to continue to stay on track.  And for me to get over a bout of the flu that I have had since May, and to not worry so much about every little thing.