Introductions!

Especially for all those who have been holding a special place in their hearts for Lina, long before we found her, I thought I would give you a little background- help you get to know her family a little better :)

Mike and I met in college- my freshman year, his senior year.  We both worked in the college bookstore, and his last day working there would end up being our first date!  He earned two degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science, and landed his first programming job right out of college.  I plugged away in my education courses, only to be surprised with an engagement ring halfway through my sophomore year!  I was totally surprised, and of course said yes, but made him wait until after I graduated before we would get married. ;)

engaged April 1995

I graduated in May of 1997, and we wed the very next month. :)  I was thankful to have two years to plan our wedding- plenty of time to make sure everything would be perfect.... and it was.

Look at those baby faces!!

After earning my degree in Early Childhood Education, I landed a teaching position at one of the schools where I student taught, teaching Pre-Kindergarten 5 half days a week.  I absolutely LOVED it!  Though I had wanted a full-time position at first, once we started thinking about starting a family, I did not want our child in daycare all day.  I wanted to keep my half-time position so I would have more time for baby.  About a year into our marriage, we decided it was time to start working on that family.   Little did I know the challenges we would face in order to make this happen.

Ten months passed by, and we finally conceived.  I was on cloud nine, but only for a few short weeks... for I lost the pregnancy at week 8.  I was DEVASTATED.  But, trying to look on the bright side, I was thankful that if I did have to lose the pregnancy, it happened early.  I was also relieved to know that we were able to conceive, so it should happen again.

Well, we tried... and we tried... and we tried... and it was becoming quite depressing.   After two more years of no luck, we moved on to a fertility center.  We were discussing adoption and foster parenting at this point also, but on our first attempt at IUI, we conceived Kaylin.  Praise God!!  I could tell from the very beginning that this pregnancy was different, and confident this baby would be in our arms making me a Mommy.

Kaylin's Baptism March 30, 2003

You can read Kaylin's birth story HERE.

Since it took us so long to conceive Kaylin, we figured we better "start" right away for another.  We went back to the fertility center when Kaylin was about a year and a half and thought it would be easy peasy since we conceived so quickly with them the first time.  Well that was silly of me to think!  After three failed attempts at IUI, we moved on to IVF, and thankfully conceived on our first try of the IVF.  Infertility treatments are no piece of cake- those were definitely some of the most trying months of my life both physically and emotionally.  But seven short months later (yes, Justin decided to enter the world quite early!), a tiny baby boy landed in our arms.  His birth story was quite the story FULL of drama- you can find it HERE.

Justin entered the world in June of 2005

When I became pregnant with Justin, I knew that would be my last year of teaching for a while.  Since I was only working half-time, just about my entire check was going towards Kaylin's child care.  It made no sense for me to actually lose money to keep two kids in child care.  This would begin my new career as a stay-at-home mommy. :)  It's funny... I remember when I was little, I would get laughed at for saying I wanted to be a mommy when I grew up, knowing I wanted to be at home with my kids just like my mom was home with us for our early years.  Then I entered middle school and thought maybe I could be a daycare mom- stay at home and still make money watching other people's kids.  High school came and I decided to become a teacher.  Well whaddaya know- I became a mommy after all! ;)

After all the stress with Justin's birth, we were fairly certain that we were finished conceiving.  We didn't want to risk having another preemie- chances are much higher after you've already had one.... and we didn't care to go through the fertility center again.  But after while, we kinda forgot about all the stressful stuff and wondered, "what if...."

We never really thought we would be able to conceive on our own, and I had already passed on all of our baby things.  Who would have thought several years later we would in fact conceive our third child!  I will never forget confronting Mike.... "Ummmm... honey?  I'm late..."

"Late for what?"  He's thinking an appointment?  A lunch date?  Where are you supposed to be??

"No.... I'm LATE."  Then the light bulb goes on!  OHHHH!!!  I waited to see how he would react, thinking he is going to FLIP out!!  But in fact, he was excited right away.  I couldn't believe it!  I waited a few more days to take a home pregnancy test- I absolutely dreaded using those things.... after so many years of infertility they became so incredibly depressing, seeing the negative result pop up.  But when I was fairly certain, I went ahead and took a test- positive right away!!  We were overjoyed, and the kids were ecstatic about a new baby on the way.  Kaylin had dreams of a baby sister, but was still excited when we found out at our ultrasound that it was indeed a boy.  All appeared fine- everything measured on track... my triple screen test came back with "normal" results as it had with my other two pregnancies.  We had absolutely NO idea what was in store for us when Evan entered the world. 

That extra little chromosome rocked our world when the doctor first told us his suspicions moments after Evan's birth, but the first moment I held him in my arms, the fears and worries started melting away.  By the time he was discharged from the hospital a week later, I was madly in love and in seventh heaven with this precious little one.  You can read Evan's birth story HERE. 

Backtracking just a little- our home had just three bedrooms before we conceived Evan, and we decided we would add an extra room over the garage to make room for baby.  Our contractor's architect recommended adding two rooms instead of just one, as it would be much easier with the floor plan.  So... Lina already has a room waiting for her!  :) Well, it's not ready yet... we had been thinking of turning it back into an office which is what it served as before Justin was born.  Now it will be decorated in all sorts of fun girly things instead. ;)  It just never ceases to amaze me how this all seemed to be part of God's plan.  <3