It Brought Me To My Knees...

As I alluded to in the last post, infertility affected Lauren and I in such different ways as individuals.  I’ll try to walk you through what we were both went through, but to be honest, I'm not sure I will ever be able to firmly grasp exactly what Lauren was feeling or dealing with.  My goal in this post is to start to give you a little insight about how infertility affected me as a man, a husband, and a hopeful soon-to-be father. Please forgive me if this post seems a little disjointed, this is by far the hardest post I have written so far and I’m finding it hard to accurately put all of our feelings into words.

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There was never any disagreement, Lauren & I have always wanted kids.  Though it may seem weird to some, we started talking about having kids someday while we were still just dating. We talked about how many kids we wanted, about having biological kids, and about adopting (more on this in a later post).  For us, it wasn't ever a question of if, just a question of when.

Like a typical guy, it took me a little longer to be ready for the kind of responsibility, that kind of life changing commitment that is required when you have a kid, but it wasn't ever due to a wavering of my desire. Lauren always viewed having kids as a blessing that she just didn't want to wait for any longer, but I had some trouble getting past asking myself, "How are we going to pay for this thing?" I think that the majority of this was bred out of the distinct roles that God has designed us to play as parents; Lauren, as the mother and nurturer, and me as the father, provider, and protector.  No difference in value or importance, just a difference in the roles we were made to fulfill. 

For better or for worse, when I thought about having kids, one of the first things that crept into my mind was the checklist of things we would need to provide for this kid.  Daycare, health insurance, diapers, formula, a nursery, a college savings plan...it seemed like an endless list to me. I knew we could do it, but selfishly, I also knew that our lives would change drastically and I wasn't quite ready...but knowing what I know now, it's hard for me to not feel a little bit of guilt about this decision.

I don't feel guilty for wanting to be prepared before we brought a life into this world, but I feel guilty for the pain that I feel like I unknowingly helped contribute to Lauren.  While I know that there wasn't anything that I could have done to prevent the struggles we went through due to the infertility (Lord knows I tried to come up with every possible solution), I just can't help to think that if I hadn't have needed so long to "be ready", maybe Lauren wouldn't have experienced so much of the daily pain I saw her go through in the months leading up to our pregnancy.  Maybe if I hadn't made her wait so long the struggle wouldn't have taken the toll that it eventually did.

Those of you that know me well know that I am the epitome of a "doer" personality.  I get a huge sense of satisfaction by being able to identify a problem and fix it.  I've always been this way and my self-reliance, while often a positive, normally is the single biggest attribute that causes strife in my daily walk with God.  I am way too quick to say "Don't worry, I've got this" instead of "God, let me give this over to you."  God has to constantly remind me that if I were left up to my abilities, I would come up severely lacking, and in a nut shell, that's why our battle with infertility was so hard on me.  Not because I was having to wait for something that I really wanted, but because I was completely powerless in the situation that surrounded me.  My wife, the person that I love most in this world, was in spiritual and emotional warfare unlike anything I had ever seen and there wasn't a single thing that I could "do" to make it better.  No action I could take, no words I could speak, nothing seemed to have an impact of any significance.  Though we were going through this together, we often felt alone and alienated because neither one of us could understand just how the other one felt. 

Let me back up a bit and fill you in on how we progressed to this point because I believe that understanding the journey will help you to better understand the struggle.  When Lauren & I first got married, we did the birth control thing for a little while, but were really never able to find a drug/dosage combination that worked for us.  Most of the ones we tried either made Lauren feel bad or affected her moods and personality pretty severely, so we decided that it wasn't worth Lauren's happiness (or mine for that matter, because "Happy wife, happy life", right!?!) to continue.  We decided at that point that we would just go about our business and if we got pregnant, then that was God's timing and we would rejoice and start to prepare to become parents.  

This continued for a couple of years without as much as a false alarm.  As a guy, I never thought twice about it, ignorance is bliss, but as a woman and a medical professional, this was the beginning of what was going to be a very long almost 3 and 1/2 years for Lauren.  We didn't actively start trying to have a baby until after we moved to Houston which was about 2 years after Lauren coming off of her birth control.  At that point, we held our breath every month in anticipation of a positive test, only to be met with disappointment time and time again.  The disappointment was hard for me, but I had no idea just how hard it was on Lauren.

