Little Happies -- Joyful Pictures

As I mentioned back in my first-ever Quick Takes post, this week's Little Happies theme is Joyful Pictures! I've actually had quite the trip down memory lane looking through thousands of old pictures. What a blast! I've picked out 20 of my all time favorites, though I could have shared about a hundred more. I'll stick with these 20 for now and hope you're not too overwhelmed. Enjoy! And perhaps you'll join in too? :)

--one --

A good friend of ours took our engagement photos for free! Here's one of our absolute favorites. John was actually whispering something inappropriate into my ear, though I can't remember what. It ended up making for a good picture, so I can't be too mad at him. I feel like we look like babies in this picture, by the way, and it was only 3.5 years ago.

-- two --

John did a one month rotation in Antigua, Guatemala during his residency, which was awesome, especially because I got to join him down there for a week. This was, by far, the best mojito I've ever had in my entire life. Just look at the amount of sugar on that rim! Guatemalans sure know how to make 'em right. 

-- three --

I snapped this little pic on my last day in Antigua. Some little kid accidentally let go of his balloons and they drifted farrr far away, past the tall Cathedral, up into the cloudless sky. I just think those tiny, colorful balloons look so cute and beautiful up there. Bye bye, balloons.

-- four --

My mom (on the left) LOVES Nascar. So when my parents visited Johnson City to meet John's parents (on the right) for the first time, we just HAD to go to the Bristol Motor Speedway for my mom. That's what you see in the background here. But my favorite part of this picture is how it brought our two families together. It was a fantastic trip. 

-- five -- 

This one will forever make me giggle. John accidentally shrunk his favorite (wool) sweater in the dryer.   So, of course, I made him put it on. And pose for a picture.

-- six --

Every one of our wedding photos brings me great joy. But this one stands out the most. I know I've posted it on here before, but it's worth including in this Joyful Pictures post. Our wedding photographer (my older brother) captured such a great moment here -- us walking down the aisle together, excitedly smiling at all of our happy guests, officially married. We love it. 

-- seven --

And another from our wedding -- John's mom on the left, my mom on the right, presenting the gifts together. I love that they're smiling at each other and I love the colors of their dresses together. Another happy wedding moment successfully captured. Thanks, brother!

-- eight --

On our honeymoon in Aruba! We went on a sunset cruise, and boy, that sunset did NOT disappoint!

-- nine --

I got to sit in a DeLorean! The Back to the Future trilogy is one of my all-time favorites, so this was a very exciting night for me.

-- ten --

I give you: when John drank coffee for the first time. We went to Starbucks and John said to the barista, "I don't really like coffee, but I need some caffeine for my upcoming overnight shift in the hospital. What do you recommend?" The barista responded by making this HUGE, sugary, creamy coffee concoction. And he gave it to him for free! John really enjoyed it and had absolutely no trouble staying up that night, obviously. 

-- eleven --

And now a picture of me drinking something fun. Have you ever had bubble tea? It's a Taiwanese tea-based drink made with a flavored tea and large tapioca balls. That's what you see sitting at the bottom of my drink. Sure, it's a little weird at first, but you get used to it. And now I actually really like the extra chewy texture the tapioca balls add to my tea drinking experience. Yum! 

-- twelve -- 

I'm proud of taking this picture, mainly because the colors are so pretty. Love fall foliage! 

 -- thirteen --

Siblings!! My sister had a photobooth at her wedding reception, so of course all of us sibz had to get together for some fun photobooth pics. Up top we're being all classy, but the bottom pic is where our real personalities come out. Love these goobers.

-- fourteen --

Another photobooth picture from my sister's wedding -- my grandma being ridiculous. We call her Memere. She's a trouble maker. And we love her dearly.

-- fifteen --

Chilling with my niece, Lindsey, and a whole buncha New England lobsters. They were tasty. Is it weird that we played with them before we boiled and ate them?

-- sixteen --

I LOVE getting henna tattoos. Once a year, Memphis hosts an India Festival and there I always treat myself to some sort of (temporary) skin art. It just makes me feel special for the few weeks it stays on. I'm definitely not the permanent tattoo type, so henna is perfect for me. Oh, and pay no attention to the emo face behind the hand -- I was being a goof.

-- seventeen --

John and I learned how to make our own pottery!! Ok, so we're no experts. We took one class and needed a lot of guidance through the whole thing. But it was fun, we smiled lots, and now we have about 5 bowls in our cupboard made by us. Sure, they might be lopsided, but they were made with love and that's what counts! Right? 

