Happy New Year! Happy New Beginnings! Happy 2012!

I for one am so glad to see 2011 go!  I am looking forward to a fresh year of opportunities and beginning a new chapter of life!  

This time last year I wrote a list of New Year's Resolutions and posted them HERE.

I made a resolution to start my non-profit last year, and I DID!  I put my heart into Owl Love You Forever, and it feels so amazing that the organization is doing so well!  The feeling of checking a resolution off of my list is SO INCREDIBLY SATISFYING!  

However, if you are anything like me, you avoid making New Year's Resolutions.  Last year was my first year really writing them down and making a point to complete them.  I am a perfectionist and the idea of writing down a list of things, I say I will complete, is scary.  If I don't get to them all, or if I don't finish them with 100% effort, I feel like a complete failure.  Therefore, to avoid the feeling of failure I just never really like to make them.  

For the past four years I have had the same resolution.  I am pretty sure you all know what I am talking about, I want a happy, healthy baby!  Every New Year's Eve I try and picture myself celebrating the next Christmas, and I try with everything in me to see if Ferrari and I are holding our baby.  I try and picture what it will actually be like when we have a child on Christmas Day.  The emotions we will feel as we experience Christmas with the child we have been praying for and thinking about for the past few years.  I can get excited really quickly, and I have to reign myself back in because I don't want to be let down or feel like a failure yet again.  Well, I have come to the realization that my one resolution I have wanted more than anything, is one that is completely and utterly out of my control.   

If I can get myself to just focus on today, and the opportunities that are before me today; I can avoid those feelings of failure for things that don't come in the future and that are out of my hands.  What I can do is realize and understand that God has me where I am for a reason, and I may not understand it but I need to accept it.  He has entrusted me with my experiences and expects me to move forward with FAITH in Him and what He will do on my behalf.  

I have to constantly remind myself to change my perspective of life, and not focus on what I don't have but on what God has blessed me with.  This is not an easy feat, but if I can do it successfully, God provides me with a peace that is unimaginable unless you have received it.  My future is not in my hands, THANK GOODNESS.  He is 100% in control of what comes my way in 2012, and instead of getting down because I can't control it, I am excited!!  God never leads me where I expect, and going where He leads can be THE most EXCITING adventure ever!  

Look around you, where has God brought you in 2011?  Not what you expected?  Get excited about where He may take you in 2012! 

I challenge you to join me this year in waking up every day and asking God to use you.  This could quite possibly be the most scary New Year's Resolution, but it is one that will never leave you feeling like a failure.  

Lord, how can You use me today and every day this year?  

One Day...

I follow a fellow Baby Loss Momma over at Small Bird Studios. She is so inspiring and is always doing special things in honor of her little one in heaven, Jenna.  She prompted me this morning to sit down and write about something that I doubt I would have otherwise thought of myself.

If heaven could give back Arie and Hadilyn for just one day, what would that day look like?

When I read the prompt, I instantly got butterflies in my stomach.  What a sweet sweet day that would be!  I could just sob right now thinking of myself getting to hold my babies in my arms again!  I know I would just sit and stare at them for hours, memorizing every line and crease in their little hands and feet.  I would love to bathe them and dress them in matching clothes, and wrap them up in blankets that were sewn especially for them.  Good luck trying to hold them, because I know I would be selfish, and not want to let them go.  I would delight myself in the task of trying to carry around two infant car seats.  I would talk baby talk to them and make funny faces, trying my hardest to see which ones would crack a smile first! I would lay on the floor with them and read them stories.  I would feed them and giggle at what a giant mess two babies can make while eating.  I would sing them to sleep and watch over them until they woke.  I would take pictures, oh so so so many pictures!  I would probably just hire a photographer to catch every minute of it all!  I would want to do all the little things that mommies get to do, even including diaper changes.

This prompt has really made my desire to be a mom, burn more than it ever has.  When I truly sit back and picture what it would be like, even if only for a day, to provide and care and love on my children, I KNOW for a fact I am destined for this job!  I long for the day that I get to be the one that takes care of my baby and fulfills their earthly needs.  I know since the Lord has not removed the desire in my heart to be a mother, I need to wait patiently for His timing because one day my time WILL come.

Take DELIGHT in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; TRUST in Him and He will do this:  He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.  Be still before the Lord and wait PATIENTLY for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.  Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret-it leads only to evil.  For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who HOPE in the Lord will inherit the land. Psalm 37: 4-9

For those of you who have children, I urge you to consider if today was the last day on earth with your babies how would you spend the day?  Would you hold them tighter?  Have more patience with them when they act out?  The Lord has blessed you with them, and has entrusted you to take the best care of them while they are here on this earth.  Nothing breaks my heart more, than seeing a mom take for granted her opportunity of being a mother!  Children are miracles, no woman is guaranteed to have their own.  

For those woman who are still waiting for their chance to be a mom, consider that God has not removed that desire in your heart for a reason.  We may not know why He is having you wait so long for your turn, but try and remember that His plan and timing is perfect!  He may have bigger things waiting for you than you could have ever asked for or dreamed of!