For me, the struggle to have a baby didn’t begin until we actively began trying to have a baby.  I would always jokingly tell Lauren that up to then we were just practicing and I had never enjoyed practicing more!  But for Lauren, the struggle had started 2 years before that and had been slowly escalating every day since.  It breaks my heart to think that my wife had been hurting for years and I never had a clue. 

As the weeks turned to months and the months into years, Satan continued to subtly attack Lauren.  So much so, that the last few months before we got pregnant, Lauren was battling a serious case of depression and was at the point that she was beginning to lose her desire for motherhood.  Watching her battle this is absolutely the single hardest thing that I have ever done.  The depression completely transformed the woman I loved into someone that I didn't even recognize.  It tore me apart on the inside to be absolutely helpless in comforting my wife.  I did absolutely everything that I could think of to try to lighten Lauren’s load, but nothing seemed to help.  I had been praying for Lauren and our future baby for years, but I had never been brought to my knees to beg God like I was while Lauren was battling her depression.  I begged God to provide Lauren with some relief, to either help us to get pregnant or to change the desires of our hearts.  I knew He heard me, but I just couldn’t see relief in sight.

This time in our lives was incredibly difficult, but God never ceased to provide for us.  When we moved to Houston our first priority was to find a new church home.  We visited several amazing churches, but ended up choosing to join Houston’s First Baptist because of the community we found in our Life Bible Study class (it’ll always be “Sunday School” to me).  God knew that we needed community after moving so far away from family, but little did we know, he hadn’t just given us community, but he gave us the exact group of individuals that we would need to help up almost 2 years later.

We immediately got very involved in our class and joined a small group Bible study that met on Monday nights.  We hadn’t been attending but maybe a month when we noticed a trend in the prayer requests.  Out of maybe 5 or 6 couples, 3 of them were currently dealing with infertility.  Lauren and I prayed and prayed for each of these couples and rejoiced with them when they each had their precious little babies.  Little did we know that it wouldn’t be long before the roles were reversed and it was us asking these same couples to petition God in prayer on our behalf.

More next time…

In Him,

Chad

Taboo Or Not, Things Are About To Get Real...

First, let me apologize for the month long hiatus I’ve taken from posting.  It wasn’t really an intended break, but more a combination of life getting really busy and not quite being able to find the words to express this next part of the story.  The next part is probably the hardest to talk about, but as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, it’s the hardest parts of our stories that often have the most meaning and the biggest impact.  I’m going to attempt to tell our story to the best of my abilities and pray that God uses them to help someone else that may be going through something similar. 

Before we get to the tough stuff, I want to give everyone a quick update on Lauren and our precious little baby. 

 It’s a Boy!

Lauren is finally feeling much better and back to being more of herself again.  She still has some residual blurriness in her eye, but it is significantly better and to the point now that she doesn’t really notice it most of the time.  Praise God for this healing!  Lauren is still taking the blood thinner shots twice a day, but with no side effects and minimal bruising.  We are now at 23 weeks and little Graham has passed every test so far with flying colors.  We had the full anatomy scan a couple of weeks ago as well as an echo of Graham’s heart, both of which came back completely normal.  We appreciate your continued prayers for health for both Lauren and Graham!  Now for the main event.

When it comes to couples having a baby, there is one word above almost any other that for some reason is absolutely taboo to talk about, but that’s exactly what we’re going to do today.  Why?  Because it needs to be talked about…that and I kind of like to push boundaries. 

So what’s this incredibly awkward topic?  Infertility.  It’s not a four letter word, but it is often treated as such, if not worse.  You want to make someone uncomfortable at a dinner party?  Just comment that you and your spouse are struggling with infertility and you will have people running for the doors faster than if you started to do an interpretive dance to a Sarah McLachlan song.  But seriously, it is amazing how quickly people, regardless of how well they know you, will start to squirm and look for their exit when this conversation comes up.

I’m really not sure why infertility has become such of a taboo subject in our culture, but that’s probably not surprising to those of you who know me well because I really don’t shy away from talking about much.  I might not bring the topic up, but I’m rarely going to change it.  I’m also sure that the fact that I am a guy plays very heavily into my inability to understand.  As you’ll see through the next series of posts, I learned the hard way that issues of infertility attack and affect guys in an incredibly different way than they do you ladies.  I’m sure many of you are thinking to yourself, “Men and women are different!?!  Amazing conclusion Captain Obvious!” and you’re right, but you’ll just have to bear with me because I can be a little dense at times.