-- eighteen --

There are some extra-nerdy board games I just won't play with John. This is one of them. It's called Talisman. SO NERDY. One night he wanted to play so bad, he just decided to play against our stuffed animals. He would take a turn, then he'd walk over to one of the stuffed animals and play for them, then switch to the next one, and so on. It was hilarious. I felt like I was watching a toddler play make believe with his toys. At least he was having fun!

-- nineteen --

We hiked to this waterfall. Then I took this pretty picture. I wish I could just take you there with me. You'd just love it. 

-- twenty --

Nearing Christmas, dressed to impress, about to see to the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, happy to be together. It doesn't get much better than that! 

Thanks for reading along!! I can't wait to see your joyful pictures! Or if you'd rather just do a regular Little Happies this week, I'd love to see that too! 

Have a happy Monday, everyone!

An InLinkz Link-up

My First Quick Takes!

-- one --

our little Nashville getaway

I love going to the symphony. So when I found out one of my all-time favorite musicians, piano pop expert Ben Folds, was writing and performing his own piano concerto at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, I just HAD to get tickets. And we just HAD to go. So a few weeks ago, we made a quick trip out of it and had an absolute blast. Nashville's a fun town on its own, but mix in some seriously talented classical musicians, and of course, a trip to Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, and it was just a killer getaway. My favorite part of Ben Folds's concerto was when the whole orchestra took out their cell phones and played their ringtones all at the same time. It actually sounded really pretty! Kudos to Ben for thinking outside the box on that one. And to the musicians for playing along.



-- two --

Airbnb.com

Still related to our Nashville getaway, I wanted to mentione the awesomeness that was our Bed & Breakfast for the weekend. Have you heard of airbnb.com yet? If not, you need to check it out, pronto. Especially if you love traveling, especially if you are bored of hotels, and especially if you're up for an adventure.

Airbnb is basically an online marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accomodations around the world. (Yep, stole that line directly from their website.) So, for example, the house we stayed in during our Nashville trip was owned by a nice couple with a cute kid; they rent out 3 bedrooms in their house to folks just like us and charge us a fair price for the night. The pic above is of John hanging out at the breakfast table in their beautiful home (the wife was an interior decorator). We had a fantastic time staying at their place. Getting to know new people and staying in a part of town that isn't really touristy made for a great adventure. We'd totally stay there again.

We also used airbnb.com one other time during a trip to New Orleans. There, a nice couple owned 4 apartments that they rented out exclusively on airbnb.com, so we got a whole apartment to ourselves for that weekend! Again, a great experience and we'd totally stay there again.

I know you're worried a little about safety and such. And that's ok. I get that. But I'm here to tell you that the whole site is super regulated and super safe. So check it out! And let me know if you end up going on any awesome airbnb.com adventures.

-- three --

a ridiculously awesome youth group fundraiser

We've got some great priests at our parish. How great, you ask? I'll tell you how great! They're SO great, they've all agreed to participate in a fun little youth group fundraiser I'm calling "Turn A Priest Into An Ice Cream Sundae." Sound ridiculously awesome yet?

Last weekend, I sat out after all the Masses with a group of teens and we asked the parishioners to make donations into the bucket of the priest they'd like to see turned into a sundae. And boy did they! We've raised so much already! And the priest who's currently in the lead, AKA the one who's going to become all sundae-i-fied, is in the lead by over $200! The main event will be tonight at our parish's fish fry. Can't wait to see which priest we'll be covering in fudge, nuts, bananas, gummies, caramel, oreos, whipped cream, cherries. Gosh, they're good sports!

-- four --

Candlelight Stations of the Cross

Speaking of the youth group, we're presenting a Candlelight Stations of the Cross in a few weeks that is going to be heartbreakingly beautiful. Normally we do a living stations, but I thought it would be nice (and a little less cheesy -- no kids wrapped in bed sheets this year) to represent the stations in an even more meaningful and spiritual way. The night will include gorgeous live music, wonderful spoken reflections for each station, and thoughtful prayer, while the whole church is only lit by candlelight. That striking poster of Jesus you see above will be the only visual for the evening. After each station, we'll sing a verse of "Were You There?" and then blow out one of twelve candles. After the 12th station, when Jesus dies, we'll blow out the last candle and the church will be in complete darkness. It's going to be so powerful.

