Noah's fro

Jer and I laughed so hard at this pic! I had just got Noah out of the bath and put his lotion in his hair and thought I'd see how high I could get his curls to stand up. :) Not sure when he'll need a haircut, but it could possibly be soon!

Birthday Boy!

Today is my sweet husband's 36th birthday! We went to church, then drove to our favorite restaurant, Little Italy, then took a nap, and are now playing Mario Kart wifi. Great day!

Happy birthday baby! Thanks for being such a wonderful husband and daddy!

And here is Noah Bear's cutie Valentines shirt my good friend Holli made him! I love it and he got so many compliments on it today! Thanks Holli!

Our Journey Complete........

So blogging and I are not buds-obviously. I love to read blogs, but just don't feel motivated to write on mine. My husband is doing some work at a recording studio--we are 3 hours from home and I am sitting in a hotel room all day and thought it would be a good time to update on our journey to be parents. I think the only people that might actually see this post are my friends that know our story anyway, but for the 1 or 2 that might not, here ya go:

Meet our son, Noah Samuel:

After 12 years of marriage and 6 years of drugs, surgeries, and treatments, we are finally parents. Our fertility clinic in Dallas wanted us to try IVF a 2nd time, but Jer and I just didn't feel peace about it and even though insurance would actually pay for the 2nd round, our hearts couldn't take another defeat. So we began pursuing adoption through Crisis Pregnancy Outreach in Tulsa (where my friend Krysta adopted from). But God still had other plans--at the end of September 2010, my friend Margo contacted me about a birthmom in Little Rock at a Christian women's home who was 31 weeks pregnant. We contacted the director and within days the birthmom picked us to parent her child. We met her a week later and fell in love.

We began going to C's doctor's appts and just building a relationship with her. I call her my little sister. She is the most precious woman and gave us a gift beyond any other! Our little Noah Bear was born November 23, 2010. We were in the delivery room and watched his arrival and I cut the cord. It was a day I will never forget.

Jer and I spent the next 24 hours after his birth with C and had a great time. She was so thankful to give us Noah and just wanted us to be happy. I cannot describe to you C's sacrificial heart.

There is so much more to the story, but like I said, most of you reading this have heard me tell it many times! If you want more details, I'd love to give them! Noah is our miracle and we are forever thankful and humbled.

Noah means "comfort; peace; rest" and Samuel means "for this child I prayed". Both of these names are so appropriate for our son. He has brought peace to a very stressful and depressing infertility journey. We know now why we experienced a chemical pregnancy, why we never conceived naturally, why we didn't adopt through CPO----this baby was the one to complete our family! I would always talk about not wanting to be different from other couples/families, but obviously God had very different plans for our life! We call Noah Bear our little Hershey Kiss! And he is PERFECT!!!! He is so happy, loves everyone, and started sleeping through the night the night I had to go back to school after my 9 week maternity leave. :) He sleeps around 11-12 hours a night! Yay!

Here are more pics. I'm not sure if I'll post again for 10 more months--we'll see!

3 month picture recap

Time for a little 3 month picture catch up of what's been going on in our life. Hopefully I won't bore you! :)

In January we celebrated our 11 year anniversary! Wow! Here we are at Mount Magazine State Park---we love to go there. It is the highest peak in Arkansas and so beautiful!
My hub was being silly--he doesn't like the camera!





On January 22 our 5th niece was born to Jer's brother Dan and his wife Jennifer. Eleanor Anne (Ellie). She is so beautiful and such a good baby!



We got lots of snow this winter season! Oliver still had to have his frisbee time with Daddy every day!




My husband has spent lots of time here: His new studio...this used to be our garage. It was finished in December and we are very proud of it.




In February I met up with Krysta and Kaden! He is such a sweetheart and I'm hoping I'll get to spend more time with them this summer!




At the end of February Kristy, Kim, and myself held a surprise baby diaper sprinkle at school in the music room for my good friend Holli...she didn't know what she was having so we had a pink table and a blue table and had everyone dress up (yes, we copied this off of all those gender reveal parties!!!) It was lots of fun and Holli had a sweet baby boy in March named Madox. He is beautiful and his 2 big brothers are so proud!




Polka Dot Party Bunco was at my house in March! Even Holli came with Madox, who was 6 days old!



Last Sunday we entered Oliver in Bark 4 Life, a dog show to raise money for the American Cancer Society. There were 17 dogs there and Oliver wanted to meet everyone! He was quite the handful!




BUT, he is such a charmer, and ended up winning 4 ribbons! 1st place for Friendliest, 2nd place for Cutest, 2nd place for Best Trick, and 3rd place for Best Retriever. We were SO PROUD!!! Jeremiah said to me on the way home, "This must be what it feels like to parents when their child does something good!"




Hopefully one of my next pictures will be of one of my best friends from college, Kara, and her new baby Sarah Corine. Kara is in labor RIGHT NOW and I'm so excited! This is their 1st child!

That's it! Happy Easter everyone! I'm so thankful for Jesus dying for ME and for YOU and for His unending love. I know I don't deserve it, but He accepts me and loves me just as I am. I pray my life is a reflection of His love and compassion.

I'm Baaaccckkk.............for 1 post at least!

Well, as you already know, I stink at blogging! I enjoy doing it, but can't seem to find the time and when I do have time, feel like my little life is so boring! I've started a post a couple times in the past 3 months, but then thought, "why does anyone want to read about this?" and canceled it. I do still read blogs every day on google reader at school!

Nothing is different in my life. No pregnancy, new job, new car, etc. Most days I'm totally fine with that, and then other days I'm as depressed as can be. To be perfectly honest, somedays reading blogs really depresses me. My husband and I have discussed it and he has asked me to stop reading so many infertility blogs as most of the women eventually get pregnant and then it reminds me once again that I am not and then I question what we've done wrong. Please don't misunderstand, those of you reading this who are pregnant or have children, that is awesome and God has truly blessed you! He has blessed me too, but not with a child yet and I still grieve about that. And somedays reading blogs makes me question if we aren't pursuing hard enough or praying hard enough, because other women achieve pregnancy, and we don't. We have not done IVF again and are not going to at this point--we believe that God is going to bless us another way and we are excited about that, but I still grieve for not carrying a child in my womb.

I started this blog to be an outlet for my struggles with infertility, but you know, when I talk about it and think about it too much, the depression is overwhelming. You that are still walking this rough road know exactly what I'm talking about. So......now you know one of the main reasons I don't blog much....I don't wanna depress myself or my few readers! With that said, here is what makes us happy right now!

Our baby Oliver! What a joy this little guy is!

And now for something else that makes me happy--dinner with Kristy and her Jeremiah and my Jeremiah!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM JEREMIAH, SUSAN, & OLIVER

My great friend Kristy took these for us for our Christmas cards---I guess I should have participated in the Christmas Card Carousel posts that happened last week, but I'm a little behind! Trying to get a very excited Boston Terrier to pose was NOT easy! But Kristy was very patient--unlike Mommy here!

Hallelujah!!!!!!!

No school for 17 days! Whoop whoop!!!!!!!!!