Approximately 1 out of every 8 couples of reproductive age will be diagnosed with infertility, so it is not at all uncommon, just rarely spoken about.  Infertility can take many forms and affects every couple differently.  About 40% of infertility cases can be attributed to male factors, 30% to female factors, and the remaining percentage to a combination of problems in both partners or other unexplained causes. The average couple, ages 29-33, only has  a 20-25% chance in any given month to conceive.  After 6 months, 60% of couples will have been able to successfully become pregnant without any form of medical assistance.  After one year of trying (or 6 months if the woman is over 35), a couple will officially be given the diagnosis of “infertility” and doctors, depending on their opinion on varying philosophies, will begin to start the process of running tests and/or prescribing medications. Source 

Notice that I always use the term “couple”.  I do so because infertility does not only affect one individual, but rather the couple as a whole.  Not only because it “Takes two to tango” if you catch my drift, but because that diagnosis formalizes a fear that has gradually been growing for several months and signals the beginning of an often long and torturous physical and emotional battle.  It will manifest itself differently, but it will affect you both, and if you let it, drive a wedge between you.  

After receiving the diagnosis, the coming days are a whirlwind of decisions and emotions, not to mention much doubt and fear.  Over the next few days and weeks, I’ll walk you through our journey, step-by-step, and let you have an inside view of what our struggle looked like.  As you read this, Lauren & I ask that you do two things.  First, say a little prayer for Lauren & I because telling our story makes us vulnerable and many of our wounds are still very fresh.  Secondly, please say a prayer for those couples that are battling infertility because it is so often a long, lonely journey that you probably will have no idea that they are on.  They likely won’t understand why things are working out the way that they are, so pray that God give them strength, peace, and patience.  Until next time…

In Him,

Chad

If you are wanting to know more about support for infertility, check out Focus On The Family, the Waiting in Hope ministry at our church, or you can watch a sermon covering the topic from Pastor Gregg Matte HERE. 

His Plans Are Better...Even If We Don't Understand.

(Note: For this post I'm going to change some names and details in order to protect some of the individuals that were involved and might not want me spreading their business over the internet for the entire world to read.)

Let me begin by apologizing for the delay in this post.  We had family in town to celebrate the baptism of our brother-in-law and family absolutely comes first with us...that, and I would be lying if I didn't admit that Tech football consumes at least 5 hours of my Saturdays every fall.  I'm also a little tardy because I have spent an extra amount of time on this post, writing and re-writing, trying to make sure that it was just right because it means so much to Lauren and I.  But enough teasing, on to the story...

One of the first events that really began to rock our world came right after the beginning of the new year. Lauren was eating lunch with a co-worker when a friend of the co-worker walked up and struck up a conversation. For the sake of this post, we'll call the co-worker's friend Susie.

Lauren and her co-worker asked Susie to join them, so after she got her food, Susie pulled up a chair and sat down.  Lauren didn't really know Susie, but had run into her from time to time with her co-worker and had always found her to be a sweet girl. As conversation progressed, Susie shared that she was pregnant and didn't think she could keep the baby. She explained that the pregnancy was a result of a fling and that the father was not the man that she was currently dating. Susie was scared to tell her boyfriend and felt that her best option would be to have an abortion. 

Obviously this came as quite a shock to Lauren.  She had definitely not anticipated having such an intense and meaningful conversation when she sat down for lunch that day. Susie told Lauren and the co-worker that she had already scheduled an appointment for the procedure, but that she had doubts because she grew up Catholic and she knew that her parents would disapprove.  

Lauren's heart immediately broke for Susie.  She began to comfort Susie and explain to her that she had numerous options other than just abortion. Lauren even offered to take the baby right there on the spot before she even told me what was going on; not that this was a problem. When Lauren texted me to tell me what happened, my first response, well before she got to the part of the story where she offered to take the baby, was "Tell her we will take the baby." God gave Lauren a heart for adoption in high school, and though it took me a lot longer to come around to the idea of adoption, we have always been on the same page when it comes to abortion.  We have discussed adopting ourselves and what that would look like, but that is a story for another day. 