I must give a shout out to youth minister Scott Anthony for inpiring me and writing the script for the whole evening.

-- five --

Empowered to Connect

We still need to attend a few adoption classes to be completely approved to adopt. When we mentioned this to our new agency, the director recommended checking out the Empowered to Connect website. Much to our surprise, we found they were hosting a conference in St. Louis next weekend! So we're headed to St. Louis (using airbnb.com again for our accomodations) and we're pumped about what we're about to learn! According to the website, "This two-day conference is designed to help adoptive and foster parents, ministry leaders and professionals better understand how to connect with 'children from hard places' in order to help them heal and become all that God desires for them to be." Sounds perfect to me!

And yes, I'll be sure to write a "My Life was Changed Because of This Conference" review once we return. Promise.

-- six --

Jesus Christ Superstar

I think I've mentioned this before, but my husband's parents bought us season tickets to Theatre Memphis for my birthday back in December! We snagged two tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar using those sweet season tickets they bought us and now I'm pumped because the show's this Saturday! I've always loved this musical -- not because it's incredibly accurate, because it's not. But it is very entertaining. The music is wonderful and the approach is interesting. Many folks say it's like the gospel according to Judas. And I agree, it's definitely the whole story through his eyes. Can't wait to see this live! And so soon!

-- seven --

a Little Happies heads-up

Am I allowed to mention my own link-up in someone else's link-up? What is proper link-up etiquette?!

Our Monday Little Happies link-up has now been up and running for four weeks. Weeeeee! I love reading all of your happies, especially on drab old Mondays. They just cheer me right up! So thank you for that. Thanks for supporting my little link-up idea. It's really been great fun so far!

The reason I mention it here and now in someone else's link-up is as a heads up! This Monday, my Little Happies are going to have a theme -- joyful pictures! I'm going through all my old iPhoto albums to find my top favorite pictures (that I've taken or been in) that bring me joy when I see them. And, of course, I'll be telling sweet stories to go along with each one. I figured I'd throw this out there in advance in case any of you were inspired to do the same with your Little Happies this coming Monday. You can certainly still do a regular Little Happies list if that's what you're feeling. But you're also very welcome to make it a Joyful Pictures Edition along with me. :)

Like what you read? Then head on over to Jen's Conversion Diary for even better Quick Takes from even cooler people!

Stephanie's Recipes: Sriracha Deviled Eggs

Now that you have a hard boiled egg obsession, it's time to get you hooked on something else... SRIRACHA!

Never heard of Sriracha before? Sriracha (AKA Rooster Sauce, because of the rooster on the bottle), is spicy, sweet, salty, and tangy all in one. Delicious! We'll typically put it over scrambled eggs or sushi or chili. It complements so many flavors, so it's great to have around. But be careful! A little bit goes a long way. This stuff is HOT!

Because of our great love of Sriracha, I bought us a copy of The Sriracha Cookbook a few years back. If you're a lover of the sauce, it's a lovely cookbook. One of the recipes that instantly stood out was this recipe for Sriracha deviled eggs.

I made them late one night when I was hankering for some extra protein and I was instantly sold. Sriracha is MADE for this combo. Mixing the Sriracha with the yolks from the eggs and the mayonnaise really cools it down a bit. I was expecting for the outcome to be wooooooah spicy, but they really weren't at all. Seriously! There was barely a hint of spicy! Instead, the other Sriracha flavors -- salty, sweet, and tangy -- really stood out. And in the best way possible.

I've made these about a dozen times since, and they always satisfy. Sometimes I'll just make two eggs (four deviled egg halves) for a lunchtime snack. Eggy perfection.

Imagine how popular you'll be when you bring a batch of these to your next party. "Mmmm! What is IN these? They're amazing! So unique! So tasty! So eggs-quisite! I've GOT TO get this recipe!" At this point you can decide whether to keep it as a top secret recipe or share, share away. I won't judge!

Not to mention, aren't these colors just so prrrrettttyyyy?

Sriracha Deviled Eggs

Ingredients
12 hard boiled eggs
2 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce
2 tbsp dijon mustard
6 tbsp mayonnaise
2-3 green onions, chopped

Directions
Hard boil your eggs using this easy recipe.

Peel your eggs. Carefully cut the eggs in half (I'm horrible at this part). Separate the yolks from the whites and put all the yokes in a big mixing bowl.