Hope for the Holidays

     I am not quite sure how, but here I find that it's November AGAIN.  Seriously, where does the time go?  The goals and expectations I had for my infertility this year definitely didn't turn out the way I had HOPED, and yet some how I find myself beyond blessed in SO many other areas!  However, I do have some hopes for these upcoming holidays that I would like to share with you.
     It's no secret that the holiday season is especially hard on me and Ferrari, and probably for just about every other couple struggling with infertility or baby loss.  The hopes and dreams we have had for our children, the holiday cards we had planned to take, the special traditions I so desperately want them to be a part of; and that's just it, they remain hopes and dreams for some future holiday season.  My children are, instead, spending the holidays in heaven with a few of their cousins and LOTS of friends.  I am glad they have each other to share their holiday season with, but I am in a selfish mood and I wish they were spending it with me this year- just once!
     Naturally, Thanksgiving and Christmas are holidays that are really focused on the family.  Especially, when your extended family is HUGE and everyone is either pregnant or just had a baby, or has so many kids they are "done."  Nothing can bring me down faster than a room full of children dressed in their holiday best, because I want that SO SO SO bad.  I know this is God working on my heart to be content with what I DO have, but it still just plain hurts.  In the past, we have always showed up and tried our best to be happy and enjoy the time with our family, but I will be honest it is exhaustingly difficult.
     I am not writing this post to make my family and friends feel bad during the holiday season, and if I am offending you right now please know that is not my intention!!  I am writing it to ask you to just be a little more patient with me this year.  I apologize if I don't show up to your Christmas event, and I apologize if I am cranky.  It's that little bit of the Grinch attitude, I tried to kick out of my system last year, that creeps back in.  One of these years I will have this figured out, and I will possibly have to lend some extra patience to someone else, but the most important thing is to just be supportive.  Whether someone in your family is going through something like us, or maybe this is their first Christmas season without a friend or loved one.  The holidays are hard on a lot of people, and they usually suffer in silence. We never know everything someone is going through, so MY HOPE IS..... we can all be extra sensitive, because it can never hurt!
     Every December since Ferrari and I got married we have gotten pregnant, and every year we were given a due date in September but never made it.  That is 3 out of our 4 pregnancies!  Which is odd, and either coincidental or God has some thing interesting He will fill us in on later.  However, right now, I just can't take another pregnancy that follows the same path again.
     So, we are focusing on each other during these next couple months and Owl Love You Forever.

We have a huge event in the works for the evening of December 11!  

I can't wait to fill you all in, but for now, mark it on your calendar because you WILL want to be there!  

A Tale of Unwavering Faith

     Wow, it's been too long since I have posted.  Life got a little crazy lately, especially with our 2nd Box Party for Owl Love You Forever.  There was so much to prepare and organize, that everything else ended up on the back burner.  Then we took a family vacation to Disneyland with 15 members of Ferrari's family!  It was crazy and so much fun, but I returned home needing a vacation from my vacation :)  Running around theme parks with our nieces and nephews was so much fun, but definitely far from relaxing!
     We have been so blessed lately to receive exactly what we need to hear each week at church.  We recently finished a fantastic series on FAITH.  I got a big slap in the face each week, in a good way :)
The theme that continues to consume my thoughts is that God Has Us Right Where We Need To Be!
As painful as this "place" is, God wants us here.  Well, initially, this frustrated me beyond belief.  Why would my loving God want me to lose baby after baby after our path to get pregnant is so difficult and long?!? I still don't know the entire answer to that question, but I have learned HE wants me here no matter if I "get it" or not.
     These thoughts have crossed my mind... maybe He wants me to learn to have more patience, maybe He wants me to draw even closer to Him, maybe He wants my faith stronger, I don't know.  However, I do know He has me here because this is the perfect place for me right now! OUCH, still don't know how I feel about this.  I would really prefer to be on an easier path.  I want nothing more than to have my children, spend every waking moment with them, loving them, and teaching them about everything in this crazy world.  I have this HUGE desire to teach them about God and how to love others like He did.  Instead, I get to sit and watch friends and family raise their children, which just intensifies my feelings ten fold.
     What do you suppose He wants me to do during this waiting period.  Ignore anyone that's pregnant or has children? No, even though that road would probably be much easier.  He wants us to continue to live out our lives with FAITH that can't be broken.  He has us right where we are to show others PERSEVERANCE, unwavering FAITH, unending HOPE.  I have to stop focusing on this joyous place down the road, and instead plant my feet firmly on the path where He has me.  I can worship Him right where I'm at.  I'm not saying this is always easy, I am just saying I know its what we should be doing.  I have to conscientiously wake up in the morning and remind myself to think this way.  One day, I'm hoping it will become habit.  Until then, I will continue to strive to be "Joyful" right where I'm at.  This road may be darker or longer than the road I would prefer, but He still has me ON a path.  He trusts me enough to be right where I am, and I need to honor Him by continuing to help others along the way.  Together, we can travel this road together.  It is much easier to have others beside me than to be alone and focused on those ahead of me that have living children.

"Never say in your heart what you will or will not do, but wait until God reveals His way to you.  As long as that way is hidden, it is clear that there is no need of action and that He holds Himself accountable for all the results of keeping you exactly where you are selected. 

For God through ways we have not known, Will lead His Own."

-Streams in the Desert 

(One of my Absolute FAVORITE Devotionals)