As the days began to pass and Susie's appointment grew nearer, God continued to allow for Lauren and Susie's paths to cross.  Each time, Lauren would try to speak hope to Susie and let her know that she was not alone.  We bathed Susie and that precious little baby in prayer.  We asked our Life Bible Study (Sunday School class), our small group, and members of our church in Lubbock to join us in petitioning God to save that life. Those individuals asked their friends and church members to pray for this little baby.  People were literally praying for Susie and her unborn child all across the globe. 

At the time that this was happening, our small group was in the middle of going through the book, "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson.  In short, the book is about the power of prayer and how we should "pray circles" around important things in our lives, asking God to move and show us his will. Our entire small group decided that we would pray circles around Susie and this baby and beg God to move, beg him to show himself to Susie and help her find the strength to choose life. We prayed that He would change her heart, that she would keep this baby and raise it, but that if that was not an option, that she would allow it to be adopted by a family that would love and cherish it.

At the same time, Lauren and I were in the middle of our own Daniel Fast. This fast is based on the story in the book of Daniel where Daniel and three of his friends have been taken captive and brought to Babylon to undergo military training and education to become soldiers for the King.  They are offered choice foods as motivation, but Daniel and his friends choose not to defile themselves with unclean food and instead ask for only vegetables and water.  During this time, Daniel and his friends test out better in all categories than any of the other men eating all of the King's choice foods.  The idea for us was to deny ourselves of choice foods and use that time to pray and seek God's will and direction.  We just knew that God had urged us to take part in this fast at this time so that we could pray for Susie incessantly. 

For weeks we continued to pray for Susie.  It seemed like at least once a day I received a call, text, or email from someone either telling us that they had been praying or that they knew someone that had offered to take the baby if Susie decided that she could not raise it. It brought me to tears every time someone reached out to us. I could see God moving in his people and I could feel him moving in me. With the exception of Lauren, not a single person that was praying for Susie, including myself, had ever met her. There was no relationship or connection to her or her situation other than God moving to stir our hearts for Susie and her baby. 

I was certain that God was going to move in Susie's heart and that she was going to choose to keep her baby. My heart was absolutely filled with anticipation.  Every day when Lauren went to work I was hoping and praying that she would get to see Susie, speak wisdom to her, pray for her, and share God's grace and mercy with her.  I just knew that any day I would get the phone call when Lauren would tell me that we were going to be able to celebrate this answer to prayer in one form or another.

The clock was ticking though because the date of Susie's appointment at the abortion clinic was quickly approaching. Lauren was running into Susie more often than ever and continually trying to build her up, but Susie still hadn't made a decision on what she was going to do.  She had finally told her boyfriend that she was pregnant, but unfortunately, his response only reinforced Susie's fears.  He told her that the only way that they would be able to stay together was if she went through with the abortion.  This broke our hearts, but we knew that God could overcome this so we again reached out to our army of prayer warriors and lifted up Susie, her boyfriend, and the baby.  I was worried, but deep down, I knew God was going to save this baby.

The day before the appointment Lauren asked Susie to lunch in a last ditch effort to break through to her. Susie said "yes" but ended up having to cancel because her child was sick at daycare and needed to go home. We were so disheartened that Lauren wouldn't get another chance to talk to Susie, so Lauren wrote Susie a letter. She told her that God loves her and that Lauren would still be her friend regardless of her decision, but only she could make the decision to choose life for her baby. Lauren emailed the letter to Susie but wasn't sure if she read it.

The day of the appointment finally came and we still didn't know what Susie was going to do.  We continued to pray and beg God to move.  I received a text early that morning from the mother of two of the students that attended a Bible Study that we helped lead in Lubbock.  She told me that she had felt God nudging her to get up that morning well before 5AM to pray for Susie and her baby.  It was just one of so many notes I received that just showed me how God was moving in the hearts of his people.  

I was nervous and anxious all morning.  I must have texted Lauren a hundred times to see if she had heard whether or not Susie had decided to go through with the abortion or not.  Mid-morning, Lauren finally got word that Susie had decided to go through with the procedure. To say that we were broken doesn't even come close to describing how we felt.  I was flooded with emotion and doubt immediately began to creep inside my head.  

"Did I do something wrong? Did I not pray hard enough? Did I not pray the right way? Did I not have enough faith? Why Lord!?! I don't understand, that baby did nothing to deserve this, it was faultless."  