Break up the yolks with a fork. Then combine yolks, Sriracha, dijon mustard, and mayonnaise.

Spoon the yolk mixture back into the egg whites. Top with green onions.

Adapted from Randy Clemens's recipe in The Sriracha Cookbook.

Stephanie's Recipes: How to Bake Your Hard "Boiled" Eggs

Egg-cellent.

I stink at hard boiling eggs. Always have, always will. And it's because the directions I read are never well defined. "Wait 'til the water boils, toss in some vinegar, then let it simmer for a bit, and then turn it off and do three summersaults while they continue cooking."

Ok, so I kid a little. BUT, what exactly is meant by boiling? Is it a rolling boil? I know what that looks like. Or is it when those itty bitty bubbles start rising up to the top of water? I know that that looks like too. But there's quite a big difference between the two. Or how about the simmer? How low do they want my simmer to go? It's so confusing! And I never know what's exactly right, so making my favorite eggs just always ends up with me having full on anxiety and lots of eggs with stinky brown/green yolks. Yuck!

But then my life was forever changed when I realized I could BAKE the eggs in the oven and get the same (but better!) hard-boily result. And these directions are WAY easier to follow, WAY more defined, WAY impossible to mess up. So that's how I do it now. And I share this little recipe with anyone who'll listen, because for me, it's a life saver. I hope you enjoy it. And just in time for all those Easter Eggs!

Egg-citing!

Baked Hard "Boiled" Eggs

Ingredients
Eggs

Directions
Preheat your oven to 325.

Put 6 (or fewer) eggs in a 12-muffin tin. Spread them out! (Don't let them get too crowded or it will affect baking time.) Put the egg-filled muffin tin in your preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. In the meantime, prepare an ice bath for your eggs by filling a bowl with ice and water.

Eggs-foliating.

Remove the eggs from the oven and immediately use an oven mitt or tongs to move the eggs from the muffin tin to the ice bath. Make sure those eggs are completely submerged! Add water if needed. Let the eggs sit in the ice bath for 10 minutes.

For best results, peel immediately after removal from ice bath. The shock from the ice bath will make the shells come off very easily. Otherwise, refrigerate until ready to peel and eat (up to 3 days).

Egg-ceptional! 

And that's it! Easy peasy, right??? I've never made a stinky, discolored hard "boiled" egg since! My only tip is this: ovens vary, so you may need to adjust the temperature based on how your first batch turns out. The general range for baking your eggs is 325 - 350, so play around with your oven temp 'til those eggs come out perfect.

Happy baking!

Perfection. No eggs-aggeration! 

Be sure to tune in tomorrow when I'll share a devilishly delicious recipe, perfect for your new obsession with baked hard "boiled" eggs.

Little Happies -- John's Turn

Have I got TWO special treats for you today!

First, I decided it was worth it to pay for the link-up to include your thumbnails. Especially since there were so many of you linked up last time and I just really wanted to see little pics of your adorable blogs with your link-ups. So I just did it. Less than $2 a month for something that makes me happy? Worth it. :)

Second, my dear husband, John, has spent the last week focusing on his Little Happies, and with a little bit of encouragement from me, he's agreed to post them on this here blog!! Today!! Since he's never written a blog post before, I hope you'll be extra nice to him. And I hope you enjoy!

Heeeeeeeeerrrreeee's Johnny...

--one--
Bacon.

I'm pretty sure Walt Whitman wrote a poem about bacon.
Right?

Well, let's do the easy one first.  Bacon.  Bacon is definitely a little happy, especially when it's fancified, thick-cut, cracked pepper bacon that you may have accidentally put on a tortilla with a fried egg and sriracha.  Why is bacon so awesome? We may never know.

--two--
Watching Doctor Who with my wife.

When she looks away from the TV the
characters get sad.

This may not exactly be the best picture of the Doctor and company, but they'll probably forgive me for posting it.  Anyway, our preferred mode of relaxation these days is joining the Doctor on his adventures.  Also, those are sunglasses; sunglasses are cool.  Speaking of glasses...

--three--
When your wife wears your glasses.

She thinks that if she looks closely enough, she can see
how mischievous you've been.  But she caaaaan't.

Alas, she is cursed with perfect vision and doesn't wear glasses unless she has stolen them from off my face.  Makes it all the more special when she does it, I suppose.  She does look awfully cute with glasses.