This is probably an indictment on my prayer life, but up until this point, I had never prayed so hard for something that did not directly affect me, especially something that I felt was so selfless and worthy of being answered. I didn't understand and Satan took the opportunity to try to attack in every way possible. I knew that God had a plan and that this was just probably one of those things that I would never understand on this side of Heaven, but my heart hurt.  It ached in a way that I had never experienced before and I didn't know how to reconcile it.  

The pain was amplified by the fact that Lauren and I were trying to have our own baby.  We hadn't really told anyone, but we both had the overwhelming desire to become parents; to be able to love, care for, and protect a little baby.  We didn't understand and this absolutely crushed both of us, but it affected Lauren in a way that I think only other women can understand.  Women are designed to be mothers, to nurture and protect babies, and though this hit me like a freight train, it impacted Lauren at a much different, deeper level that I couldn't even begin to understand.  

Anyone that even remotely knows me knows that I am a "doer" in every sense of the term.  I am very much a pick yourself up by the bootstraps, no time for whining, there's a problem so let's find a solution kind of guy, but this situation left me helpless.  There wasn't a single thing that I could "do" to fix it or to make myself or Lauren feel any better. All I knew to do was to change my prayer from "Dear Lord, please save that little baby" to "Dear Lord, please use this to glorify and further your Kingdom."

I wish that I could tell you that now, 9 months later, I understood what God's plan was. That in hindsight, the bigger picture was coming into focus and I now have it all figured out. That all you need to do is to just sit back and let me share with you the moral of the story...but I can't. I don't understand it any more today than I did the day it happened. 

This post has taken me twice as long to write as any other because I have to keep wiping the tears from my eyes. That baby was innocent and deserved a chance to live, but I take refuge in knowing that he or she is now in Heaven, rejoicing with Jesus, and never had to experience the pain and brokenness of this world. That baby was loved and bathed in prayer for its entire life, and to me, it doesn't get much more beautiful than that.  

I don't understand and that's OK. I don't understand, but His plans are better. I don't understand, but I can tell you that God has already used this experience to prepare us for the future...but that's a story for another day.  

In Him,

Chad

You know what the news is -- in a minute, you're going to know the rest of the story...

Growing up, one of my favorite things to hear on the radio when I was riding around with my parents was Paul Harvey's, "The Rest of The Story".  I was always loved hearing the back story to famous events or how some common household item was actually invented by mistake.  I was always fascinated to learn the "why" behind the "what".  This post is going to attempt to start to tell our "Rest of the Story".

For more about the "Rest of the Story" including some audio of Paul Harvey's more famous segments, click here.

Over the last few days Lauren & I have used this blog to tell you about what has been going on in our lives recently, both the joys and some of the struggles.  We decided to do so in order to first and foremost, show God's faithfulness and provision, but also to hopefully provide some strength for others that are going through some of the same things we did and maybe tackle a couple topics that for some reason seem to be taboo in today's society. 

There's no way that I can tell the entire story today, so I'm going to try to start at what I believe to be the beginning, the real reason "why" 2015 has proven to be, in many ways, our toughest year of yet. 

When Lauren and I moved to Houston, one of our first priorities was to find a new church home. After visiting several great churches, we really felt called to join Houston's First Baptist Church.  We were a little worried at first about joining a church of that size, but we very quickly got involved in a Life Bible Study (it will always be "Sunday School" to me) and small group which helped make us feel at home.  We feel absolutely blessed to be apart of such an amazing church body, one that is incredibly externally focused (more than 60% of its' budget goes outside the walls of the church) and dedicated to living out the Gospel.  I could go own for days about how God is moving in that church, but let me move on to how it affects this part of our story. 

We were approached in late 2014 by the directors of our Life Bible Study and asked if we would be willing to step into a leadership positions and fill in for them while they were out after the birth of their first child.  Lauren and I excitedly agreed and began preparing to take on the new responsibilities. (Well, maybe I was a little more gung ho about it because part of the job required me to get in front of the entire class each week to speak and everyone knows how much I just HATE to be in front of a crowd!) 

We felt that God was calling us to serve and so we wanted to be faithful in answering that call.  Little did we know that this decision was going to have a much greater impact on our lives than we ever could have dreamed. Many may disagree, and that's OK, but I am a firm believer that when you make a decision to step out and lead, you are going to face challenges and attacks because of it.  This applies in every facet of life, but no more so than when you choose to lead others spiritually.  I believe with all of my heart that if you are working to see the advance of the Kingdom, Satan will actively work against you to prevent you from being successful.  This is not a blanket statement that covers the entirety of "bad things" that happen to people in an effort to relieve ourselves of blame or responsibility for our sin, but simply an observation made over time and one that I believe is Biblical. I can't say that everything that has happened to Lauren and I over the last two years is directly related to this decision, because in truth it is probably not, but I do believe that it had an impact.  