--four--
Gorgeous sunrises.

That truck can't handle the beauty, so he's stopping.

This, I believe, was snapped while driving in to work, and hardly captures the colors appropriately. Should I have been taking photos while driving?  Probably not.  Don't tell my wife.

--five--
This chocolate-covered Oreo.

I wish you could taste this picture.

It was glorious.  A Gloreo.

--six--
Growing your hair out.

Look at how much work it is to grow your hair out.

Because I've had short hair all my life.  It's ponytail time.  In like 3 months (right? soon? please grow faster?).  Even if the children of some friends tell you that that makes you a girl (which actually happened - the pink shirt I was wearing at that time was the second bit of supporting evidence for that hypothesis, I was told). #longhairdontcare

Wondering what a "Little Happy" is? No need to fear! Click right here. And if you'd like to share some Little Happies of your own, we'd love to have you join our link-up. Thanks for reading along! 

And Then There Was Biaxin

Just a friendly heads up -- I'm going to mention both endometritis (infection of uterine lining) and endometriosis (uterine lining grows in the wrong places) in this post. I warn you because they're easy to misread if you don't look at the word closely enough. I do it all the time. Oops! So there you go. Now on to the good stuff...

We met with our NaPro doc earlier this week for another one of them follow-ups. We're at the point in our treatment where our doctor just tweaks a few things, then lets us go for several cycles to see if new tweaks have worked. If not (AKA if we don't get pregnant), we meet back with him in a few cycles to do more tweaking, then more waiting, until at some point we're either pregnant or we've adopted a newborn and don't even have time to think about fertility treatments anymore. Both sound nice to me!

At my appointment, Dr. G took a look at our charts and asked us if there was anything we were worried about. I mentioned that pesky infection (endometritis) we found a while back, before surgery. John and I both took a few rounds of antibiotics to treat the infection, but I never really felt it was gone. During my surgery, Dr. G found some micropolyps, which usually indicate endometritis, but when he scraped some off and sent the cells to the lab be tested, it came back negative for endometritis. So we just left it alone and didn't do another round of the antibiotics. Which of course left me thinking that we were ignoring quite a big issue. But Dr. G said not to worry about it, so I (mostly) didn't.

Now that it's been 6 months since surgery, and I've been on Clomid and HCG injections for several months, I felt it was appropriate to bring it up again. And when I did, Dr. G was very responsive. There's a test you can do to check for endometritis, which I've had done before, way early in our NaPro workup, but it involves you being fully awake while they scrape off some of the lining of your uterus with this evil tool, and we both agreed we'd rather avoid that. So, Dr. G recommended just assuming the infection's back and treating it with Biaxin.

Dr. Hilgers, founder of the Pope Paul VI institute and King of all things NaPro, tends to focus treatment on the things he can see. And endometritis is one of those annoying things that is, in many ways, invisible. As far as I can tell, it's not painful, it doesn't have many (or any) signs to indicate its existence, and no one really knows what effects it can have on infertility, as it hasn't really been studied properly. So compared to other diagnoses, like endometriosis or PCOS, it doesn't really stand out that much and therefore, often gets pushed aside, ignored. Though Dr. G did mention that Dr. Hilgers is just now starting to look into endometritis, its causes, its effects on infertility, and its best treatments. You hear that, friends with infection? There's hope!!

As of right now, one of the recommended NaPro treatments for endometritis is Biaxin, an antibiotic to be taken on CD8-14. Hopefully that little antibiotic will be just enough to clear up all the icky infected stuff and make room for a little, precious baby to implant. Very hopefully.

But if not, we'll be meeting with Dr. G again in three cycles to discuss the next tweak. Unless, of course, we are blessed with a baby through adoption in the meantime. Then the NaPro treatments will go on hold for quite some time, I'm sure. :)

During our appointment, I did also mention that I'm quite worried about the egg-sized fibroid sitting at the top of my uterus -- is it heavy enough to weigh things down and close off my tubes when I'm standing?? But Dr. G assured me that that was not happening and that removal was way more risky (5% chance of losing your whole uterus!) than keeping it there, especially since it's on the outside of the uterus, far away from the all-important lining.

So that's all for now. Biaxin it is! And Clomid and HCG and pursual of adoption will continue like normal. I'll most certainly give you another NaPro update when (optimistically: if) we meet with Dr. G again in three cycles.