More on this and the other crazy events that we went through tomorrow...

In Him,

Chad

Draft Day...

If you read yesterday's post, we left off with Lauren having been diagnosed with a retinal artery occlusion.  Her ophthalmologist had determined that a microclot got stuck in a tiny artery causing her to have a mini-stroke in her left eye and resulting in some blurriness of vision. Though we now knew what had happened, we still didn't know why it had happened or if there was a chance for it to happen again.  Our next move was to assemble a team of doctors to get down to the nitty gritty and find a diagnosis.

In case you don't get the "Nitty Gritty" reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdCQjfN2CE

The next few days I kind of felt like I was a General Manager for an NFL team and it was draft day. With the help of Dr. Hilgers (the OB), we had to go about finding a cardiologist, a neurologist, and a maternal fetal medicine specialist (I didn't even know that this specialty existed before this) to join our team and figure out what the source of Lauren's problems were.  This process turned into quite the ordeal.  Not only did we have to find doctors that would accept our insurance, but then we had to get each doctor to sign off and actually accept Lauren as a patient.  This meant that each doctor wanted to review Lauren's medical records before they would accept her as a patient.

At first we didn't think this would be a big deal because each doctor said that they would request the records, review them, and then get back to us, but as any of you that have dealt with this type of situation before might have guessed, records never were sent and therefore never reviewed. We ended up having to round up all of the records ourselves in order to get them to the appropriate places.  Once this was done, then the waiting game began.  This in itself was rather frustrating because we still didn't know if Lauren was at risk of throwing another clot.  We figured that the records review would just be a formality, but that turned out to not be the case.  For whatever reason, we actually had a couple doctors deny her as a patient which meant that we had to start the entire process over again.

It ended up taking almost a month to finally get Lauren in to see all of the different specialists.  Each specialist ran their own battery of tests to try to nail down the ultimate cause of all of Lauren's problems.  This post would never end if I went through explaining all of the test that Lauren had to undergo so I'll just fast forward to the diagnosis.

If you remember from yesterday's post, I told you that Dr. Chang, the ophthalmologist, actually diagnosed Lauren over the phone the day of the stroke.  Of course, at the time we had no way of knowing if it was an accurate diagnosis, but it ended up that he was right all along.  Lauren was diagnosed with a large grade PFO (Patent Ovale Foramen).  In short, a PFO is a small hole in the heart that didn't close the way it should after birth.  It's actually fairly common, about 20% of the population has them and just never know it.  PFOs very rarely cause any problems, but unfortunately for Lauren, a complication arises. The combination of a large grade PFO and the increased blood volume/hyper-coagulation from being pregnant ended up to be the perfect recipe for a much more eventful pregnancy than we would have hoped for.

The doctors believe that the microclot was produced as a byproduct of all of the changes going on in Lauren's body due to the pregnancy.  Instead of continuing through the venous system to the lungs where it could get filtered out, the clot then got very sneaky, sneaky and snuck through the PFO into Lauren's arterial system where it eventually made its way to her eye.  Because the PFO was considered to be large grade, the neurologist decided to change Lauren from the aspirin therapy to a drug called Lovenox.

The positive to changing over to Lovenox is that it does not cross the placenta so there is no risk of it affecting the baby in anyway.  But as seems to be par for this course, with every positive comes a couple negatives.  Lovenox can only be taken as an injection so Lauren now has to give herself a shot twice a day until 6 weeks after the baby is born.  Needless to say, she wasn't too thrilled about having to inject herself almost 400 times and I can't blame her.  The other negative is that Lovenox can really complicate the delivery process because it is a blood thinner.  Unless Lauren is able to get off the drug at least 24 hours before the delivery, she will not have the option of an epidural and any type of c-section could prove to be troublesome as well.  (I'm now trying to figure out a way to get the baby to call ahead and make a reservation so that Lauren can stop the Lovenox 24 hours in advance. Right now the leading idea in the clubhouse is to teach the baby Morse Code so that he/she can send us a series of kicks 24 hours before his/her planned appearance.  All suggestions are welcome...)