Oh, and if you have no idea what I'm talking about with all this NaPro mumbo jumbo, check this out. If you're struggling with infertility, prepared to be wowed. It's all good stuff!

Are You Guys Crazy?!

In which I feature pictures of us actually being crazy.

I imagine that's what folks are thinking when they find out we're open to adoption and still trying to conceive at the same time.

"Are you guys CRAZY?!?!"

No one's actually made a comment like that to me outloud, thank goodness, but John has heard a few recently. For example...

"Aren't you a little young to be adopting?"

Ha! A little young? Sure, he might be 30 and I might be 27, but I think where biology is concerned, that's not exactly young. It's more like average. Sure, we're probably a bit younger than the average age of adoptive couples, but that doesn't make us crazy for considering it now. I'd like to think it makes us mature. :) So thank you for your concern, but just no.

Then there are the worry warts.

"Well, what if you get pregnant right after you adopt? You'll go CRAZY if you have two babies that close in age!"

Really? You think that will make us crazy? How about CRAZY happy! Because that sounds really freaking amazing right about now. Though that's certainly not a guarantee. We'll just take what the Lord gives us when He gives it to us and be happy with that.

And then there are those pesky websites/blogposts/articles that I found one day when googling "Is it OK to adopt while you're still TTC?" that tell me it's unfair of us to be in the adoption waiting pool while still trying to get pregnant.

"The adoption waiting pool should only be for couples who can't have a family otherwise. You're selfishly taking away a baby from a childless family. And what's your adopted child going to think when you like your biological child better?"

Ok, so maybe I've never read anything that extreme, but I have read similar things. Though I can't seem to find those articles online anymore (probably for the better), otherwise I'd show ya and provide a real quote. Oh well. The point is, some people think you really have to completely stop infertility treatments in order to be ready for adoption. Some adoption agencies even make it a requirement.

And I assume all this fuss is over us being just plain CRAZY again!!! Right?!?!

But then there are folks who encourage us, and they're awesome.

For example, my NaPro doctor, Dr. G.

"I think it's becoming even more normal now for couples to adopt while still TTC. You'd just have to be alright with the possibility of having two babies close in age."

Thanks, Dr. G. We appreciate the positive support!

Or the director of our adoption agency, who met with us for coffee and chats a few weeks ago. When I mentioned that we were still trying to conceive and that we weren't sure if that was alright with the agency, her response was nothing but positive.

"I think that's completely fine! I think you've got to do what's best for the two of you. So long as you've really given yourself time to process your infertility, you really can still do both."

Ahhh, a breath of fresh air!

The truth is, folks, we're not crazy. Not even close.

The truth is, we're called to both -- both biological parenthood AND adoptive parenthood. Both are different callings and I feel blessed to have been called to parenthood in two different ways. Especially knowing that this is not the case for everyone.

How do I know we're called to both?

When I think about how wonderful it would be to carry a child for nine months, deliver that precious baby, and raise a cute kiddo with the perfect 50-50 mix of John and Stephanie genes, I am filled with joy. And when I think of not being able to experience that, sadness.

When I think about how wonderful it would be to get that special call from our agency, connect with a birth family, meet our little one for the first time, and raise a kiddo who won't look like us, but will still be 100% part of our family, I'm again filled with great joy. And when I think of not being able to experience that, again, sadness.

I knew something had really changed when my nightly prayers changed from "Please, Lord, help me get pregnant," to "Please, Lord, help us grow our family." When my desire to be a parent surpassed my desire to be pregnant.

So I really hope both adoption and pregnancy are part of our story. And therefore, I really think it's not crazy at all for us to keep trying to conceive while also pursuing an adoption. It's just right. Right for us, anyway.

And that's really the point I'm really trying to make here. What's right for us probably isn't right for everyone. You may feel like you would need to wait until you're absolutely sure you can't get pregnant to be ready to move on to adoption. Or maybe you feel like once you've exhausted all of your infertility treatments, if you're still not pregnant, a childless life is best for you and your spouse. Or you may feel exactly like us. No matter the situation, don't let anyone tell you you're CRAZY, because it's just not true. If you've discerned and calculated and brought it to prayer, you're probably in the right place. And that's all that matters.

For us, that means we're going to keep going down both paths. On one, we have the miracle of adoption, and on the other, the miracle of pregnancy. And we're not crazy for walking both. We're just being us. And we're just pretty stinkin' excited!

"How excited," you ask? Snow cone level excited.