I need to wrap up this post because it's getting long and I want you all to keep coming back, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out one of the major ways that God has provided throughout this process.  We are absolutely positive that God has placed each of our doctors in our lives for a specific reason.  Both Lauren's OB and ophthalmologist ended up being very strong Christians that have not only have provided top notch care, but have committed to praying for us as well.  That commitment means more to us than anything that either of them could ever do medically.

You'll also remember the saga I described of trying to get doctors to accept Lauren as a patient.  All of the doctors that refused Lauren as a patient happened to be neurologists.  Looking back, I now know that this was God working to get us with the right doctor.  The neurologist that we finally ended up seeing actually is in the middle of doing research over PFOs and their long-term effects. Think about that for a second.  A neurologist, a doctor that focuses on the brain, is doing research on a defect in the heart.  More specifically, he is doing research on how clots passing through PFOs can cause strokes.  We could not have found a more perfect doctor for Lauren and his research has already affected changes in how Lauren is being treated.  He is absolutely a Godsend and we are so thankful that we were able to draft him to our team.  More tomorrow...

In Him,
Chad

And Then Things Got Weird...

In case you didn't read the last post, let me start with this:  Both Lauren and the baby are doing great. Other than some continued nausea and fatigue, things are under control, but that unfortunately hasn't been the case for the entirety of the pregnancy.  Let me explain.

Everything started off smoothly, with the major exception of a wicked case of morning sickness, until we hit week 8.  It was Thursday of that week and Lauren was at work charting when she started to feel some very mild discomfort in her eye.  She also started to notice some blurriness in the vision in her left eye, but she chalked it up to just being tired.  Those of you that know Lauren well are quite familiar with her need for a substantial amount of sleep, so add pregnancy to the equation and you can understand why she might be more than just a little groggy.

It wasn't until she met me for dinner that night that we began to think that something might be wrong. She was telling me about her day and mentioned her eye.  As she described the blurriness of vision in that eye, something didn't seem right to me.  Luckily, our optometrist Dr. Thomas, is open late on Thursdays, so I suggested we run by and see if she could take a look at Lauren's eye.  Dr. Thomas was able to squeeze Lauren in, did an exam, and took some photos of her eye. That's when realized that things were about to get weird.

The photos (see below) showed that the blurriness in Lauren's vision was due to a retinal artery occlusion. Basically, Lauren had a microclot that caused her to suffer a small stroke in her eye.  The clot blocked one of the arteries in her eye, preventing blood flow, and resulting in the blurred vision. Luckily, the stroke did not involve her optic nerve or central vision, though it came very, very close. The clot actually got stuck half way between the two.  Had it affected either one of those Lauren could have lost most, if not all of her vision in that eye.

Dr. Thomas was obviously concerned because a healthy 27-year-old should not be throwing clots at all, but certainly shouldn't have those clots passing into the arterial system where they could cause strokes.  We were now on a mission to figure out what happened and if there was a more serious issue that we needed to address.  We knew that the most likely cause of the clot was the pregnancy itself because the blood volume during pregnancy increases dramatically and becomes hyper-coagulable (clots very easy), but we didn't know how that clot got into the arteries.  (Normally clots are filtered out by the lungs as they travel through the venous system before they can get to the heart to be recirculated.)

Before we could set out on our fact-finding mission, we needed to enlist some expertise to try to make sure that no further damage would be done to Lauren's eye. Dr. Thomas called an ophthalmologist that she typically refers to on his cell phone.  We were quite impressed when Dr. Chang answered and consulted with us over the phone well after normal business hours.  Little did we know at the time, but he actually diagnosed the underlying cause of the problem that night . . . over the phone . . . without ever seeing Lauren.  (More about the diagnosis in a later post, we've got a lot to cover before we get there!)

We set up an appointment to see him the following Monday and then headed home.  Lauren wasn't in any pain or real discomfort, she just had the annoyance of the big blurry spot in part of her vision. After we got home and got to talking about the clot, we started connecting some dots that got us a little concerned.  Dr. Chang had told us that the clot had most likely passed through Lauren's entire system without issue and only got stuck in the eye because the arteries there were finally too tiny for the clot to pass through.  This concerned us because, in our estimation, if there were any other places in Lauren's body that were going to have tiny little arteries, it was going to be inside an 8-week old baby.  At the time, we still didn't know if the clot was going to be a one time fluke of an incident or if there were going to be more clots, so we decided we definitely needed to contact her OB first thing Friday morning.

Lauren was able to see both Dr. Chang and her OB, Dr. Hilgers, on Monday.  Dr. Chang told Lauren that he believed she would regain at least some, but hopefully all of her vision.  Both doctors agreed that Lauren needed to start an aspirin regiment in order to thin her blood and try to help prevent any further clots.  Neither doctor was able to pinpoint why the clot happened or how it passed into Lauren's arteries, so a battery of tests were ordered and referrals were handed out.  Little did we know that in the next three months we would become intimately familiar with Houston's Med Center...more about that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and God bless.

-Chad

Let's Start With The Good...

I kind of teased everyone the other day with my post previewing Lauren & I's story over the last two years. I mentioned that it has been a roller coaster of emotions and we have so much to share, but since I have always been a glass half-full kind of guy, let's start with the good...

As many of you likely saw, we were able to announce that we are expecting a baby in late February.

We are absolutely thrilled that we are going to become parents!  This little baby is an answer to many prayers and is already so loved.  Parenthood is sure to be quite the roller coaster, but we are so excited to continue on this journey, a journey that has already taken a much longer, more difficult path than either of us ever imagined.

Mom and baby are doing fine, but it has definitely been an extremely interesting journey. Lauren is 17 weeks now and slowly starting to feel better, but she would definitely appreciate it if someone would inform the baby that he/she is not supposed to be making her sick anymore now that they are in the 2nd trimester!  Right now we are eagerly awaiting our 20 week appointment so that we can find out whether we are going to have a boy or a girl. Those of you that know me well know that patience is not one of the gifts I was given an abundance of so the last few weeks have been increasingly hard for me.  I've felt like a toddler waiting for Christmas only to be told we still haven't had Thanksgiving yet!  Neither Lauren or I have a preference of a boy or girl, we just continue to pray for a healthy baby and that God will use that baby to do amazing things for His Kingdom.

But come on, think about it, a miniature Chad (even more miniature than the original version), how adorable would that be!?!

  

We are very thankful that, as of right now, morning sickness and fatigue are they only things that we have to worry about because we have been on quite the ride so far.  Though it has been a whirlwind, God has continued to be faithful and show us His provision.  More about that tomorrow...

Thanks for reading!

-Chad  

For everything there is a season . . .

As most of you know, we moved to Houston a little over two years ago. With the craziness of the move, new jobs, a new church, etc., we have admittedly been slacking on the blogging front since then, but it is time for us to get back with the program because we have a lot of life to share with you in the days, weeks, and months to come. 

Looking back over all that has happened the last two years, I can't help but to be reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: 

"For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven. 

A time to be born and a time to die.

    A time to plant and a time to harvest.

A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.

A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace."

The last two years have shown us every season; good and bad, joy and heartache. We've rejoiced as new life has entered this world and wept as death took loved ones from us. We've shared lots of laughter with both new and old friends and we've shed tears at times when it seemed the world around us was crumbling. Overall, it has been a season of growth that has drawn Lauren & I closer together as a couple and closer to God. These updates have been a long time coming and I look forward to sharing them with you over the next few days. 

Our church just recently finished a sermon series entitled "Share Your Story...". During one of his sermons, our Pastor told us that God has given each of us a story to share and that though we often don't want to share the bad, it's the part of our story that we find hardest to talk about that will likely have the biggest impact on others. That is our goal with the upcoming series of posts. We want you to join us as we rejoice and celebrate the good and as we reflect and continue to try to heal from the pain that life often inflicts. Our hope is that God will be able to use the trials that we have walked through to bless others around us.  

As we share our story, we ask two things of those of you that might read some or all of these posts.  First, please don't ever read any of our words as a "Woe is me" post or a search for attention. As always, God has been more than faithful to take care of us in every situation and we only hope that through telling our story, we might be able to provide hope to someone that might be experiencing some of the same things that we did. We also know that though what we went through at times over the last few years was incredibly difficult for us, it pales in comparison to what so many other people are dealing with on a daily basis through out the world. Second, we ask that if anything you read touches you, strikes a nerve, or you find yourself walking through anything similar, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We would love to be able to talk to you, pray for you, and show you how God provided for us in our time of need.  

To Be Continued...

-Chad